Truce, Scott McCloud?

Okay-I know I said I didn't like Scott McCloud, but as I am prone to vehement and often ill-advised reactions, I've reconsidered, sort of. I may not like his "literary voice" or his weird tintless sunglasses, but he does know his subject matter (Also-he drew a lot of those little graphs. I bet that took forever.). 

But seriously, whatever my vapid and irrelevant feelings are on the presentation of the material, there is actually no way I could address McCloud's entire body of work with one post in any way that's remotely engaging, so I picked out my favorite (uh-oh, those preferences again) part of the book. Lo and behold, it's relevant to my "pet subject" and to comics! Success!

 

Very early into my consideration of comics as a medium, it struck me how similar comics are to the storyboards used in creating a film, and actually the two media have a lot in common. Apparently, this link was quickly made by comics artists (or by McCloud at least), but seemingly not by filmmakers. The more I consider the relationship between the two, the more I understand how much they have to offer each other. One point in particular gave me a very different perspective on my own work as a student of editing, the list of panel to panel transitions. 

McCloud lists the 6 different types of transitions as:

1. Moment-to-moment 

2. Action-to-action

3. Subject-to-subject

4. Scene-to-scene

5. Aspect-to-aspect

6. Non-sequitur

The greater part of our list is already at work in the editing world. If you watch any movie, you will easily notice cuts made from action-to-action, scene-to-scene, and subject-to-subject.

Now admittedly, some of these do not carry over, because there are editing rules that a comics artist need not consider. A moment-to-moment transition between panels wouldn't work as a cut the way McCloud portrays it (Ironically, I can't show you what I mean, because I can't find his graphic anywhere online. Excuse me, while I eat me words.), because unless you change the angle of the shot/frame, you'd have what's called a jump cut. Number 6, Non-sequitur proves equally unhelpful, but I'm not quite sure how that one fits into legit comics anyways. 

Number 5, however, while undoubtedly used in the universal catalogue of edited film, is rare bird in both American film and comics (although apparently not in japan). With a bit of visualization, you can imagine how this style of editing can lend the same richness and tempered, observant quality to film, that is already enjoyed and employed by some comics.