Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics is really something that any skeptic about comics being an art or think they are 'just for kids' should read. It delves into a ton of ways that comics connect with the audience, create emotional storytelling, and even touches on the act of creation all while using the actual art form to explain it's points. It makes it very clear that just like literature comics have their own devices to communicate complex ideas and create a meaningful message.

The concept of the mask and simplification versus realism proposed by McCloud was particularly intriguing to me. Our thoughts and ideas aren't photo realistic, for most, so it would make sense that we also see ourselves in our own thoughts as simplified versions. So the more simplified the drawing, the more we are able to relate because we are able to easily identify with that character. While if they had very distinguishing features we would feel distanced because that is not how we look and the more detail the more it feels like an other or an object. An interesting anecdote that supports this idea is that when celebrities faces are scanned to be in video games and they see there faces in 3D they often say it doesn't look like them, even though it is an exact replication. However, once artists go in and simplify it and take out small detail they see themselves in it more clearly and feel it is more accurate. This supports the fact that we see ourselves in much more simplified terms and it is hard to even identify with our own image if it is not simplified.

McCloud talks about how even objects can be given life and identity by simplification. This explains why we don't think it so odd if inanimate objects get up and talk in cartoons and comics. They are simple and so feel as if they can still be given and filled with identity. While using realism in comics does the opposite and gives the reader objects and places to admire. The most interesting example of this was objectifying a character intentionally by drawing them realistically. This makes the reader feel a totally different kind of emotion to them. However, the use of realism in comics seems most prevalent in backgrounds giving the reader an area to immerse themselves in and make them feel like in the world. This makes a lot of sense that something which is more cartoony that is inanimate when it comes to life feels natural and can take on many personalities. However, when something that looks very realistic that is inanimate comes to life it usually just feels creepy or out of place and often disturbing.

To me simplification as a means of deeper relatability is a really insightful observation and a technique that seems deeply seated in psychology and plays on how we think. A very complex train of thought which is all about simplification.

The Arrival

The Arrival depends on body language, shape language, perspective and visual icons to communicate a universal story. By using images that are decipherable by almost any human in any country and by taking a story that is very relatable he is able to tell a story and create emotion in the reader without using words. While we don't often realize it because it is so ingrained in us we are all conditioned in a way to be able to read certain shapes, body movements, and even specific objects as carrying a specific meaning. These can be very subtle or extremely obvious, but most comics and other media use them, though Shawn Tan uses them as his primary means to communicate in Arrival.

From the very beginning Tan uses icon by showing items that are typically in a household and we already learn just from seeing these that this is a family of three, there is a young child, and that a suitcase is being packed. He then quickly establishes the threat by using the visual language of long snake-like tentacles with sharp points on them. Immediately we know there is danger without anyone screaming or saying a word because of this universally known threatening shape language. Later he uses icons, such as having the protagonist draw a bed, which is a rather literal use of icon. The map he uses is also a sort of icon, showing that he is lost and trying to find his way. This is not only recognized by the reader, but also by the woman who sees he is using it and comes to aid him.

Tan brings us to a very foreign world, as well as the character, but he establishes this world not with words, but with sweeping, wide establishing images of the new land. If you really look into one of these images they each have pages of information hidden in them for the reader to learn more about this strange land. These images are quite beautiful and inspire a kind of awe in the reader similar to what the character must have felt. It is very rare to have this kind of suggested first person perspective in a comic. The most significant use of this perspective is likely in a set of panels when the character wakes up. Tan makes these panels transition from a cloud-like dream to blurred vision to looking straight at the protagonist's pet. This series captures what it is like to feel to wake up, from the first person perspective, and in this way Tan is able to make the reader experience and feel what his character is feeling. 

Arrival is a universal story of coming to a foreign place and learning new customs, so Tan certainly has this on his side that it is a known story that many of us have lived through. However, I think in a way that communicating without words in this story is often much clearer than some texts that uses words. By using the kind of physical and iconic language which has been ingrained in us since birth reading this and understanding it is almost instinctual.