While McCloud could argue that a single post (or single panel) on social media might be considered a “cartoon” by his own definition, artists and writers often create an online persona that not only showcases their work, but entices followers to invest themselves emotionally in each and every update. And by spelling out exactly how we understand comics, McCloud may have inadvertently created a vocabulary and set of rules for how we think about storytelling online. Today, McCloud’s book reads less like a primer in how to read and understand comics as a medium, and more like a way in which to think about how visual and written arts ought to blend together and tell a story, including on the internet. Originally published in 1994, the book was meant to elevate comics and other sequential art forms as worthy of analysis in the same way great art or literature might be, by breaking down how words and pictures could be used on the page to create layers of meaning.

Scott McCloud, a cartoonist, comic book theorist, and author of the bestselling Understanding Comics, may have formed the basis for our modern understanding of how words and pictures can work together to create compelling art.

From the proliferation of webcomics and blogs that allow for self-publishing, to high-profile literary experiments such as Jennifer Egan’s “twitter novel,” entitled “Black Box,” published in its entirety at The New Yorker in 2012, visual and written storytelling mediums have only become more entwined. I love this book because after you read it, you see the whole world differently.The question of who we follow on social media is not only a question of who offers the pithiest tweets or the prettiest Instagram photos, but who creates the best digital story with their posts. And who knows? It might even open up a whole genre for you. Even if you’re not at all interested in comics, I promise that you will learn something from McCloud. To quote Art Spiegelman, the “simple-looking tome deconstructs the secret language of comics while casually revealing secrets of time, space, art and the cosmos!” Originally published in the early 90s, this book has become a contemporary classic, and is in my top 10 all-time influential books on my own practice. But it’s also much more than that: using the medium of comics, Scott McCloud explains a whole world of visual communication and teaches lessons that apply to anyone working in any kind of visual medium. My May pick for our Read Like an Artist book club is one of my all-time favorites and a bonafide classic: Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

Scott mccloud books