"SCOTT TALKS"

After watching the Ted Talks video of Scott McCloud’s presentation about his theories on graphic novels and comics, I have a greater understanding and appreciation for the art form. It gave me a new way of looking at these novelists and creators of narrative, and showed me that it takes much more to be a great writer in today’s world than say twenty or even fifty years ago. With new technologies and web design development, writers of comics must adapt to these changes. As Internet users we now expect all information to be just a click of an app away, with all different types of publications now moving to online subscriptions and having apps to access their information while on the go. As a result, comics and graphic novels must also follow suit if they wish to still be as appealing to this new media-hungry audience.

A slide from Scott McCloud's lecture describing the four principals of comics and story telling.

McCloud explains how he and his colleagues must now use this online and digital forum to display their work. I thought one of the most interesting things that he mentions in his lecture, however, was that with comics and graphic novels you have to communicate and stimulate all five senses through only one; visual. But now that this digital revolution has come about, graphic novelists have a little more help. You see you can add motion and sounds to online-based comics and further entertain your audience by more effectively capturing their attention.

A slide from Scott McCloud's lecture depicting the usage of words, sounds, and pictures to enhance meaning.

I also really related to the fundamental theme or idea of enabling your readers to draw their own conclusions or fill in the gaps when moving from one panel to the next within a graphic novel. I never really thought about that concept and how when creating a comic, you’re really leaving quite a bit up to a reader’s interpretation of the action and series of events by how you set up a “scene” and what about of detail or information you provide your audience with. These are all things I tried to take into account when creating my own graphic novel.