McCloud #2

For part 2 of this blog, I read Lucas’s part 1 entry (found at www.lholt.blogspot.com). He wrote about an ongoing comic (strip) called “Player vs. Player.” He connects this comic to making use of words and pictures. This is one concept of the nature of comics discussed in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Lucas points to McCloud’s idea that describing comics as words and images working together is too limited a way to think of comics. I agree with Lucas that, in the case of PVP, that definition works just fine.

I would like to add another concept of the nature of comics discussed in Understanding Comics that relates to PVP. McCloud writes (and draws) about the complex ways in which makers of comics attempt to “depict sound in a strictly visual medium” (134). One such method is to insert word balloons. PVP does have many word balloons, but what is more interesting is the use of word balloons containing non-words. McCloud says that “symbols are constantly being appropriated or even invented to cover the non-verbal” (134). Some such examples of this phenomenon in PVP are: “glug glug glug,” “sigh,” and “snnnrrkk.” This interjection of words that are not words is a fascinating tool for comics because it attempts to capture and make meaning out of sound in a way that goes beyond providing simple narrative for the images.