Week 2: Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud discusses a concept called “Universal Identification” in multiple parts. McCloud argues that people become invested in cartoon and comic book characters because the more generic a face looks, the more you see yourself in the image. When he introduces this concept, he uses that logic to explain why he draws his persona so simply: It’s not because he can’t draw realistically, but so that the reader can project onto the character and listen to the message without worrying about who is saying it. In one of the panels, he draws himself in a more realistic style and I could feel myself disconnect. Prior to college, I had read McCloud’s later work, Making Comics. When the style changed for that one panel, I hadn’t realized that this icon of McCloud had become almost precious to me. Not only was the change jarring, but it felt wrong.

            McCloud deposits that the audience is going to be more involved with a story if they see themselves in the characters. This is not the same case for backgrounds and items, however. Because you don’t need to relate to an environment to feel like you’re in it, the backgrounds of comics are allowed to look more lifelike. In fact, many comics and animations use that to make the cartoony main character stand out in a composition, contrasting the realism from the icon. It doesn’t upset us to look at because they are both still representational drawings of the real world and not exact photographs. Even when artists want to objectify a person, they draw them with more detail.

While I agree that it is easy to see yourself in an icon or drawing of a face, the writing stage is also a big contributor to how relatable a character is. I don’t doubt that McCloud would agree with this statement, that good writing is an important part of the comic/animation pipeline. There’s also not going to be a “one-size-fits-all” character that is relevant to absolutely everyone, as everyone is different. There are ways to create an appealing protagonist on the general level, but most ways of doing that have already been done to death and you can’t reinvent the wheel.