Episode 14

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Here are the contents of the podcast if you’d like to skip around:

Starting at 1:08: We discuss Understanding Comics and the ways it helped us or didn’t help us. Here’s the more in-depth “picture plane”, if you want to see what we’re talking about. If you’re interested in reading the interview with Brian Vaughn that I mention, head over to the AV Club and check it out.

Starting somewhere between 14:00 and 15:00 but it’s tough to say exactly where because my segue is JUST SO SMOOTH: The discussion of Sandman: Overture and a few issues of classic Sandman commences. If you’re interested in knowing which issues I’d have chosen given my druthers, I’d have selected “The Sound of Her Wings” (still); “Calliope”; “The Parliament of Rooks”; “A Tale of Two Cities”; and that one issue from “The Wake” where Hob Gadling is at the Renaissance Festival complaining about how the real Renaissance had a lot more poop and plague everywhere. Here is the Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem classic “Don’t Blame the Dynamite.” They come up in the Sandman conversation, but mainly I just want you to have that.

16:05: The Hugo and Nebula Awards are not the same thing. In any case, neither of those awards is the one that was won by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman issue “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” That issue won a World Fantasy Award. I was just completely wrong about this. I’m sorry.

34:39: Randon is such a guy right here.

38:05: Public service announcement: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on board to produce the Sandman movie. I did not really know that this was in his area of interest, because I didn’t see any of those Batman movies.

40:12: Here are the Lil Endless, as delightful as ever they were:

41:14: For next time, Whiskey Jenny has recommended that we read Eleanor Catton’s award-winning novel The Luminaries. Woohoo! Enormously long book alert! I am not the only one who picks tremendously long books!

Starting at 42:56: Closing remarks and outro. I am a jerk and did not mention Randon in the outro. I’m the worst. We love having Randon on the podcast too! Obviously! But he feels less like a guest because he’s always there when we record a podcast. And what with one thing and another, I forgot to thank him for joining us. I’m sorry, Randon! Thanks for joining us for this podcast!

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Song is by Jeff MacDougall and comes from here.

The post Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.14: Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman appeared first on Reading the End.

This book made me sad I can’t draw.  Although there were bits about telling stories, I felt like the book was more geared towards artists, than writers.  It may have felt this way because, while I can write, I can’t one bit draw, so my perception could be skewed on account of how sad I felt during all the drawing bits.  Compared with how fun the words-and-pictures bits were!  All nicely broken down into categories and everything!

Scott McCloud’s books about comics are altogether wonderful.  He’s good at explaining complicated concepts in ways that are easily comprehensible, and referring back to them frequently enough to keep them in the reader’s head.  He uses examples from a broad range of comics, and his love for comics shines through in every panel.  Also he is funny and self-deprecating and clever.  Hooray for Scott McCloud!

The post Making Comics, Scott McCloud appeared first on Reading the End.

However, when I got past to the bits about computers and things, that was too much information coming at me all at once.  I mean, I was reading it in a blackout (I love Louisiana and I love Louisiana storms, but power outages are no fun at all in the middle of summer), and feeling guilty for not cuddling the dog I’m baby-sitting for, and I was having certain problems about which I am too much of a lady to talk.  I do admit the possibility that there were other problems apart from my brain shutting down when too many computer words fly at my head.

On to Making Comics!  I am very excited about Making Comics!  I think it will be extremely fascinating!

The post Reinventing Comics, Scott McCloud appeared first on Reading the End.

I loved the section about the different transitions between panels.  Scott McCloud lists six categories of transitions between panels, and then does an analysis of how often different comic artists use each different transition.  He makes bar graphs.  I was so intrigued by the differences between how often American & European artists used each transition type, and how often Japanese artists did.  McCloud shows examples of each transition, and although he gives them a number, he keeps reminding you which type is which (through pictures!).  Fantastic.

My one little gripe was with the section on the (sometimes uneasy) marriage of words and pictures.  I am only griping about it because to me, the combination of words and pictures provides the most amazing and fascinating and incredible possibilities for comics.  (I like words.)  I just looked back at it, and that chapter is just as comprehensive as the transitions chapter; when I was reading it, I felt like there weren’t nearly enough cool examples.  I still feel like that actually, but you may want to consider the possibility that there are plenty of examples and I am just insatiable and can never have enough.

In other news, Scott McCloud referenced a painting of Magritte’s (“This is not a pipe”), which caused me to tell my sister “I really like Magritte,” which caused me to have to get up and bring her a book about Magritte because she couldn’t remember who he was.  And this in turn led us to find this painting, which is rather graphic so you’ve been warned, “The Rape”, which pleased me so much that I traveled back in time and thanked Magritte in pretty and fluent French for his getting a point about what it is like being a woman that people often seem to miss.

(No, you may not borrow my time machine.  I have destroyed it, along with all copies of the plans.  V. dangerous to have such a thing around the house.)

(I just found a woman called Eunice Golden who says she created (warning, this is fairly graphic too) this piece of art “in defiance of censorship (which I consider to be a rape of the mind), and as a response to Magritte’s mutilation of the female body in ‘Le Viol’.”  Am I misunderstanding her completely, or is she misunderstanding Magritte completely?  Or, possibly, am I misunderstanding Magritte?)

I have strayed from the Scott McCloud point.  I liked Understanding Comics!  I have Making Comics out of the library, and I want to get Reinventing Comics as well!  Other views besides mine:

Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot
Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness
1330V
Shananagins
Rebecca Reads

Let me know if I missed yours!

The post Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud appeared first on Reading the End.