Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art was definitely interesting and engrossing enough to read through, even though it was presented more as a non-fiction informative book rather than a “comic.”  I think McCloud gives a pretty good analysis of how he feels on the medium of comics, but the way he presents it, it starts to feel like he's trying to justify the medium against other art forms rather than analyzing the form and composition of comics.  It almost makes me think that he's trying to convince the reader that comics are worthy of merit in the world of expression rather than taking pride in the medium itself.  The section where McCloud pleads with the reader that comics can do certain things that no other form can for instance, seemed more like an argument for their validity than an important aspect of them, for instance.

I'm not saying that there wasn't any useful analysis however and I did enjoy the comic overall.  One of the most interesting and useful parts of Understanding Comics is when McCloud analyzes the different panel-to-panel transitions by putting them into six distinct categories, and explains how the mind uses them to understand what's going on in the comic.  McCloud further uses this information and puts it into charts marking the use of panel transitions in American, European, and Japanese comics and outlining the differences between them and the importance and they hold in each respective culture.

Another section that I found particularly interesting was the use of icons and how in certain situations and certain parts of the world styles and uses of rendering change drastically depending where they're from.  McCloud gives a nice illusion to the use of the masking effect (making the simple easy to read lines the main subject, and the more realistic background or effect in order to objectify them from the rest, but be accepted in the same frame) and how it was practically a “national style” in Japan.
Full immersive display, durable mutations, literally parallel story-lines.

Ultimately, I found it less about useful analysis and more about the author's stance on comics as a form of art, but I found it still enjoyable and for the information that it does present it's worth reading.

---I also, watched McCloud's presentation at the TED conference and it was interesting to see him in person explain some of the same ideas he outlined in his book that came out in '93 and to hear a little more about his personal life.  I especially enjoyed his thoughts on the future of comics and their place in the digital world.   His ideas about "durable mutations" had provoked several ideas in my own mind and sparked thoughts about how other forms of art could evolve with these mutations on the infinite digital canvas.