Scott McCloud's essay intrigued me, but I'm not sure I totally buy into it. I followed him until the very end. He uses icon "to mean any image used to represent a person, place, thing or idea" (198). He discusses the various types of icons: - symbols that represent "concepts, ideas and philosphies" (198)
- practical symbols (such as math, shapes, typing symbols, etc)
- and pictures that "resemble their subjects" (198).
McCloud then addresses the various types of pictures, from realistic to cartoon. He claims that comics allow for "amplification through simplification" (201).
However, in the last section, he explains how we are able to see a face just based on the presence of a circle, two dots, and a line: "We humans are a self-centered race" (203). How self-centered? With a realistic picture we see another human, but with a cartoon, we are able to see oursevles (207). Essentially, McCloud claims, we are able to see a little part of ourselves in every cartoon--that explains their effect on our culture and our fascination with them.
But I wonder :l>2
Why does seeing a face where none really exists make us self-centered? Can we really jump to McCloud's conclusion that we are seeing ourselves in these comic characters? I really thought about this, and, no, I did not view the "man" in this comic as me. But I did view him as another human, just as I always viewed both Calvin and Hobbes as human from the comic above. I don't think it's that we are able to see ourselves; it's that we are able to see someone like ourselves. Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize and to personify non-living objects--it's our way of understanding the world around us. But I don't think that makes us self-centered; it makes us human-centered.
2 comments:
The idea of being a self centered race totally makes me think of ghosts and the SciFi channel. The Ghost Hunters (whom I love to watch- and who have nothing to do with the class, but that's okay) always debunk ghost sightings in mirrors and the like by saying people often want to see ghosts in dust smudges, cracks, etc. I totally agree that we want to see something that is familiar to us, or something that we understand. I also don't think that it is merely because we are so self cenetered, but that it is a way to help us to understand and view the world.
You’re right - changing the term “self-centered” to “human-centered” certainly sounds less negative. The way McCloud makes his statement about humans being a self-centered race - it certainly sounds negative, and it appears that you responded to that by taking yourself out of the act by using the universal “human” vs. the particular “self” by which you either include us all in the “self-centered” act or remove yourself from its “negative” connotation. In a way, the "human" term represents seeing something outside of the self, while the term "self" leads to, well, a focus on the self. (Human = detailed drawing, Self = simple drawing.) Indeed an interesting and useful response.
I certainly like McCloud's distinction between seeing someone else in a detailed picture while I see myself in the simple picture because it has only enough detail for me to identify it as human and similar to me. In other words, I admit, I do not have to see a picture of "me" to see only "me" but the more specific the detail, the more distance occurs in my perception of self.
However, I, too, disagree with him on seeing myself in cartoons - cartoons, though simple, have enough detail, which allows me to separate myself from them - to see them as a separate entity (i.e. Mickey is a mouse, not a human... though he has very human attributes).
Post a Comment