“Against Our Will”

The philosophy-heavy readings assigned for Friday presented concepts familiar to me. I knew of Magritte’s painting of conflicting media and the concept behind it: an image is not the same thing as what it represents. – a picture of a pipe is not a pipe.  I also knew how visual imagery greatly helps transmit ideas.  Just seeing Magritte’s painting when reading “Visual Rhetoric,” admittedly boring and hard to follow at first, helped me to absorb faster the concepts being thrown at me.  There is a reason why kindergarteners aren’t reading text-only literature in library class.  Visualizations are the easiest way for the brain to learn.

McCloud’s “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” takes the concepts read about in “Visual Rhetoric” further and expands on them with, quite fittingly, graphic illustrations.  He heralds comics and other visual genres as a great communicative device because people easily identify with simplified pictures and concentrate on the idea more easily when illustration is provided.  Presented so successfully like a fast paced motion picture on paper, it seems as if graphic novels are indeed the superior medium for divulging information.  If this is true, then what edge do I, as a writer who specializes in text, have in marketing my informational productivity?

When it comes to essayism and other forms of composition, I’ve always looked down on cartoons and illustrative arts in general, considering the written word as the proper form to make a point with.   Now, in the fast-paced age of computers, pictures do the job quicker, and it seems as if completely written literature is a just a waste of time, as Richard Miller points out in “The Dark Night of the Soul.”  What merits do the written word have over the illustration, especially now, when screens reproduce pictures just as easily and costless as they do words? If one has ideas on the same level as me but can draw pictures better than me, does that make him more respectable? What if his ideas are below mine? Does his illustrative skill elevate him beyond me?

The quick, pointed and enjoyable presentation of “Understanding Comics” reminds me of an exhibition that was showing at New York’s Museum of Modern Art over the summer.  Dan Perjovschi was allowed to draw stick figure illustrations all over the walls of the main atrium of the museum.  The drawings are scant and quick, but combine illustration and text to make a political or social point.  The exhibition was a big hit.

This may be the last blog I do on this site.  It strains me to post something meaningful so frequently, but in hindsight it definitely doesn’t hurt to compose so proactively.  This is definitely the future of writing, and it pays to keep up with it.  I may start up my own blog after this one.

Later,

Ryan