The Vocabulary of Comics

In the chapter ‘the vocabulary of comics’ McCloud talks about the what we recognize as a face and what we need to be able to relate to a character. This, he says, is very little. People can relate to a character with an ambiguous face of a line and two dots as well as they can a lifelike form. People are more likely to attach meaning and relate to a character or person with a more abstract and simplified face in a cartoon than a realistic one. Because by looking at a line and two dots, we see a face, but there is so much blank space to totally relate that into a face. So we fill in the blanks. So we make our own meaning in the abstract face. But with a realistic face, nearly all the information is giving to you, so it is harder to create your own meaning in the face or character.

I think this fact is clearly shown in the movie Howls Moving Castle. That is probably one of my favorite films, and I think it has more emotion than most ‘live action’ films that are made. The character faces are very simple in Howls Moving Castle, there is hardly any definition in the faces, and only a slight amount of shading. But the way they move and the slight expression shows more meaning and feeling than most actors can portray. The way that they are drawn leaves it wide open for interpretation and to insert your own personal experience and this, accompanied by beautiful backgrounds, is where it is able to generate most of the emotion.