October 15, 2012

McCloud's Extension of Body Parts

McCloud's "Vocabulary of Comics" makes me wonder why comics are not more widely used. This was by far one of the most comprehensive readings thus far and I believe that is because A- my brain was able to jump into the blank place of the narrator and B- the imagery was so easy to visualize (for example: "the cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled) (Page 36). I am intrigued by McCloud's idea that we subconsciously give inanimate objects life. I feel like it is a stretch to consider objects such as silverware and crutches as extensions of our body parts. I visualize these things merely as tools to get through daily life. He goes so far as to say that the inanimate objects we use every day shape our identities and how we view ourselves (Page 38). This makes me wonder why he only focuses on the functionality of the objects we are attaching to ourselves, not how the quality of the materials affects how we view ourselves and how others view us. Perhaps he did not comment on the quality of materials because the narrator was trying to be as blank of a slate as possible so that we would not make assumptions based on his social class, political views, etc.

1 comment:

lmariachami said...

We as humans visualize everything, including text. When we are reading a story, we visualize it in our minds. Comics to make it easier for to visualize the text, but it also takes away and dictates what we should/could visualize. Comics are great to identify with at times. We do attach ourselves to them, and McCloud focuses on this because we shouldn't be attaching ourselves. When we attach ourselves to such an image, we no longer think for ourselves. We are a society that desires to belong somewhere, and to be told what to do. Allowing an author tell us how to think and identify ourselves in a text, takes away our creative freedom and our right to identify to a text the way we want to.

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