It’s weird when you realize how long a great book like this has been in print, floating through the world for nearly three decades, yet you never knew it. This here is yet another treasure (actually, the original non-fiction treasure) of comic artist Scott McCloud. I recently completed his follow-up work, Reinventing Comics as well as a full-blown graphic novel, The Sculptor, and knew I had to read this one as well. So glad I did.

While McCloud certainly focuses on comics throughout this book, the titled really could be Understanding Art or Understanding Artists, because he delves deep into both, and I’m a wiser man for having read it! I’m with Neil Gaiman on this one: “You must read this book.”

McCloud covers many aspects of comics in his nine chapters, but most the principles he discusses apply to more than just comics. His fifth chapter, for example, about lines and emotions reveals the potential depths of meaning that simple marks on a paper have (be they drawings, icons, or letters). Yet since it’s only the viewer’s eye that takes these lines in, it’s the viewer’s other senses that fill those lines will deeper meaning. It’s the less-is-more principle at work. It’s why art is art.

His seventh chapter about the artist’s pursuit of purpose was my favorite and should be required reading for every college art class, no matter the media. I love this snippet of conversation in particular:

The “fine artist”–the PURE artist–says to the world: “I didn’t do this for money! I didn’t do this to match the color of your couches! I didn’t do this to get laid! I didn’t do this for fame or power or greed or anything else! I did this for art!” In other words: “My art has no practical value whatsoever! But it’s important.” … “Pure” art is essentially tied to the question of PURPOSE–of deciding what you want out of art. (169)

McCloud also introduced in Chapter 2 a visual aid, “The Picture Plane”, that conceptualizes a triangular spectrum for plotting three vastly different extremes in art: reality, abstraction, and language. Whereas the “Have a nice day” smiley face, for example, might be an inch away from language (because it’s so basic, it’s like we’re reading the word “happy”), a nearly photographic drawing of a face would be an inch away from reality—and “the man on the moon” perhaps from abstraction.

McCloud uses this plane to situate over a hundred famous cartoon faces onto the chart so we can see his thoughts in practice. Charlie Brown, for instance is situated snuggly towards the “language” corner, due his simplistic “almost everyman” head, yet it is one step closer to abstraction (albeit still quite distant) than our good friend Tintin.

This whole process matters to the artist seeking to draw characters and to the reader seeking to understand them, and I found it a fascinating exercise in comic dissection. But the plane doesn’t end with images only. McCloud also uses this diagram in Chapter 2 to discuss content (be it realistic, iconic, or abstract) and again later in Chapter 6 to discuss meaning. It’s really quite a useful tool and (again) something that could work well in an art class.

I’m no real artist myself and am at best a dabbler, but I found this book not merely worth reading but worth owning as well, both as a reference for understanding art and comics and for its fun re-readability. I’m glad I found a copy at the library, but I think need to go out and find my own now. I super enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

©2022 E.T.

Read More from Scott McCloud:

• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (1993)
• Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud (2000)
• The Sculptor by Scott McCloud (2015)

Read More about Comics:

• “Dilbert: The First Year” by Scott Adams (1989)
• “Dilbert, the Second Year” by Scott Adams (1990)
• Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud (1993)
• Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud (2000)
• Sparky by Beverly Gherman (2010)
• Big Nate: From the Top by Lincoln Pierce (2010)