I.          Administrative

A.                 Review upcoming schedule.

B.                 Do Midterm Course Evaluations.

C.                 My plan is to get MP#2 back to you on Thursday, and post midterm grades that evening.

D.                 Questions?

II.                Reading Comics

A.                 ‘Comics’ Defined:  “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer” (McCloud, 20).

1.                  In this way, comics are rather like a language.

2.                  As a language, we can expect them to have a vocabulary and a grammar.

B.                 Vocabulary:  The vocabulary of comics comprises their visual iconography, i.e., their use of visual symbols and icons to convey information, tell a story, set a mood, etc.

1.                  The art can range from the fully realistic to iconic cartoons.  This range can be understood to correspond to four conceptual dimensions:

a.                   Complex  to Simple

b.                  Realistic to Iconic

c.                   Objective to Subjective

d.                  Specific to Universal

2.                  The Universe of Comics

3.         Think also about the relationship between the pictures and the words in a comic---this relationship can take on many forms (e.g., word-specific, additive, parallel, montage, interdependent, etc.)

C.                 Grammar:  A grammar is a set of rules for arranging vocabulary items into meaningful strings.  The grammar of comics is to be understood in connection with two elements and one concept:

1.                  Frame:  the box within which the art and words appear.

2.                  Gutter:  the space between boxes.

3.                  Closure:  “observing the parts but perceiving the whole” (McCloud, 63). We as readers create complete stories out of a finite number of fragmentary frames separated by gutters.  We achieve this by allowing our imaginations to get us across the gutters from frame to frame.  Closure, understood as the synthetic passage from frame to frame, can be distinguished into different types:

a.                   Moment to moment

b.                  Action to action

c.                   Subject to subject

d.                  Scene to scene

e.                   Aspect to aspect

f.                    Non-sequitur

D.                 Other elements:

1.                  Time: how time is represented in a comic usually comes down to the representation of motion and sound, where these are displayed visually within frames and by closure.  (Think about how time is represented in TDKR.)

2.                  Line: the lines used can convey ideas, set moods, describe motion, etc.  One should look not only at the appearance of the lines, but also their mutual organization and their iconic meaning, if they have it.

3.                  Color: color can set the mood, focus our attention on the shapes, and/or keep story elements in order.  (This about the use of color in TDKR.)

4.                  The Six Steps of Creation: Idea/purpose, form, idiom, structure, craft, surface.

III.             The Monsters in The Dark Knight Returns

A.                 Free write

B.         Discussion