Understanding Comics - By Scott McCloud

I've never been much of a reader, words on a page blur together if you don't have a real interest in the subject matter. But for me, that's where comics came in. Brightly colored images put together to tell a story. I'd read them over and over again and each time felt like the first time. I relate to the artist when he says "When I tried to explain my feelings, I failed miserably." Because it's not a feeling that you can easily put into words. I remember the first comics I ever got, a Sonic the Hedgehog comic, and an Archie's Digest. Both are rather worn down for literal years of moving and reading, but I still have them, and I still enjoy reading them. One page of that Sonic comic stands out to me. It has the antagonist, Dr. Robotnik/Eggman, inside of a large robot battle suit. But the pannels have Sonic slowly walking towards Eggman while his friends tear the suit apart. When Sonic reaches Eggman, he delivers the final blow. This is all show in 1-2 pages, and even as a kid, I understood how I was supposed to see it. It felt more like watching an animated sequence rather than a written one. When McCloud wrote about how the sequence of comics is different from the sequence in animation, it was like a missing puzzle piece in my brain locked into place. It's not an animated feature, there are too many actions in between panels for it to be animated. Animation sequences has a lot more frames showing every second of the action in order to make the final product clear. In summary, some people, like myself, think differently. Reading books felt more like a chore than actual activity, but comics, with their colors and characters, molded me into the artist I am and hope to become. Reading what Scott had drawn out made a lot of what I felt much more clear, and now I'm even more fascinated by comics than I was before.