McCloud and Berger

READING RESPONSE

McCloud and Berger

SUMMARIES:

In his article ‘The Vocabulary of Comics’ Scott McCloud attempts to get his point across in an informal way. He uses the comics to make it seem less serious, and less boring.  He uses funny pictures and says what they mean, or what they don’t mean. He keeps it interesting with all of the pictures. The audience he gears this too is probably college students because that’s what these books are for, but I think this could be helpful for anyone.

I his article ‘Ways of Seeing’ John Berger attempts to show how women and men used to be viewed and how they were viewed through paintings. He uses the pictures to give people a better understanding of what he’s talking about. The audience he gears this too is college students.

CONNECTIONS:

These readings are both done in a completely different format, but they have some of the same characteristics. Their styles of writing are different, Berger was more formal where as McCloud was more informal. They both used pictures to help describe their writing.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. He uses the comic book because he uses the pictures to explain what he’s trying to say. His points would have suffered because he is explaining what pictures in comic books mean. He has to give examples of the pictures to give people a better understanding of what he’s talking about.

2. Berger’s article seems almost degrading towards women. He makes it seem like men are more powerful. I think the gender roles are different now. People have more respect for women now. Women have more powerful roles now, and the times have changed.

3. The articles showed different examples of writings that are different from what we have been reading. The writings were more vivid, and easier to follow since there were pictures that went with them.

OPINIONS: I personally liked the writing from Scott McCloud. I liked looking at all of the pictures and reading about them. I found reading them humorous. I liked it because it was a break from reading articles straight from a book. I thought McCloud’s writing was interesting. It wasn’t really helpful to me because I never read comics, but I liked it. I didn’t like the Berger article that much. It wasn’t that interesting to me, the pictures were weird.