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book1993

Understanding Comics

Disciplines:
comics
visual communication
mccloud

Summary

Scott McCloud's 1993 analysis of the visual language of comics — written in comic book form — covering closure, time, blood in the gutter, and the abstraction ladder, providing the most rigorous theoretical account of how comics create meaning.

Core Contribution

Creates the theoretical language for understanding comics — McCloud's concept of 'closure' (the reader actively fills in what happens between panels) shows that comics require more active reader participation than any other medium; his abstraction ladder (photo to icon) applies beyond comics to any visual design.

Historical Influences

Scott McCloud

Intellectual Lineage

Scott McCloud HarperCollins

Allied Works

Making ComicsReinventing Comics

Contemporaries & Peers

Making ComicsThe Language of Comics

Minds Influenced

Comics theoryVisual communication designLenny's Podcast

Intellectual Posterity

Understanding Comics Closure in comicsMcCloud's abstraction ladder

Discussing

Understanding Comics

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