Comments on: Book Review: Understanding Comics

By: Rob Enslin

Rob Enslin — Sun, 24 May 2009 06:49:27 +0000

Interesting comment Dave, and I concur that a ‘picture tells a thousand words’. We, our UX (user-experience) London bookclub group, reference the ‘amplification through simplification‘ notion. Moreover, ‘great’ story telling is often achieved using supporting words – cleverly placed and constructed words – ‘around’ a picture.

We can draw analogies from other sensory examples – augmentation and amplification examples: colour over black & white TV, surround sound over flat sound, stereo over mono, movie sound over sub-titles, a words-only news article over supporting photos/video.

By: David Lees

David Lees — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:44:27 +0000

Rildley Scott produces a comic of his films to convey to the crew exactly what he wants to achieve. His sets Achieve a perfection others can only aspire to. Perfectly following Robs example and Scott rules. Google chrome would be clearer with single messages in a box. Its nothing new. We call it a story board. The old adage “a picture tells a thousand words” . Think of a primal human trait and combine it with current technology. We recocognise images far quicker than the text it takes to communicate the same concept. I need an etchasketch in my phone. A next iphone app?

By: robenslin

robenslin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:53:55 +0000

The Google Chrome comic is a great example how effective they can be at delivering a message so totally agree with your sentiment James.

By: James Brown

James Brown — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:27:11 +0000

Interesting comments Rob, and fun to see the journey you’ve taken into understanding comics as an art form. There really is so much more depth to them than people realise.

In terms of how they can be used to put over messages in the online medium, the best example I can think of is Google explaining it’s Chrome browser, a few months ago. Simply by creating an online comic, they rendered a highly technical explanation of their new product’s advantages interesting and engaging enough to keep me reading. Something I really doubt could have been achieved with a plain piece of prose.