…and a cherry on top.

This week’s reading was the perfect conclusion to this seminar.  I remember (vaguely) reading McCloud’s whole book, Understanding Comics, in Library School for the week we talked about graphic novels, though I might not have made it all the way through (it being assigned at the end of the semester when things tend to slip…).  I really wish I had read it, but somehow, I don’t think I would have appreciated it the same way that I do now.

This reading kind of reminded me about Turkle’s discussion of constructed worlds.  Comics books are a world unto themselves and I love how McCloud is breaking down the rules for us. There were lots of “ah…so that’s why they do that…” moments while I was reading this, and I loved every minute of it.  Delving into the way things work, the nuts and bolts of another world like McCloud has done is brilliant and simply fascinating to me.

I also found myself thinking, however, “what does this have to do with what we’ve been talking about this semester?” But, when I got to the last page of our reading, it suddenly clicked.  McCloud is doing what we, to some extent, have been doing since September – taking a medium that well-established and accepted without much thought, and analyzing all its components in an attempt to develop a better understanding of it.  He looks at why things are the way they are, goes back into the history of comics, what others have done, why that worked or didn’t work and what lasting impressions it has on the comics of today, and draws his own conclusions.

My favorite part of the whole chapter were the last 6 panels.  McCloud concludes by saying:

I’ve been trying to figure out what makes comics “tick” for years and I’m still amazed at the strangeness of it all.

I seems to me that he’s got it pretty well figured out, yet he still seems to be in awe of the unknown.  He goes on to say that

…no matter how bizarre the workings of time in comics is — the face it presents to the reader — is one of simple normality.  Or the illusion of it, anyway.

All depends on your frame of mind.

In concluding this journey through the history of a new medium, I feel that this is a stellar mindset to come away with.  While we do understand a great deal about technology, its uses and the reasons for them, a lot of the workings are still pretty bizarre.  No matter how bizarre they are, though, we don’t necessarily HAVE to understand everything because of the brilliant men and women who have gone before us and worked hard to help technology work for us, presenting the illusion of simple normality.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for the priesthood of technology and blind acceptance of this medium, but I definitely respect McCloud’s awe and appreciation for the slightly unknown, while making the known work to his advantage.

With this in mind, I LOVED the little gremlin that was lurking in the clock…reminds me of the technology gremlins that I hang out with every day!