Making Comics by Scott McCloud

Ever since Scott McCloud's groundbreaking graphic novel "Understanding Comics" came out, I hoped there would be a sequel. I am sure a lot of other people hoped for the same. Well, now my waiting is over, for Scott McCloud has come out with "Making Comics", where he gives readers his formula for telling stories through comics that move people.

Now, not every comic can reach readers, but McCloud gives advice on how to make sure the comics communicate effectively with the reader. In the chapters, he breaks the comic down into five choices that comic writers and illustrators use to communicate with the reader: choice of moment, choice of frame, choice of image, choice of word, and choice of flow. To make an effective comic that its readers can understand, McCloud delves into each choice, showing how it influences a comic and its readability to anyone trying to understand it.

His choice of a comic is simple, a man walking finds a key, which he picks up, and later finds a door. He uses the key in the door, and opens it, whereupon a hungry lion jumps out. From that simple comic he shows how the story can change depending on the images one uses, from the backgrounds, to the point of picking up the key and so on. From there, he moves on to concerns of story and character expressions, and body compositions. Now, this isn't about art, at least, not completely, since there are plenty of books out there that will help you draw more perfectly-realized bodies, but this is about being able to understand the expressions and body imagery the creator uses in their comics.

After covering the five choices, McCloud takes readers through the creations of stories, and how to convey various things such as status, and then through the story itself, to convey the power of words and how the words and pictures in the comic work in combination with each other. After that, it is on to World-building. How do you make it seem that the comics you write are all in one place? How do you build a believable world, and it gives several regional variations on non-western comic book perspectives.

Then it's on to the tools of making comics, and the choices of which tool to use, from pencils to pens, to graphics tablets and how each influences the type of art you will produce. Also, getting your comics published, and the kinds of alternatives you have today in getting your art published.

From there, discovering your places in comics, which involves understanding your style and covers several different kinds of comic styles, including manga and why it is so popular now, genres and comics culture. The last chapter is sort of a meta-chapter, and covers how to get work in the paid comics field, old and new markets, and a section called "Your Turn", where you, the comic creator, gets the chance to set the world on fire with your comic.

This is an excellent follow-up to "Understanding Comics", going from being a reader and consumer of comics to becoming a writer, creator and producer of comics and stories. Even if you aren't a writer or plan on becoming one, or an illustrator and the same, reading this book can being on a deeper understanding of comics. and lead you to better understand or critique the creative choices used in the comics you are reading.

Scott McCloud and his comic avatar might have softened and aged more than a bit since his initial book, but his understanding of comics and what makes one good and stand out has only grown and deepened. Anyone who likes to read comics, or who wants to create a good comic, or who wants to make a better comic that resonates with readers and bring them to a real sense of place, should read this graphic novel. As McCloud points out, you don't need to be the best artist, but if your stories, words and the rest of it is up to snuff, you won't need to be a perfect artist.

For giving readers a better way to understand and critique comics, as well as giving writers and artists a way to judge their own works, and understand how to make them better, "Making Comics" rises head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.