Living in Line

'The idea that a picture can evoke an emotional or sensual response in the viewer is vital to the art of comics.' This is the most important statement that McCloud makes in the chapter Living in Line. He uses basic lines and shapes to show that a picture doesnt have to look like something specific or be of something for it to evoke an emotional response. Certain colours and shapes are universally significant to an emotion. And artist of all mediums use these universal techniques to evoke emotions in their work.

When you look at this painting you feel a certain way. This is because the colour and style and the shapes used are universally related to feelings of hate and anger. When you look at it, you think blood splatter, and when you think of that you think of murder, and crimes of passion, which usually involve a lot of feelings of hate and anger.

Yet when you look at this painting, you feel something totally different, again because of the the colour and shapes used in the painting. Joy and happiness is what I feel when looking at the picture, and I'm sure most people would feel the same.

Again this picture evokes a different emotion. The shapes and lines used in this painting represent a sort of tension and anxiety.

Most abstract art relies on these universal themes and symbols to give meaning to their work. As McCloud says '..A single image can represent the senses and emotions..' in ways such as - Angry = Reds, Placid = Blues, Anxious = Textures, Loud = Shapes, Quiet = Lines and Cold = Greens.

The example of the photo of the Earth from space is a perfect example. By looking at it we, in this day and age, know exactly what it is and what it represent, and we get a serene and joyus feeling from looking at at. But on a deeper level, even if we didnt know what it was we would still feel the same emotions because of the colours and shapes that are in the picture. The picture has a lot of blue and greens and swirls of white, giving that placid feeling, and the Earth itself is a circle or sphere with no harsh edges, giving a strong, powerful and happy feeling. This shows how strong these shapes and colours and symbols are towards create emotion in art.

Time Frames

I was watching the Japanese anime film Princess Mononoke the other day and after reading the chapter Time Frames I realised the techniques used in one of the opening scenes are the same talked about in that chapter. In the chapter McCloud talks about how time and motion is represented in still images in comics. The techniques he details are of using sound and motion blur or 'speed lines' to create the illusion of time and motion. And the way that different countries and cultures use this technique to create the same effect. The use of these, and either using several different techniques for motion blur is very effective in the illusion. 

One of the opening scenes in Princess Mononoke where the prince is being chased and trying to fight off a demon that is attacking his village is a great example of the way writer and artists use motion blur and sound to create motion. This is a great example of the 'Japanese' way of creating motion. In the scene the artists use several different types of motion blur to create speed, but the shot that caught my eye is very good in creating a sense of speed and fluidity. In this shot you can see how they used motion blur and 'motion lines' on the ground to create the speed. Although this is a film which does not need to rely on visual cues to help create motion, because it already has that, it does help create an extra feeling when watching this scene. And because of that when watching the scene it does put across a great sense of speed and danger because of the quickness of the characters. On top of this visual cue of the speed, there is also the sound of the prince's mount on the grass and the music to compliment the action. All the facets work together to create such and impressive picture, with a great quickness.

Blood in the Gutter

In the chapter blood in the gutter, McCloud talks about how we as humans use our own experiences to fill in the 'gaps' left by writers to create our own kind of meaning to a story in any kind of medium. We relate anything that we read or see to our own knowledge and background to understand the concept and ideas. We have so many experiences that we can feed on and everyone has differing views, so everyone who see's the same thing will have a different view and get something out of it. This can be directly related back to the previous chapter where McCloud talked about how we, using our own experience, can identify a few simple shapes as a face.

This technique is used a lot in film, where the film makers show parts of an event but don't the main part, but it is implied and the same feeling is generated, because we are able to fill in the 'gaps' and create our own meaning. The 'Shower scene' in Hitchcock's Psycho is a very famous scene that uses this technique. This scene shows very little but implies a lot. The whole murder act is shown through shadows and quick cuts. And because of this it is very effective in creating the 'realism' of the murder. Because we, as smart humans, know what happens when someone stabs with a knife, then it is not necessary to show a knife going into a body to know that that is going to happen. I think because they don't show this it is much more effective in capturing the event in the film, and this is why it is so famous.