Things I Like That, By Extension, You Should Like As Well:

Understanding Comics

It's becoming increasingly apparent that I'm going to be in the comic strip business for a while, due to the popularity of the Order of the Stick. (Thanks for your support on that, by the way.) So I've been looking to brush up my knowledge of comics and comic techniques, which led me to my local bookstore, where I picked up Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics.

Published in 1993, I had heard about the book (and its sequel, Reinventing Comics published last year). A number of sources had praised it as the seminal work on comics and how they work, but I had never gotten around to picking it up. A huge mistake, that.

Because damn, this book blew my mind.

It's basically a textbook on how sequential art works, and how it differs from art or prose. Sounds a little dry, but it's not. First, the whole thing is actually in comic form itself, narrated by a cartoon of the author. Thus he is showing you every example right there on the page as he discusses it. As he goes through the various ways in which comic artists can show motion, time, emotion, and other abstract concepts, you begin to think about how despite the fact that you have never read a book like this that explains this stuff, you've never had trouble actually reading comic books. The skill of comics is how they portray these things in a way that is both intuitive and completely calculated.

If you have any interest in comics, as either a reader or a creator, you should read this book. It will open up a whole new awareness of how artists in the field work. You should also read it if you have any interest in art history or the development of human creative endeavors. Actually, you should read it no matter what.

Seriously. I'll lend you my copy.*

Scott McCloud's webpage

And here's Amazon.com's listing, with a few more reviews.

* Offer only valid in greater NY metropolitan area.

More things I like at the Archive.