The most common art forms artists and writers utilize to express their ideas and creativity are fine arts, novels, and films. They are widely accepted and pedestrian. All three have renowned awards ceremonies for the best in their field, displays in galleries and museums, recognition in the news through the media, and have classes teaching or analyzing them in schools. Against traditional media that have already achieved international public acceptance, a relatively new, and different art form like comics, does not stand a chance in gaining the respect it deserves. However, there are some people who have tried to build a reputation for comics and help others better understand them. Scott McCloud’s work Understanding Comics is his audacious attempt to address and overcome the general public’s ignorance about comics. However, the various characteristics of his book such as the comic book format, dialogue, and tone prove to effectively convey the definition and understanding of comics to a younger audience such as teenagers and college students rather than older adults, the parents and grandparents of the younger audience. If only certain groups of people are likely to accept McCloud’s method, then his intentions of establishing a better reputation for comics have failed.
At first it may seem that creating a book enlightening the reader about comics in the comic book format is an exceedingly clever method. If the reader could easily comprehend what McCloud was trying to say about comics, the act itself of reading Understanding Comics could be a lesson. McCloud argues that comics can effectively communicate information but also admits to once having perceived them as “crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap, disposable kiddie fare,” (McCloud 3). Yet, this seemingly clever attempt also has a backfiring effect. Because Understanding Comics is written in comic book form, it is unlikely to even draw the attention of the majority of the adult population. Even in bookstores, this book is placed in the “Graphic Novel” section, where adults rarely browse. However, it is common for teenagers and college students to frequent that section, and be interested by what is available there.
For teenagers and college students who have not strayed too far from their childhood memories when they were exposed to cartoons and picture books, reading a comic book is both more alluring and relaxing than an assigned 500 page novel or complex textbook. In contrast, an adult would be much more likely to pick up a more serious looking novel filled with pages of text rather than one with a plethora of cartoons, pictures and colors accented with short inserts of conversation and narration. Unsurprisingly, there is usually a lack of picture books in the areas of the library or bookstore where most adults are frequently seen browsing, for example, the fiction and nonfiction areas. Even the young adult sections lack books with pictures but possess plenty of thicker text-filled novels. However, the children’s sections are stocked with books packed with color and illustrations. Even McCloud himself recognizes the fact that many adults do not respect comics, and shows this with a small panel on page 3 depicting two middle-aged men using the phrase “comic book talk” to regard some “talk” as unworthy (McCloud 3). Comics essentially fulfill all the characteristics adults use to deem a book unimportant and easily dismissive. In this case, the comic book form of the pedagogical Understanding Comics fulfills those characteristics and can easily be dismissed by adults but rather welcomed by teenagers and college students.
The comic book format is not the only technique that McCloud employs that ends up appealing to the younger crowd. Throughout Understanding Comics, there is one drawing on almost every page—the cartoon depiction of McCloud himself. This mechanism’s original intention might have been to smoothly lead the reader through all of McCloud’s points, and to act as a tour guide and facilitate clarity. Yet, the simple character with basic features and glasses dressed in a checkered blazer and black pants is too “cute” for an older reader. McCloud tries to depict himself as plainly as possible to seemingly create an unbiased, neutral tour guide, but the cartoon ends up as more of a likeable and aesthetically pleasing character than anything else. The cartoon McCloud never just stands there and states his thoughts, instead he performs different body movements and gestures, creating a certain degree of interaction with the reader. McCloud’s cartoon presence and behavior throughout suggests a childish nature to the book. However, adults do accept instructions as they learn new things, but usually in a more formal manner. For example, if a doctor was learning about a new form of cancer treatment, he or she would read articles and books showing diagrams. A computer programmer learning a new computer language would read a professional book explaining the language. Most occupations do require people to accept instructions as knowledge of that field expands, but most of those instructions are conveyed by text and accompanied by serious diagrams and certainly not with cartoon characters. Thus, the many gestures and actions that cartoon McCloud does is more of an appeal to teenagers and college students than to adults not only because of the “cute” appearance but also because his role as a tour guide is very similar to a teacher or professor doing an interesting and engaging lecture in a school setting.
There are a series of panels where the cartoon McCloud demonstrates his concepts in a visually endearing way. On page 5, he draws himself in the arrows (McCloud 5) to lead the reader through the definition of “sequential art”: if he had drawn just basic arrows, that would have been sufficient in conveying his point, but instead he adds his face into the arrows. Then when he tries to separate form from content, he portrays himself drinking the mixture of ideas and images from the “comics pitcher” and then vomiting it back out (McCloud 6).McCloud did not have to draw seven panels of himself drinking and spitting out to accentuate his goal of separating form from content. There are many other examples of him doing other movements such as kneeling down in a praying position, appearing in a Wizard of Oz scene, sitting on a beach, falling in a bottomless pit, etc., (McCloud 30, 31, 39, 94). All of these and many more movements and gestures cartoon McCloud used only added to his appeal to the younger audience by creating amusement. At the same time, it is this very same amusement that may cause adults to dismiss McCloud’s attempts as lighthearted, childish or even laughable. When things come off as childish, adults are less inclined to take seriously. It’s the same as when adults don’t believe something a child says just because it’s coming from a child. In this case, although McCloud is not a child, his method comes off as childish, thus harder to take seriously. Similarly, it would be more difficult for an employee to take their boss seriously if he or she was doing cartwheels while giving out assignments or direction for a project.
The even more apparent characteristic that adults might find inane would be McCloud’s tone and style of prose. If all the pictures were taken away, it is blatantly obvious that he uses lots of bolding and italicizing effects, exclamatory remarks and onomatopoeia. These types of formatting and literary go along with the visual aspect of the comic book format and aren’t deemed as ‘bad’ writing, but come off as unprofessional. There are so many italicized and bolded words are that it’s difficult to differentiate McCloud’s main points since he almost highlights every other word, which only adds to the overall cartoony aspect of Understanding Comics. There are many examples of McCloud employing onomatopoeia such as “Glug, glug. Ptu!! Gaak! Wheeeez! Kaf! Kaf! Glugh …” when he trying to separate form from content to create a dictionary definition of comics (6) and “Chop! Chop! Chop! Tik! Tik! Tik! Tik!” when he was describing the theory of closure (88). Amongst these techniques, he also uses a very colloquial prose style to emphasize his key points. These mechanisms may be able to help him clarify his thoughts in a simple and concise way, but the onomatopoeias and colloquial prose style, in particular, may be viewed by an adult reader as a flippant attempt to explain comics.
McCloud’s tone and style themselves appear to be directed more effectively toward a younger audience rather than adults. The many inflections created by the use of bold and italicized words and rhetorical questions make McCloud’s tone very casual and unprofessional. McCloud is trying to appear appealing by imitating the role of a friend to the reader, but at the same time these characteristics of his prose appear unprofessional and nonchalant, which may appeal less to adults and more to teenagers and students. In some cases, his unprofessional and almost childish tone appears condescending especially toward an adult reader. For example, at one point, McCloud talks about how everybody wears a mask and never clearly sees himself or herself. To demonstrate his point, he asks the reader to smile:
All set? Good. Now, smile. C’mon nobody’s looking. Good. Now, what changed when you smiled? What did you see? Nothing, right. Yet, you know you smiled! Not just because you felt your cheeks compress or the crinkling around your eyes! You know you smiled because you trusted this mask called your face to respond! But the face you see in your mind is not the same as others see! (McCloud 35)
In this small excerpt, McCloud gently convinces the reader to open his or her eyes, like he is speaking to a younger person who has no idea what he or she is doing. In addition, the informal speech with which he does this contributes to the effectiveness of appealing to a younger audience.
These same characteristics are also observed when McCloud is on stage trying to craft the literal definition of comics: “Eisner’s term seems like a good place to state. Let’s see if we can expand it to a proper dictionary-style definition. Any ideas? ... How’s this? ... Hey, what about animation?! Beg pardon? ... Okay, how about this? ... You tell ‘im Bob!” (McCloud 7, 8). In this nonchalant bantering of possible counterarguments, random beings such as Bugs Bunny and “Bob” were some of the proprietors of the counterarguments. It is an amusing method to come up with the definition of comics, but it lacks credibility and professionalism, which makes it less likely to appeal effectively to adult readers.
McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a bold and laudable attempt to increase the comprehension of the comic art form that is often disrespected and overlooked. However, this endeavor, although effective to a certain degree, appeals mostly to teenagers and students rather than adults. Many adults who have no interest in comics probably never noticed its existence at all since it is considered a comic book, but if they did, the many childish characteristics of the book were not enough to convince them. The comic book format, the cute cartoon McCloud tour guide, casual writing style and tone were much more effective in getting McCloud’s message across to the younger audiences. Since Understanding Comics appeals well to the younger people of today, the future adults, the future views and understanding of comics seem bright and optimistic. It is highly possible that comics may one day receive the respect that fine arts, novels, and films now receive (but also lacked at one point), but for now, only time will tell.

Works Cited
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994.