Chapter Six- Show and Tell

In this chapter McCloud explains the history of words and how they originated from pictures originally. He then compares this to how the written language has now become quite separate to pictures, despite their origin and how historically pictures and words have both taken very different paths. Words had less pictorial representations and pictures became “less abstract or symbolic, more representational and specific.”

How could this become writing?

This kind of reminds me of the game Pictionary where you are meant to use pictures to represent a certain object or actions. This game and how well we can achieve communication by not using words shows that from natural instinct picture communicate better than words. In advertisements they tend to use minimal writing and more images and we respond and register images better. On road signs, toilet doors, icons on your desktop in your car etc. there are symbols all around us.

 Even when we are text in each other and are limited to letters and symbols, we still use the characters to create an image to show emotion.

Before we learnt how to read we learnt how to recognize symbols and images and this is because it is a natural instinct. Words were invented to segregate those from the educated and the non-educated backgrounds creating class differences in society. A comic book vs a novel. Both tell stories just in different ways. An image is more visual and is easier to read, it is more interactive. But how did words and pictures separate? How is a picture considered art yet words are the storytellers. It think comic books separate the boundary and both pictures and words reunite together to form a piece of art that also conveys a story. McCloud also explains the importance of pictures and words and how “words and pictures have great powers to tell stories.” He also says how “the different ways in which words and pictures can combine in comics is virtually unlimited.” Even though he refers to comics when he says this, it is the same for animation as well. Animation also has the ability to tell a story and reflect or challenge attitudes in society.

McCloud also looks at the role of both the text and pictures in comics and how they each rely on each other to fulfill a certain role. He mentions that “the more is said with the words, the more the pictures can be freed to go and exploring,” yet he goes onto say “on the other hand if the words lock in the meaning of a sequence then the pictures can really take off.” From what I inferred from McCloud’s words were that a picture can paint a thousand words so without text it is solely up to the reader to create a story from the information given. And on the other side if there if just text given then the reader depends solely on the text to paint a picture of the story. Both text and pictures rely on each other and it is up to the author to decide their use and purpose. This also relates to animation as well, however in place of the text there is audio used such as dialogue, sound effects, music, voiceovers and more. These also have the same relationship that pictures and text have. On the other hand, it is up to the reader to decide what the pictures or words mean. According to the reader or veiwer’s experiences they will interpret something different to others.

What does this look like to you?