Book Review #5 - Making Comics by Scott McCloud

Making Comics by Scott McCloud is the flipside to his seminal work, Understanding Comics.  Whereas Understanding Comics approached visual narrative (or sequential art, or graphic novels, or comics; the proper term for the medium is as varied as the content itself) from the perspective of an audience member new to the form, explaining the ideas behind how comics function when you read them on the page, and illustrating how best to enjoy them (while sometimes oversimplifying and sometimes overthinking), Making Comics assumes the reader is familiar with these ideas, and instead tackles the why behind these techniques.  It is a given that the better an artist understands how certain methods function, the better he'll be able to use such methods, and Making Comics lays bare all the techniques of the industry (although not all the artistic techniques one can employ, as that would be a book in and of itself, hopefully written by someone with more qualifications in the field than Scott McCloud; for while he's eminently qualified to write about comics, I'd rather have a traditional artist discuss visual theory).

Broken up into chapters capped off by reviews and exercises, Making Comics operates as a workbook of sorts, allowing you to get a feel for the basics of the medium before starting a game of stacking shells.  While I haven't done the exercises (I'm still reading and teaching myself from a drawing book), they do seem well thought out, and include analysis of what you should be getting out of each exercise, in effect allowing you to grade yourself on your own progress.

The main gripe I had with the book fades in retrospection.  I disliked that it seemed to focus primarily on art and layout tricks to the page, and ignored story, but I realize that may be for the better.  To learn about story, you should read a book on story, and then combine that knowledge with this book to figure out how best to lay it out for the comics medium.  While frustrating for those of us with little illustration ability, who prefer to write and have others illustrate, this is in actuality immensely helpful, as a full comics script needs to be laid out in the writer's head first, before the artist touches pencil (or coal, brush or mouse) to paper.

Scott's highly visual examples have certainly evolved over the years since Understanding Comics was published, and the whole book has a cohesive feel to it.  The only downside is Scott tends to digress and retread a lot of material he covers in Understanding Comics, and while I appreciate the material needs to be known to make sense of the techniques, I thought it would have been safe to assume anyone purchasing Making Comics has read, or will go track down Understanding Comics.

Overall Grade: B+

Book Review #4 - America: The Book

America: The Book

This satirical take on the American Democratic Process is that wonderful kind of comedy that depresses while it entertains.  Every page has a laugh-out-loud joke, but the guffaw is often followed by a sad moment of silence when you realize that most of its points are extremely valid.  Reminded by Sage Francis that, "It's not love it or leave it, it's change it or lose it," America: The Book is a worthwhile tome for everyone who wants to see the obvious and not-so-obvious faults of our great nation laid bare and ridiculed like an 8th grade bully.

The textbook layout is an inspired design, as the questions at the end of each chapter can be some of the best parts of the book, and they've emulated the style of a social studies book perfectly, even including little "Were You Aware?" sidebars and diagrams of how the Bill of Rights helps you!

While holding an admittedly liberal slant (it's from the writers of The Daily Show, what do you want?), the comedy attacks both sides of the aisle, frequently calling out everybody on their bullshit, from the buffoon that is George Bush to the screeching harpy that is Hillary Clinton.

My only complaint is its relatively short length.  It reads like a textbook, and that means lots of paragraph breaks, chapter headings and pictures that split up the flow.  The last chapter is woefully short, and the book could have used padding in most places.  The dual/duel Media chapters are absolutely wonderful, however, and there's even a riff on the "What's your pornstar name?" formula known to children across the country.

All in all, a solid purchase.  Factor in the fact that you can get it at Barnes and Noble for $7 right now, and you'd be a sucker not to pick a copy up.

Grade: A

Book Review #3 - Storm of Swords

Let's start by establishing that I hate fantasy.  I think the genre has had nothing new to say since Tolkien sent a handful of hobbits on their way to Mordor, and even that I feel wasn't said as well as it could have been.  If you look at the Fantasy section (in such a sad mutual state as Sci-Fi that they often share shelf-space, now) you see row after row of really boring and cliche painted covers, showing a party that consists of a balanced Dungeons and Dragons group.  Sometimes there may be a Dark Elf with a badass name, sometimes a sword passed down through a lineage of great and noble heroes.  It's dull, it's repetitive, and it sells like hotcakes to a certain unwashed crowd of basement-dwellers.

A Storm of Swords is none of those things.  The third book in George R.R. Martin's critically acclaimed Song of Ice and Fire series, it chronicles the goings on in the kingdom of Westeros, a fantasy kingdom so well-realized it may as well have been real.

Without spoiling the first two books, I can merely say that the book takes place during a time of great unrest in Westeros, as five potential kings vie for control of the land.  In the meantime, the Wall in the North, built hundreds of years ago to keep out barbarian invaders, may soon fall.

What's awesome about this series is the fact that every chapter is from a different characters point of view, and while you may utterly despise some characters, such as Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, when you read chapters from their point of view, you see why they do what they do, and while they're still horrible monstrous people, they're not that way needlessly.

The world is full of pageantry and noble families, and it can be a little confusing at first to learn the great houses, but every single character is well-developed and every plot-point amazingly well-thought out.

One of my favorite things about this world is that it never quite answers the question, "Is there magic?"  People in the world believe there is magic, but the Maesters (the educated doctor-types) have rational explanations for all the old stories, and scoff at superstitions such as belief in The Others (an awesome use of the theme of Us Vs. Them that came years before Lost was ever thought up) and the idea of dragons as historically extinct creatures.

The all out best thing about this series, however, is George R. R. Martin's absolute ruthlessness.  In the same way that Rome doesn't play favorites, A Song of Ice and Fire will make you love somebody and then kill them off without a second thought.  George's writing style isn't overly flowery, though the dialogue can affect that trait when it's being delivered by the high-born individuals who want to appear pompous.

The first book in the series is A Game of Thrones and it is followed by the even longer Clash of Kings.  Storm is the longest in the series, clocking in at over 1,000 pages, but as with thick classics like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, the further in you get, the faster it seems to go, and you dread the dwindling page count because it means the ride is almost over.

All in all, I can't recommend this series enough.  It's getting the small screen treatment by HBO, with each book lasting a full season, and should be the best thing about 2009.

Overall Grade: A (I haven't given anything too low a score yet, which is partially because I tend to pick things I know I'm going to enjoy, but don't worry, I'm in the middle of a stinker right now)