Week 02: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

 In this week's reading 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud I learned a lot of tips and tricks I hadn't known before. While I don't plan on being a graphic novelist myself (But who knows), I do enjoy them and like to learn the behind the scenes research and analysis of comics.
     I was extremely intrigued when McCloud talked about how the simpler the character is drawn the more likely one will listen to their words and vice versa. If a character is illustrated very complex the person will focus on the character more than what they say. I had never even noticed that was something I definitely did until now.
     I also greatly appreciated him discussing how there are different rules and tricks when reading comics from around the world. I constantly get tired of the constant 'American rules are everybody's rules' that the art industry has a habit of saying, especially when touching on any Asian form of media.
     While I found some of the layout of this book complicated and a little redundant I really learned some useful things, that while I may not put into any sort of graphic novel, I can definitely consider when working on any illustrations of visual development projects.

Week 01: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

When I first read the first two pages knowing that this story would be textless, I hadn't expected to understand the story so quickly. The second I saw the first page with illustrations of diverse faces I had already assumed 'the arrival' would be a tale of immigration. What I hadn't expected was the fantastical way Shaun Tan turned the reasons for immigration into physical monsters. As someone who's favorite genre is fantasy and tries to somewhat keep up with political injustices in the world, this graphic novel really combined two things I am interested in beautifully. Even without text and the fantasy aspect, this story of immigration and starting a life in another place was perfectly easy to understand. This story was more impactful than I'd even initially thought and I ended up rereading it multiple times afterward just to appreciate the illustrations themselves.