Definition of comics.

Discuss Scott McCloud's current online comic project. Be sure to check out <a href="http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi.html">the latest improv</a>!

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Jack Masters
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Post by Jack Masters »

I like McCloud's definition fine. While it leaves some gray areas (My own work often falling into these), it leaves them in places that I don't have any real problems with.

Jaqeues Derrida took the opinion that a you could never formulate a stable and coherent interpretation of any text. It would appear from the ongiong discussion that this applies to single words as well.
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cryoblade

perspective

Post by cryoblade »

Wikkit wrote:So a thousand drawings of a room from different perspectives wouldn't constitute a comic, since it is of one place at one time?
yes it would becuase changeing a perspective shows diferent parts of the same scene, and thus different space
Chris Wright

Re: Lighten up Francis!

Post by Chris Wright »

Tim Mallos wrote:Wow, Chris, very defensive stance out of the gate.
Me? If it was a defensive stance, then that is my personality. If, instead, you're referring to my stodgy way of writing, I have abandoned it.

My example wasn't a very good one. A person could argue that Elvis is the "before" picture, and he's being skinned alive.

To nyarlathotep, could you better define closure and give examples? Is it integral to the comic art form? Could there possibly be a comic without closure?

(My definition of closure is it finishes the story without leaving a person wondering about the future.)


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Greg Stephens
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Closure

Post by Greg Stephens »

Nyarlathotep is using the term "Closure" in the way that Scott uses it in "Understanding Comics," which is to mean: The act of the reader to determine what happens between two consecutive panels. This has more to do with the mathematical definition of the word where "closure" means to complete an equasion. Perhaps a better and more accurate term than "closure" is interpolation.

edit: Except that the word interpolation doesn't necessarily work for all forms of comics panel transitions, since some don't have the sort of relationship where anything should happen inbetween them. Difficult to pin down in words.
Last edited by Greg Stephens on Fri May 17, 2002 12:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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vin

what is comics

Post by vin »

it's kinda like asking 'what is art?' people may say sequential images but that is so subjective. i mean if i juxtapose a picture of a wooly mammoth with one of a cloned sheep, that's as sequential as anything else. so i guess what i'am saying is that there really is no one answer. everyone who replies will have a different answer.

:wink:


v
Chris Wright

Re: what is comics

Post by Chris Wright »

Anonymous wrote:so i guess what i'am saying is that there really is no one answer. everyone who replies will have a different answer.
Hrmpfh. (Yes, that can be pronounced; the r is syllabic.) Nobody would bother to reply if everyone thought that it was that subjective. There is a right answer out there...somewhere.

Hey, you can't prove that there are no pink elephants. Of course, if you showed me a pink elephant, I could always claim that it's a fraud. Nothing can be proven to an unwilling person.


Now go start a flame war.*

*S.v. Dr. Laura Schlesinger's (sp?) "go do the right thing"
InkAddict
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NEW DEFINITION?

Post by InkAddict »

Vin wrote:
it's kinda like asking 'what is art?'
Actually, a stone cut in half by accident can be exactly like a stone cut in half on purpose, only one thing is an object, the other is an "objet d'art", a piece of art!

When we're talking about comics, we should do the same:

Comics isn't just juxtaposed, sequential images; it's juxtaposed, sequential images ON PURPOSE.
i mean if i juxtapose a picture of a wooly mammoth with one of a cloned sheep, that's as sequential as anything else.
Yes, but if you did it because you WANTED to form a sequence by juxtaposition, it's comics.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, it's true, but the creation of an art, is in the purpose of the creator.

Now if someone can come tell us that it's only the reader that creates the comics by looking at it and saying/recognising "this is comics!", that's fine by me. But if you want to define comics in an objective way, it's impossible unless you pass on the judgment to creator or reader.

The dancing robots in the improv section, for instance were comics because Scott created them to be and function that way. If they functioned that way or not (the end effect) was up to the reader, so if you're saying comics is what "feels" like comics, the robots may never have been comics in the first place in the eyes of a lot of readers. Just as "Duchamp"'s "urinoir" (i don't know the english word, so I hope someone can correct me) still isn't a statue to many persons, even if it is accepted as such by the art community, and this only because to a lot of people a statue has to be "made" and the urinoir wasn't made by the artist, nor was it made with the purpose of serving as an art object. It became an art object by being signed, put on a pedestal, and being entered in an art competition (THIS was in the 1920's or 1930's, so you may understand what an uproar THIS made, compared to the small flame wars on these boards :wink: )

Well that's it. Now I'm goin' to bed (I'm passing too much time discussing comics than is healthy for me :D )
Check out my new site (under construction) at: InkAddict
Guest

Re: what is comics

Post by Guest »

Nobody would bother to reply if everyone thought that it was that subjective. [that wright fella]

don't mind me as i laugh my ham and eggs through my nose. human nature is defined by it's subjectiveness. but that, i guess, is another topic altogether.

:roll:

v
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