Comic Divide

Scott McCloud has a video on Ted Talks where he shares a plethora of information about comics. Although he shares information concerning a variety of aspects of comics, I found his discussion concerning the attitudes of comics most intriguing.

McCloud divides the attitudes of comics into four separate groups: formalist, classicist, animist, and icionoclast. He said the formalist attitude is a way of understanding how things work. The classicist outlook embraces beauty and craft. The animist view believes in the pure transparency of content, and iconist emphasizes the authentisity of human experience and honesty. Then, McCloud relates these attitudes to the four subdivisions of human thought: thinking, sensation, intuition, and feeling.

I think writers often think more about the ideas of ethos, pathos, and logos when creating new works. Here McCloud revolutionizes comics by stepping beyond rhetoric, and into a more thorough division for our way of thinking. It makes sense to have a 4-way divide in any artistic piece since we are understood to think in those four ways. By grouping comics in a way that is a relatable to the subdivisions of human thought, one can imply that no matter what comic is read, it will provoke, or intrigue at least one way of thinking.

McCloud certainly made me think about the thought categories my works have been catering to. Although He presented such a great deal of information in a short time, this aspect of his speech was the most thought provoking for me.

Ted Talks Link:
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2906302250707027837
Image From:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics