Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice

I had learned about Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo before in History of Animation, and was initially introduced to the work through the animated movie as a child. I was in love with the idea that Nemo traveled to Slumberland every night, though as a kid, I was jealous that I didn’t get to do the same. Awkwardly enough, no matter how many times I watch the movie, I can never seem to recall the ending (although, it is very easy to correctly guess). And so when the comic was listed for this class, I had to read it.

The very first thing I noticed about the characters was their very clean line work. The outlines were very smooth and solid all around. They also have no crosshatching for shading, making the characters look clean. The only other black ink would be the solid black on their clothing (like Imp’s shorts/skirt) or their hair (namely Nemo’s and Flip’s). The characters usually don bright colored outfits, and on more than one occasion Nemo’s costume will be ridiculously elaborate, and to the modern reader possibly just plain ridiculous. Although the princess undergoes as many costume changes as Nemo, her clothing seems to be more believable, less gaudy yet still ornate. The only thing about the characters that left me a bit peeved was the overall lack of facial expressions. It could be that I’m used to manga, and the exaggerated expressions. But I found a character’s emotions in the speech bubbles rather than their face. The characters personality-wise are rather flat. Nemo does whatever he is told, Flip seeks trouble and wants attention, and the Princess is proper, seeking an audeience with her father. They characters aren’t what draws readers in. The backgrounds though, are another story.

The backgrounds are amazing. They are exquisitely detailed with vibrant colors. They are what makes the comic so surreal and phantasmagorical. They not only lead the characters from land to land, but they also take the reader from reality into the nightly adventures of Nemo. In addition to being detailed, the backgrounds are just as clean as the characters. The lines add surface texture to objects yet leave enough for the eye to rest. Cross-hatching is used sparingly, and usually to describe where the ground becomes visible from a pitch black (or doorway when McCay didn’t want to overburden an image with superfluous details).

-The Invisible Art-McCloud's Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud’s “Making Comics” leaves me with mixed feelings. On one hand, he breaks down the stereotype of comics, all the misconceptions of its lack of worthlessness, and then rebuilds it starting from its definition upwards. And then through more of his examples, he further proves that comics are much more than they appear.

McCloud begins his argument by presenting his old view on comics; He believed them all to be poorly drawn men in tights who routinely save the day. He then continues to present his personal story of transformation. Next comes the powerful history lesson (and possibly his most convincing argument on the subject of the importance of comics). He takes historically important sequential art pieces like the Bayeux Tapestry and the ancient Mayan and Egyptian art (not the hieroglyphics, nor the pictographs, the images that accompany them). The images themselves without all the “words” recounts a tale the culture deemed worthy of being preserved. Personally, if civilizations as technologically advanced as those saw “comics” or at least sequential art as a worthy way of preserving history, our current culture can at least appreciate them for their storytelling quality. As the say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Speaking of pictures, McCloud’s Pictoral Vocabulary is possibly the best single image explaining the beauty of comics. The art of written text, the beauty of reality, and the abstraction of Fine Art, all blended together. How can a culture reject a hybrid of how its culture shall be remembered, I know not.

Another job well done to McCloud is how he described the panel to panel relationships of the scenes and the varying amounts of reader involvement needed with each. It was something I was aware of well enough from reading all the comics that I pour over, but the way he explained was very clear. I actually enjoyed those pages, possibly because I felt that it was one of the few places he actually went into depth explaining the concept and ideas.

Though I must say Chapter 4 could have possibly ruined the entire book for me. It was about the timing within a comic panel. I always just assumed that was intuitive that if the comic reads right to left the speech bubble furthest upper left occurs first and so forth until the lower right corner. I felt it to be a waste of a chapter. McCloud could have written about the pacing of comics through the size, shape, and layout. It still would have dealt with the concept of timing with comics while going further in-depth for his readers who have for experience with comics. And it also would be more useful for readers who would like to make their own comics.

Sadly, after that chapter, I barely was able to drag myself through the remaining 5 chapters. I know he made some lovely points, especially chapter 7. But by the time they came up, I just was hoping to flip to the back cover and to find the book over.