Understanding Comics

So I remember this was assigned once as reading for a different class and I really tried to read it.  Unfortunately I ended up glossing over it because it was too much for my brain to process.  But this time, I got through it.  I know it is kind of upsetting but I find it terribly hard to get through this comic in particular.  I mean the information you get out of it is really helpful, but for me it is kind of like reading a dictionary.  In my opinion, it just reads like a textbook. I feel like he explains things like three times.  Like the transitions between different comic panels. He explained it once and had the little examples and I was like okay that makes total sense.  I never thought about it like that before.  And then he showed a few examples in real comics and I was like alright other artists use this too, okay.  And then I hit the  part with the bar graphs I was just like NOOOO. STOP. STOP NOW.  And they kept going! It was like three pages of tiny bar graphs. And I know I'm probably overreacting because they did illustrate a point but still.  I don't want to see that many bar graphs. No one does. And no one should have to explain something four times. My reaction:

And when he was defining comics in the beginning I kind of wanted to slap things. It was just very drawn out. And I felt like we weren't getting anywhere.  I guess it's one of those things where you you look at a chair and then you have a definition of a chair and then like you end up farther away from what you were originally striving to get to (the chair).

But I really do think McCloud's writings really hit home on a lot of points that really aren't usually brought to light.  I really liked the comment about Japanese comics and how they tend to be more lengthy and more about the journey than the destination.  I think that is completely true, I've read some Japanese comics and that is completely true, especially of manga like Naruto that literally is still going after 615 pages strong and no nearer to any part of total resolution.

And I do think that this was very entertaining to read.  Anytime I would get bored of the lengthy explanations, there was always something to look at and I agree, his simply designed main character was very easy to follow rather than a hyper realistically rendered character.  When I got to the part about how we see faces in everything I just think about how I used to see faces in my blankets.  I still do and its weird.  I liked how his character seemed to walk through the different motions of everything he was explaining, it was very surreal and frankly, it kept me hooked (as long as there were no bar graphs or lengthy explanations)