These are Comics

All three comics, yes, I am referring to them as “comics,” were entertaining to say the least.

As a rookie comic reader I'm forced to rely on what little knowledge I have as well as my personal opinion. Lucky for me our required reading did wonders for me.


In Scott McCloud’s, “Understanding Comics,” he talks of the various ways to create a comic. He claims a comic can be filled with detailed pictures, stick figures, few words or paragraphs, but ultimately a comic tells a story through imagery and possibly words.

I suppose my opinions of comics are fairly similar to McCloud. I personally interpret them as anything that can portray an unconventional short story/ novel.

           With that cleared up...

The Japanese comic was a bit shocking. I obviously had no idea what those symbols/words interpreted in to, but the pictures cleared things up enough for me. 


The use of internet definitely had a big part in the success of this comic. I think the same story read on paper would not have been as impacting. The use of technology enabled the reader to get the full effect of the bloody woman’s frightening attack on the young girl.

In fact, without that shocking factor of the bloody woman, I wouldn’t have been nearly as impressed.

McCloud’s comic format was also effective. I read the short introduction prior to reading the comic and it mentioned that he tried this layout as an “experimental format.”

I found it efficient and completely relevant to the actual meaning of the story. Think about it, each click left me asking, “what’s next!?” only to click and again ask the same question.

The story began with a blonde in the man’s bed, which after reading part one and two, makes me think it’s just another hopeful fling or he has finally found the right woman, but the story quickly flashbacks to the man’s relationship with Jodie, three years earlier.

What begins as a romantic love story, smoothly transitions in to a frightening obsession with finding a perfect lover, through the use of some mathematical phone number theory.

I suppose he has never heard of coincidence…

Clicking to see the next image becomes extremely effective when it gets to scene 45 on part 2. The man is first seen in a full body shot holding a camera, creeping on his potential women. The next click leads you to a closer shot of the man still holding a camera, but only from the waste up. The following click shows just his eye.

This short span of images successfully portrayed a man that had literally become consumed from (head to toe) in a sick obsession.

I wouldn’t say McCloud’s format was more successful than the Japanese format, because I think format is essential to the purpose and meaning meant to be portrayed from a particular story. With that being said, I preferred the weird, excitement of McCloud’s format rather than the Japanese one, but that may just be because a bloody woman is hardly my style of reading.