Scott McCloud > Quotes

“Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“...when you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face, you see it as the face of another . But when you enter the world of the cartoon , you see yourself.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning", an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“Our perception of "reality" is an act of faith based on mere fragments.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“I may have drawn an axe being raised in this example, but I'm not the one who let it drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why. That, dear reader, was your special crime. Each of you was committing it in your own style.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“In comics at its best, words and pictures are like partners in a dancer and each one takes turns leading.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.”
― Scott McCloud, Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels

“Learn from everyone. Follow no one. Watch for patterns. Work like hell.”
― Scott McCloud

“Amplification through simplification.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“All the things we experience in life can be separated into two realms, the realm of the concept and the realm of the senses.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“The natural world creates great beauty every day, yet the only rules of composition it follows are those of function and chance.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“I guess the basic difference is that animation is sequential in time but in spatially juxtaposed as comics are.

Each successive frame of a movie is projected on exactly the same space--the screen--while each frame of comics must occupy a different space.

Space does for comics what time does for film!”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“To be a "thing" that thinks and moves and wants...that's MIRACULOUS.”
― Scott McCloud, The Sculptor

“Through traditional realism, the comics artist can portray the world without--

--and through the cartoon, the world within.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“This phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It's called closure.

In our daily lives, we often commit closure, mentally completing that which is incomplete based on past experience.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“I'm back, boys and girls! back from the pink padded couch palace!”
― Scott McCloud, Zot!: The Complete Black-and-White Collection: 1987-1991

“I'm going to examine cartooning as a form of amplification through simplification. When we abstract an image through cartooning, we're not so much eliminating details as we are focusing on specific details. By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning" an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't. [...] Simplifying characters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool for storytelling in any medium. Cartooning isn't just a way of drawing, it's a way of seeing.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“Think of your face as a mask. That's what it is, after all. A mask. Facing outward. Worn from the day you were born. Slave to your every mental command. Seen by everyone you meet. But never by you. Open its eyes now. Just think it. The mask will obey.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“We all live in a state of profound isolation. No other human being can ever know what it's like to be you from the inside. And no amount of reaching out to others can ever make them feel exactly what you feel. All media of communication are a by-product of our sad inability to communicate directly from mind to mind.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“The panel acts as a sort of general indicator that time or space is being divided. The durations of that time and the dimensions of that space are defined more by contents of the panel than by the panel itself.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“Comics offers tremendous resources to all writers and artists:faithfulness, control, a chance to be heard far and wide without fear of compromise...it offers range and versatility with all the potential imagery of film and painting plus the intimacy of the written word. And all that's needed is the desire to be heard--the will to learn--and the ability to see.”
― Scott McCloud

“So this is it. This is the Great Escape.

Is it wrong for us to want this? I keep thinking, if there are so many worlds, who decided which one to put us on? No one asked us what we wanted. Don't we have the right to look for something more?

We'll be back; we know we can't stay away forever.

But just for a while...just for a while.”
― Scott McCloud, Zot!: The Complete Black-and-White Collection: 1987-1991

“> First, move out of that big Manhattan loft and head upstate. You'll find a little place you can afford and start a new life. Maybe get a job teaching at a community college. Maybe meet a girl at Best Buy, start dating. She'll put up with your crazy habits. You'll put up with her musical tastes.

> I don't understand. What's going on here?

> Time will pass. You'll make it official. You'll settle down, get a starter house. Two boys. Yellow Lab. Minivan.

> That. . . That isn't me.

> Why not? It could be. You'll make art in the basement for yourself for a while. The boys'll get married. Have kids of their own. Maybe y'get divorced. Meet someone new. And yeah, you'll wonder what could have been. But less, as the years go by. "Just wasn't meant to be," you'll say. And there'll be good times along the way. Sweet memories. Until it starts to wind down. Until your body fails. Until you don't recognize the world around you. Until it's time to go.

> That. . . isn't me. It can't be.

> Why not? It's a decent life. Food, sex, running water, a roof. Not to mention love and family. Those aren't small things.

> But it's not enough.

> You kids, you're so spoiled! Y'know billions would kill for a life like that. So what if the art thing didn't work out? Is it really that important?

> It's all I have.”
― Scott McCloud, The Sculptor

“Just as pictures and the intervals between them create the illusion of time through closure, words introduce time by representing that which can only exist in time--sound.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

“Ask any writer or filmmaker or painter just how much of a given project truly represents what he/she envisioned it to be. You'll hear twenty percent...ten...five...few will claim more than thirty.

The master of one's medium is the degree to which that percentage can be increased, the degree to which the artist's ideas survive the journey -- or, for some artists, the degree to which the inevitable detours are made useful by the artist.”
― Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art