Week 2: Understanding Comics

By reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, there is one particular section interested me. McCloud talks about the blank space between the panels called "The Gutter", and how human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea. He also talks about the experience allows you to connect each panel, and comic panels fracture both time and space and offer a jagged, staccato rhythm of unconnected moments. He also categorize this panel-to-panel transitions into six category: moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene. aspect-to-aspect, and non-sequitur. And this six category is basically how comic can be sequential and how people can understand the meaning or story from image to image. And this idea also linked back to my last week comment, the successful part of The Arrival by Shaun Tan, is to draw out the right timing from moment-to-moment or action-to-action so viewers will be able to connect panels together.