Blog 4: McCloud

Are humans really a self-centered race? Scott McCloud seems to think so, and I think I agree with him! In his work, The Vocabulary of Comics, which is basically a comic strip, McCloud uses a series of pictures and symbols and compares them to humans to show us that we can be very self centered individuals and also that not everything is what it seems.  

In the beginning of his comic, he has the narrator explaining to us that what we are looking at (a pipe) is not actually a pipe, nor is it a painting of a pipe or a picture of a pipe. It is a copy of a picture of a pipe. The point McCloud was trying to make is that not everything is what it seems. Just because we see a picture of a hamburger doesn't mean it's actually a hamburger, it is simply a symbol or a representation of the real thing. 

He next shows is pictures of faces some of which are cartoon characters that we know very well. He shows us that we see ourselves in these characters because they have human characteristics. For example, When we see a picture of Charlie Brown, we don't really see a cartoon character, we see a little boy in a yellow shirt. McCloud calls us a self centered race because we put ourselves in everything that we do. He later shows us a picture of an electrical outlet which is basically a representation of a face (this is where he states "we humans are a self centered race") .

I very much have to agree with all of the ideas that McCloud presented. I think humans are indeed a very self centered race. I also now realize after reading this what he meant about symbols and that not everything is what we think it is. I'm sure its a concept that I've always known was true but just something I never really thought about.