Week #2

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

  For me, a beginner of learning the literature of comics, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics was full of new and fascinating information. I was especially interested in the section explaining the “Transition Scale” in comics.

  According to Understanding Comics, the scale of transitions from panel to panel can be sorted into six categories: 1. moment-to-moment, 2. action-to-action, 3. subject-to-subject, 4. scene-to-scene, 5. aspect-to-aspect, and 6. non-sequitur. In this book, the types of transitions in famous comics are broken down and shown as bar graphs. An interesting fact shown in the graphs is that while types 2-4 are common in Western comics, Japanese comics have high incidences of the fifth type, aspect-to-aspect. Although aspect-to-aspect transition is most often used to establish a mood or a sense of place, Japanese comic artists including Osamu Tezuka use this transition so that the readers assemble a single moment using scattered fragments of the scene. On the difference between Western and Eastern comics, McCloud examines that “traditional western art and literature don’t wander much and is a pretty goal-oriented culture,” but “Japanese comics often emphasize being there over getting there” (McCloud, page. 81). As a Japanese, I found his analysis very interesting and I agree with it. I think that Japanese people emphasize the process not only in the field of visual art but also other traditional cultures. For example, Japanese tea ceremony, called chanoyu in Japanese, is an activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of green tea; in chanoyu, the process and manner to make a cup of green tea is as important as the quality of tea. Those cultures might have influenced the sense of Japanese people to appreciate the part, “being there”. It is impressive how the different cultures affect even the style of the comics.