The Webcomics Examiner interviewed Scott McCloud last month. Scott talked about his upcoming book, Making Comics, to be published in September. He described what the focus of his new book will be:

It’s not so much a book about the step-by-step procedure of constructing a page. It’s more about how all comics, regardless of what processes we use to create them, force us to confront a series of choices. And there are really just five of them: choice of moment, choice of frame, choice of image, choice of word, and choice of flow.

Scott goes on to explore with his interviewer some of the ramifications of his insight, which leads to a discussion of the fact that most people try to learn how to make comics by learning a style first rather than learning the basics first. He also has some interesting comments about the way in which theatre, especially vaudeville, influenced the development of early American comics. From there, all sorts of interesting tangents develop. There’s a tangent about the value of the 24 hour comic-making exercise, a digression about Zot, a nod to Manga, and other topics. Then the interview winds up with a discussion of Scott’s two books, Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.

Scott had this to say about Reinventing Comics:

It has nothing to do with experimentation. It’s just taking the reader into account. We, the longform creators, are terrible at that. We’re constantly forcing people to unnecessarily scroll, then click, then hunt, then scroll, then click, then hunt. We never for a minute let the reader just lose themselves in the story.

I always like to learn what influential people have to say about their own motivations and intentions, since they’re often more down-to-earth and simple than one might be led to imagine. Too often, highly brilliant people don’t teach others very much. What one tends to learn from them, more than anything else, is that they know a lot. A mind that is not hindered by an ego is a beautiful thing. Scott gave us a lot in this interview.

Other Posts Categorized as Comics:

• March Issue of Sequential Tart - March 1st, 2007
• What Came True in V for Vendetta? - February 25th, 2007
• Review of Oz/Wonderland Chronicles #1 - January 1st, 2007
• January Issue of Sequential Tart - January 1st, 2007
• I've Been Martened, Tarted and Torqued - November 18th, 2006
• SuicideGirls Interviews Lost Girls Artist Melinda Gebbie - July 26th, 2006
• Lost Girls, Art and Pornography - May 7th, 2006
• Zak Smith's Illustrations For Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow - March 20th, 2006
• Science of Superheroes Exhibition - March 19th, 2006
• Timing (in Comics) by Joanna Estep - February 28th, 2006

Other Posts Categorized as Web Comics:

• March Issue of Sequential Tart - March 1st, 2007
• Review of A Girl and Her Fed - January 3rd, 2007
• Webcomics Don't All Suck - November 24th, 2006
• Bunk Magazine, a Hypermedia Humor E-Zine, Launches - September 11th, 2006
• Bob the Angry Flower - September 10th, 2006
• Gwen Rachel Stanley's Latest: A Month of Sundays - August 15th, 2006
• Scarygirl (Web Comic) - July 27th, 2006
• Minus - April 11th, 2006
• Gwen Rachel Stanley's Paper Moon - April 3rd, 2006
• Meanwhile, a Branching Comic by Jason Shiga - April 3rd, 2006