Assigned Today
Before next Tuesday, please work in groups of 2-3 to complete your Children’s Book – First Draft.
Before next Thursday, please watch the “Every Frame a Painting” episode on Shot-Reverse Shot.
Today’s Content
We are talking about “Through the Door,” a chapter from Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics.
We’re a few weeks in, but we should really stop to talk about what we’re doing in this class. We are using modern tools to make creative works, that much is in the course description. But, how do those tools affect our design choices? Maybe more importantly, how do our design choices—and the medium we design for—affect our audiences?
McCloud’s chapter argues that comics creation is on the verge of changing pretty profoundly now that the newer generation has grown up with those tools always in existence. His argument hinges on categorizing creators into three groups:
- Traditional: Comics artists a little older than him who had always done their work as ink-on-paper. These artists did not adopt digital tools as they became available (whether because they cost too much or because they didn’t want to learn), so they stick to the Old Ways.
- Transitional: Comics artists McCloud’s age who were entering the field just as digital tools were becoming affordable (but still very expensive) to creators. Some of these artists adopted the tools, some did not.
- Contemporary: Comics artists younger than McCloud (really those born after 1990) who entered the field after digital tools became comparable in price and accessibility to ink-on-paper. (If you don’t believe that statement, compare the cost of a basic drawing tablet to a professional-sized drawing table.)
McCloud’s main argument is that the tools we consider normal shape what we think is possible, and the media we are exposed to shape our expectations of what we want to consume.
However, the book this chapter comes from (Reinventing Comics) was published in 2020. A consumer-grade computer cost about $1000, Adobe Creative Suite cost a few thousand dollars more if you bought the entire thing, or $500-700 per program if you bought individually. The creation software McCloud talks about was less powerful than the free, web-based image editor Photopea is today.
It’s safe to assume that his argument is true. So, how have we seen that manifest in our lives?
- What media do we choose to consume? What are our expectations of it?
- What media do we create? Do we even think of our actions as creating media?
