Chapter Five- Living in Line

In chapter five McCloud discusses the idea of emotions and “the idea that a picture can evoke an emotional or sensual response in the viewer.” He explains that the way the picture is constructed, the weight, character, direction, shape, colour and texture of the lines create emotion and help to bring the comic to life.

He also looks at the idea of symbols and how lines are used to show certain phenomenons both visible, like smoke and invisible like smell. Even though he is describing comics, it is still present in animations as well. In kids cartoons or even Disney films animation can utilize the sense of sound and sight, the other three senses of taste, smell and touch are all portrayed through the other two senses. In the Lion King for example to show smell lines are used coming from that area and we as the audience don’t have to utilize our sense of smell to understand that it exists in the animation. These techniques are now a commonly accepted symbol, or visual metaphor, and we understand from our experiences that the lines represent smell.  

Symbols are a universal language that is utilized by artists to show a particular emotion, using only two of our five senses. Along with the importance of line and the way it is constructed there are also visual symbols that we as the audience have come to recognize through our other reading or viewing experiences. If we see a bead of sweat on someone’s face we immediately link that to fear, if we see a smile- happiness, if we see tears- sadness, zzzzzss- sleep, crosses on eyes- death, smoke or flames coming out of someones ears or nose- anger. Now lots of these visual representations are definitely not realistic as we all know that when someone is angry fir does not erupt from their ears, yet we have accepted these certain visual symbols among the years from when they first originated and they have stuck ever since, becoming a part of the visual language.

Emotions, McCloud goes onto explain, are not just limited to the characters themselves, backgrounds can also be used to show certain sensations. In class when we viewed anime I noticed that the Japanese certainly utilize this tool to create emotion. When a character gets angry they may be surrounded by flames to show their anger, even though we as the audience know that a fire hasn’t suddenly erupted around them.