Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.info
From: [m--nl--y] at [ecn.purdue.edu] (editorsaurus rex)
Subject: Understanding Comics reviewed in _New_Letters_Book_Reviewer_
Status: R
Apparently-To: [rec arts comics info] at [news.uu.net]
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 03:46:01 GMT

  _New_Letters_Book_Reviewer_ is distributed as a supplement to
  _The_New_Times_ and _New_Letters_ (a literary magazine from the
  University of Missouri-Kansas City).

  Spring 1994, Number 19
  page 8

  BRINGING YOUR MIND TO THE GUTTER by Mike Keefe

  Despite the easily-misunderstood headline, Mike Keef's review of
  Scott McCloud's UNDERSTANDING COMICS is 100% positive.  The first
  two paragraphs:

  	In the back rooms of university libraries, buried in
	the bottom drawers of gray file cabinets, there exist
	doctoral dissertations on the subject of cartoons and
	comics.  This must be so because from time to time
	every professional cartoonist and comic artist is
	asked to fill out a ten-page questionaire about his
	work.  The results are compiled by a journalism or
	communications grad student who develops a thesis
	and defends it before a tired panel of professors who
	wouldn't be caught dead with a comic book.  But on
	the basis of originality, they award the kid a Ph.D.
	He goes on to teach Headlines 101 and his magnum opus
	grows yellow in its manila folder.
	
	Now along comes Scott McCloud.  Not a graduate student,
	but a comic artist himself (creator of _Zot!_), McCloud
	deconstructs his own "lowly art" with more insight and
	intelligence than any analyst with a string of letters
	attached to his name.

  From here, Keefe goes on to give a thumbnail summary of the book's
  major features.  Keefe gets the details right.  I'm not sure how
  much Keefe knew about the comics medium before reading UC, but his
  review definitely shows that he learned some things reading it.
  The "gutter" in the headline refers, of course, to the space between
  the panels of a comic that McCloud discusses at length.  Unfortunately,
  the headline can easily be interpreted as a put-down, and I think
  many readers will skip the review for that reason.

  It's nice to see an academic review cover UC in such a positive
  manner.  I think McCloud's book may open some doors for the art
  (I know of a Dean of Fine Arts at an Illinois School who is
  fascinated with the book).  I am dismayed that "deconstruction"
  was mentioned so near to UC (personal vendetta), and I guess
  Keefe is not aware of the books published by the University of
  Mississippi Press.  Also, no mention was made of Eisner's
  _Comics_and_Sequential_Art_.  But I guess I can't expect everything.

  _NLBR_ did publish several panels from UC, including the sequence
  from page 140 (chapter 6) about the progression of the types of
  books we're expected to read as we get older, and a panel depicting
  the picture plane with the review itself.  The UC review actually
  gets top billing on the front page.

  If your local or university library subscribes to _New_Letters_,
  they should have received this supplement within the last couple
  of days.  

  A question for those pros reading this:  Ever recieved one of those
  ten-page surveys?

  MSM
  
--
------------------------  [m--nl--y] at [iies.ecn.purdue.edu]  ------------------------
Editor-in-chief,    |BSE 1992: Software Engineering     |       Quod
Sycamore Review and |MA  1995: Creative Writing, Fiction|      Scripsi
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