I will admit I never really read comics. I did have a short phase in middle school where I thought Shonen Jump was the coolest, but I quickly passed it. Then, my mom got me some Archie comics, but I never read them as I wanted to look cool and read chapter books. I understand where McCloud is coming from saying that people look down upon comics because it stereotypically is seen as something only middle schoolers read and that nothing of importance is ever portrayed in cartoon form. I did some research and came across this article: https://the-artifice.com/social-stigma-comic-book-reading/ and it briefly highlights the differences between comics and graphic novels which I didn’t realize were different! And now, I feel slightly dumb that I didn’t know that.

When people think of comics, they think superheroes and ideas and themes that only children and pre-teens will understand so when McCloud mentioned this idea of “amplification through simplification,” I started thinking of all the ways that people read “comics” without knowing that they are reading them. And why is it that the more cartoons become simpler, the more people start to relate to them? I see it that the more readers are given the space to place their own imaginations in the story, the more relatable the story becomes. For example, when we think of a regular old smiley face, we can perceive that in however way we want to because it lacks defining or characteric features so it is kind of like an empty canvas. But when this smiley face is drawn with a tongue and eyelashes and freckles, then there is less space to put our own interpretation to it because it also has a “personality” built into it, so to speak.

McCloud states that the definition of comics has a tendency of being too restrictive and also too broad. So if we define comics as being either too restrictive and too broad, then in the former, comics are only for kids and in the latter, everything we read is a form of comics. I think that people just look at the cartoons and decide that comics are for kids without evaluating the theme it covers. When reading McCloud, it was weird seeing that he was talking about all the negative connotations that comics have while using that exact form to tell people how that is just a misconception. He’s using the form that people look down upon to tell them that they’re wrong and that comics can do so much more than just entertain little kids. I think that is a pretty incredible feat because it convinced me of the depth that comics can have so he can call me a happy convert!