Eisner and McCloud responses

I actually got the opportunity to read a graphic novel in high school.  Throughout my senior year we read Maus.  My teacher made us read the graphic novel then analyze it by answering questions about specific parts of the story.  That was my first experience with graphic novels, and to my surprise I did not really mind it.  In the Eisner piece we had to to read I saw a different part of graphic novels that wasn't taught to me in high school.  For instance the author stated how the graphic novel is a different, more creative way to express your writing instead of being a boring person just like the rest of the world.  With the different ways to organize thoughts and to express your thoughts, brings reading to a different level.  There are so many things you must pay attention to: the word bubbles, pictures, characters, shapes of boxes, ect.  Everything comes into play when you are reading a graphic novel.  I found it interesting in the Eisner piece how they said the boxes can be different sizes to express different thoughts.  If you really think about it there are tons of things that come into play when reading a graphic novel, and you must be prepared to try and capture everything.

In the McCloud reading I found it really interesting that the entire thing was in comic book style.  It was cool how he was describing comic books, by writing a comic book.  Reading a comic book is ten times more enjoyable then reading just a plain book.  I would choose reading a graphic novel over a normal novel any day.  When reading a graphic novel I feel like I am not being forced to read it, instead I am reading it because it actually seems interesting.  The fact that the ideas are split up into smaller sections along with pictures makes the read so much easier and fun.  I found it interesting how McCloud used illustrations within his comic book to describe what he was talking about.  Also the idea of being so simple just to get the point across is so cool because if you really think about it, you really can see the true meaning when everything is stripped down and not extremely complicated.  At the end when he said that we become the cartoon, I found it interesting because I did not experience that when I was reading Maus, but hopefully I will experience it when reading Persepolis.

After I read over the articles about comics I feel like I already know so much more about comics then I did before.  They seem extremely interesting and I am really excited about starting the chapter on comics.  The idea of a comic is so complex and interesting, that learning about them won't be boring.  Also I am excited to because reading comics aren't nearly as bad as reading normal texts, so hopefully this unit will be more fun then everyone anticipates it to be.