Scott McCloud · 215 pages
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“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning", an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“Our perception of "reality" is an act of faith based on mere fragments.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“The natural world creates great beauty every day, yet the only rules of composition it follows are those of function and chance.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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!”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“Through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without--
--and through the cartoon, the world within.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“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.”
― Scott McCloud, quote from Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
“However,” as Ed notes, “apart from any one Scriptural interpretation, vile, inhuman spirits do roam the earth today. And when commanded to speak, the spirits’ reply is a grave one: My name is Legion: We Are One. It is also true that these spirits possess overwhelming powers, and work with a ferocious rage, malice, and spite against mankind. Oddly, the only protection man can summon against these negative forces is mention of the name of God—though more particularly Jesus—and the presentation of blessed objects. Otherwise, nothing will stay these bizarre spirit entities.”
― quote from The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren
“Max's lips part slightly, and mine do the same. His tongue inside my mouth makes fireworks of color burst behind my closed eyelids. We explore and taste each other again and again, until Max finally pulls away. I want more-- I think I could survive on nothing but his mouth for weeks--but I try not to let it show too much.”
― Lara Zielin, quote from The Waiting Sky
“I had to say it gave me a warm feeling to picture Meredith Winslow spending twenty years or so in an ill fitting orange jumpsuit, cozying up to a great big girl named Beulah”
― Kate Carlisle, quote from Homicide in Hardcover
“Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceable harbor.”
― Christopher Hitchens, quote from Hitch-22: A Memoir
“I keep repeating the conversation with Taduesz in mind, reaching out to touch it to make sure it doesn't disappear.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
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