If anyone’s interest was particularly sparked my McLuhan’s comic book style essay, I would suggest exploring the Museum of Modern Art’s website. They have over 1000 comics in their online collection. I visited the MoMA over spring break and am now feeling disappointed that I did not take advantage of their extensive collection. I never really had an appreciation for comics until this week.
Anyways, since class was pretty in-depth today, I kind of wanted to reflect. I think it’s interesting how comics, a casual and playful media/medium (I can’t find a clear distinction anymore), can portray a serious topic. Examples can include social problems but I especially like how McCloud opened my eyes to the idea of time and space, and how sequential pictures on a piece of paper can be four dimensional. It’s hard to wrap your head around so many dimensions which is why I am particularly interested in the idea of inception. Just like “the medium is the message” somehow I feel like time is all the same if you can return to it, or look ahead to it, because when you do that, then you are in the present, right? Or are you? I think this relates to Dr. C’s statement that the brain cannot distinguish between perception and memory.
In trying to articulate exactly how I felt about these seemingly crazy ideas, I started looking around on Delicious and to my surprise I found an extremely insightful write up by Mark Bernard and James Bucky Carter.
http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_2/carter/
This quote is taken right from the article and I think pretty much coins what we were talking about today. “When the viewer interacts with the work, time, space, and real-time experience meld. Hence, quite literally, dimensions cross: there is a concrete positioning of the viewer in his or her own space and time added into the already interdimensionality of the work itself.”
Pretty cool if you ask me. I am not anywhere near a complete reflection of today’s lecture but I am hoping for some clarification from you guys. Let me know if anyone has anymore input!