It’s interesting how much stating something in the obvious
makes it more concrete in our minds, even though we were already aware of
it. I had one of these moments really
early on in reading Understanding Comics and it served as a severe reminder of
what I was doing as an illustrator…manipulating images to represent and create
ideas in someone else’s mind. It brings
me back to art history and the “this is not a pipe” painting and why it was so
witty. In reality, even these words
aren’t even actual words. They are a
distinct pattern of symbols that we know as indicators of a specific
language.
What I really appreciated about McCloud stating this,
though, is that it makes you think of just how much we rely on very simple
means to communicate an idea. If I
wanted to get across the idea of an animal to someone, all I would need to use
is a series of lines. No language or
specifics would be needed, just the idea of a generic dog that nine times out
of ten the other person would understand.
Our job here in art school (or some of our jobs anyways) is to use our
personal knowledge of how to create these images on paper to add personality
and feeling. The greatest part about
this is that it makes us professionals of the human psyche in a way.
If you think about it, for us to truly manipulate another
person’s feelings with a simple application of line and color, we must first
have our own database of knowledge on how a general audience member will
translate said image. For instance, we
somehow know from experience and observation that an upside down curve can be
taken as a frown. I think that’s why
artists tend to be introspective at times or like to people watch. We are filling out own personal database to
play around with later. Does that make
us a type of psychiatrist? Maybe. In a rather sick sense, I feel more like a
master manipulator even though I get sucked into my own image myself. Why else would we have such a hard time
throwing out our creations?
