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.”
― 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
“I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from After the Quake
“You stubborn bastard. Take it from someone who knows firsthand, there’s a lot to be said for forgiveness. Grudges seldom hurt anyone except the one bearing them. (Acheron)
And there’s a lot to be said for knocking enemies upside their heads and cracking skulls open. (Urian)
To everything there is a season, and tonight ours is to stand together or lose everything. I’m not fighting for Stryker or to save your sister. I’m fighting to protect the ones I love. The ones who will suffer most if War isn’t stopped. (Acheron)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from One Silent Night
“Straight tribulation is easier to bear than tribulation which advertises itself as pleasure.”
― C.S. Lewis, quote from Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
“Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
― Rachel Joyce, quote from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
“He handed me a letter. I unfolded it and read:
Dear Mr Spratt,
It has come to our attention that you may be attempting to give up the booze and reconcile with your wife. While we approve of this as a plot device to generate more friction and inner conflicts, we most strongly advise you not to carry it through to a happy reconciliation, as this would put you in direct contravention of Rule 11C of the Union of Sad Loner Detective’s Code, as ratified by the Union of Literary Detectives, and it will ultimately result in your expulsion from the association with subsequent loss of benefits. I trust you will do the decent thing and halt this damaging and abnormal behaviour before it leads to your downfall.
PS. Despite repeated demands, you have failed to drive a classic car or pursue an unusual hobby. Please do so at once or face the consequences.”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from The Well of Lost Plots
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