Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

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“Reading Understanding Comics blew my teenage mind, and gave me a toolbox full of ideas that I still use today.” —Raina Telgemeier

The bestselling international classic on storytelling and visual communication.

Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: HBG
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Surprisingly intellectual
Review: An easy read, yet gets into the theory of sequential art and comics as far as I’ve ever seen. The author refers to a broad range of comic artists and publishers— including those outside the classic Western canon.

Reviewer: ParaNormal
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great for teaching!
Review: I purchased this item, along with McCloud’s other book Making Comics, to teach a course on comics in English to art students at Cheongju University in South Korea. Both of these books really lend themselves to teaching, each one is divided into chapters which discuss specific comic concepts and elements. Two excellent chapters:The first chapter in Understanding Comics is great because it discusses the history of comics, and some great activities can be done having students think about and search for comics in the real world and instances of comics in history. This chapter really validates the fact that comics are interesting and useful, rather than just being treated as a ‘fake’ art or a ‘not really real’ subject.Chapter three is excellent because it breaks down transitions not only in American comics, but European and Asian comics as well, and explains his thoughts as to why these differences exist. This allows students to compare the differences and broaden their understanding of how different cultures think differently. This chapter also discusses how comics are subtractive, and lends itself to an excellent lesson whereupon students can draw comics with many pictures, then keep subtracting and combining pictures until they have the miminum number of pictures that tells the gist of their story.In other chapters: Chapter two discusses word choice and flow in comics, four discusses time, chapter five discusses displaying emotion by using different types of lines (and similarities and differences between comics from different cultures), chapter six discusses how words and ideas complement each other in comics, and chapter seven discusses six steps to making comics.In my opinion, each book is worth its weight in gold alone for a comic class, but they have a synergistic effect when used in tandem with each other. Concepts from one book flow into the other book, and vice-versa, giving the students in-depth knowledge of both how to make comics and how to understand comics from other authors better. All of the concepts from the chapters can be seen easily in comics online or from newspapers, and so each week I first do the lecture, then use a few examples on the overhead that I have found from other comics, then give the students homework pertaining to the concepts discussed.Through use of the two books, the students’ work is really improving, and it is fun to see them working specifically with each comic element. Each of the concepts discussed in the chapters is a great starting point to get the students’ creative juices flowing. I would recommend this book to any teacher or lecturer interested teaching comics at almost any level and to any audience.

Reviewer: OGS
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Exactly what you look for… perhaps more?!
Review: I really don’t want to write a lengthy review about this book (Well…I tried), for there aren’t as many things to complain as to clarify.This book is exactly what it promises. I’m not used to black-&-white comic art, but some pages into the book I forgot that totally; the conceptual diversity and exploitation of visuals for their representation hooked me right away. And, when you reflect on the ideas, their developments and conclusions that Scott McCloud keeps stating, you can easily imagine this as an academic essay or a formal conference: really solid thinking.There is, perhaps, a situation which didn’t much disliked me as surprised me and changed my experience with this book (not for worse, but truly different). Let me just call it (for the fun of it) “Yea, it’s goo…WHOA, TOO GOOD, TOO GOOD.” Hehe. Or “Is it good? Mmm. It seems goo..WHAM![IN YO FACE] GOOD IDEED!”It’s just the tone. I wasn’t expecting a book this in-thought, conceptually rich/solid, rigorously studied… it just surprised me. I found myself laughing at some part in which he synthesizes, wonderfully in one or two comics’ pages, concepts from McLuhan thoughts about media and thinking to myself “you… magnificent bastard!” (because it was something I was wishing without looking for it). Can you get the idea now? More than I was looking for, which makes it part of my permanent collection of valuable materials; but nobody warned me! Why did I got the impression that this book was lighter and softer than it actually is? It could be just me… right?I bought with the intent of reading it quickly, I ended up, at weekends, reading Chapter 2 & beginning of 3 (the most dense ones?) at a pace of two pages each 3 or 4 hours and going back to mentally rephrase and make better connections between concepts. That didn’t felt bad, actually; that felt refreshing and a healthy challenge. I got used to that.So, sorry for making it this long; hope was worth it. Just remember, you, “nameless-ageless-neutral-gender potential” reader… adjust your expectations and prepare for the ride. (From slacking in the beach to motorcycling in Cornell? Heheh)

Reviewer: RM
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Short Definition Of Comics
Review: Still reading the book, but, had to hit the pause button once I reached page 23, the last page of Chapter One.Not because I quickly grew bored of the book, rather, my mind refused to process the short definition applied to the term “Comics”, i.e., Sequential Art, which is presented at this stage of the book.After wrestling with the short definition for a couple of minutes, I eventually modified it to ” Sequential Imagery” that was later validated (in my mind) by Scott McCoud’s definition of an “Icon” which reads, “Any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea.”.For me, the term “Art” goes beyond images, i.e., sculptures, performances, music, etc.Therefore, this book made me think more about the topic which is why I’m giving it five stars.Fascinating read thus far which goes beyond the boundaries of comics as we understand the term today.

Reviewer: Oliver
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Useful
Review: I was required to read this book for multiple comic courses. Yes, this book is useful, especially for those with a limited understanding of comics. The advice on flow, pacing, etc is invaluable. However, because comics are such a complex medium, this book is not the all-or-nothing guide it pretends to be and can even come off as pretentious at times. If you’d like to truly understand comics, observe the comics that you read rather than relying solely on this book.

Reviewer: EL KOUARTY
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: RAS. Produit Conforme à la description !

Reviewer: Jl Adcock
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a brilliant book about comics, storytelling and graphic design. Scott McCloud packs a huge amount of information about art, history, comic design and the different ways people communicate in words and pictures into this highly accessible book. Like comics themselves, there are hidden depths here, because beneath the immediacy of the presentation are some deep, serious ideas about the development of language, art and communication. The book is superbly done; clever, witty, thought-provoking and really informative. You will never read a comic or graphic novel in the same way again, and you will almost certainly appreciate the art form more than you did. The whole book is engrossing and educational, but chapters 3 and 4, on how we interpret the space between the panels in comics, and how time and space is represented in pictures, show McCloud’s genius for conveying complex ideas with real power and clarity.

Reviewer: Eduard
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Review: Es un libro de referencia para todas aquellas personas a las que le guste el mundo del cómic y trabajen en temas visuales (arte, diseño). Repasa todas las bases para entender cómo funciona el cómic, que lo hace un medio único y cómo ha evolucionado a lo largo de los años.

Reviewer: Antonino
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: ottimo libro

Reviewer: Peter Inglis
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I first owned this classic text about 15 years back, until I ‘loaned’ it to a student. I didn’t mourn the loss of the book so much as the loss of the many many notes I had made in the margins!Anyway it was time to read it again, and Amazon had a generous discount applied to the item, so… bonus!I do agree with one of the other reviews that the paper stock used is the cheapest, about the same newsprint stock as the older comic books, so, appropriate in a way! This wasn’t an issue to me, in fact a glossy stock isn’t conducive to pencil notes in the margins, so, job done in my use case.The reprint history and ratings speak for themselves, this book is a must read for anybody involved in the field of visual communication, for example like myself teaching painting or like some of my students, graphic design and sign making.

Price effective as of Apr 21, 2025 22:37:03 UTC

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