Scott McCloud · 215 pages
Rating: (86K votes)
“Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.”
“I may have drawn an axe being raised in this example, but I'm not the one who let it drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why. That, dear reader, was your special crime. Each of you was committing it in your own style.”
“By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning", an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't.”
“Our perception of "reality" is an act of faith based on mere fragments.”
“The natural world creates great beauty every day, yet the only rules of composition it follows are those of function and chance.”
“I guess the basic difference is that animation is sequential in time but in spatially juxtaposed as comics are.
Each successive frame of a movie is projected on exactly the same space--the screen--while each frame of comics must occupy a different space.
Space does for comics what time does for film!”
“Through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without--
--and through the cartoon, the world within.”
“This phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It's called closure.
In our daily lives, we often commit closure, mentally completing that which is incomplete based on past experience.”
“Think of your face as a mask. That's what it is, after all. A mask. Facing outward. Worn from the day you were born. Slave to your every mental command. Seen by everyone you meet. But never by you. Open its eyes now. Just think it. The mask will obey.”
“Just as pictures and the intervals between them create the illusion of time through closure, words introduce time by representing that which can only exist in time--sound.”
“The panel acts as a sort of general indicator that time or space is being divided. The durations of that time and the dimensions of that space are defined more by contents of the panel than by the panel itself.”
“We have been trying to achieve our goals with our own onboard computer pre-programmed to hold us back!”
“He had noticed my bandaged hand.
"An accident," Warthrop said tersely.
"Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife."
Von Helrung's brow knotted up in confusion. "By accident?"
"No," I answered. "That part was on purpose.”
“With a perfectly straight face he said, “If I need an item, I go into the store and buy it. Why would I waste time going into a store if I didn’t need to buy anything?” “For sheer shopping pleasure? The joy of being a consumer?” she offered. Ronin continued to give her a blank stare.”
“Do you suppose that he would have spoken if he had been alive? And do you suppose that if any of the dead husbands came back they would be believed?”
“I was happy, and nothing in the world can make you oblivious to your surroundings like happiness.”
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