Thursday, March 10, 2016

Comic King

Ethos, by definition, is "a speaker appeals to ethos to demostrate that they are credible and trustworthy to speak on a given topic...is established by both who you are and what you say". In Scott McCloud's excerpt Show and Tell from his book "Understanding Comics", we were asked to identify his use of ethos throughout his comic strips. With this short excerpt, McCloud describes how words and pictures can work together in harmony to give a more in depth experience when reading.

The background information on McCloud on page 805 is a start to establishing his credentials on the subject of comic books. He has worked on numberous projects and has created many books explaining comics, such as Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics. By listing all of these achievements and works before the excerpt even begins, this textbook allows the reader to understand that they are not dealing with a simple amateur here. McCloud knows his comics.

In the very first panels of his comic, McCloud depicts a similar scene that everyone can relate to. He shows his younger self in front of a class full of schoolchildren, displaying his toy robot for show and tell. He is goaded by the teacher to use his words to explain the details of his robot as he displays it. But McCloud does not use just words; he also shows the class by pointing out how it can become an airplane or how it can change shape. McCloud establishes credibility with these first few panels because everyone who has been in a school setting can relate to this activity. Back when we were children, it would be common to just use words and demonstrations interchangeably - something that McCloud points out and builds upon. Creating a similar scenario for the audience reels them in and helps them relate to what he has to say and giving him the credit of being truthful in his beginning panels. McCloud then goes on to different definitions for a multitude of different comics on pages 810-811. His caricature would say the definition in the left panel, and the right panel would have small example comics that explain what he is describing. This is what definitely displays his use of ethos because he is taking an authoritative and informative stance on comics. I honestly had no idea that there were so many comics and that they all served different purposes for setting up a scene. By using different examples and thoroughly explaining how each one worked, McCloud was able to convince the reader that he knew what he was talking about. McCloud elaborated on this use of ethos by using one example of a woman buying ice cream and recreating it within the context of other definitions. He used interdependent, parallel, and amplification to describe how much words and pictures depended on each other in a scene. By practicing what he explains and clearly showing evidence of his knowledge and talent, McCloud is able to undeniably prove his credibility in the world of comics.

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