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Closure: Finding the True Perspective

In his book “Understanding Comics”, Scott McCloud examines the literature of comics in a very deep prespective, discussing the importance of topics like closure, icons, color etc and how these small things come together to play a crucial role in writing and comprehending comics and graphic novels. With closure, for instance, McCloud writes about how the space between the gutters help readers dive into an imagination world of their own and how they assume things that must have happened between the two frames (67). All this happens unconciously because as readers we are accusomed to some universal truths like, if there is a face we will assume that it will have legs, like other human beings. But also beyond these simple notions, we, as readers are tend to create an involuntary action in our minds to run the story like a film in our heads, that help us read through such graphic oreinted books and it varies person to person. McCloud goes even further to enunciate that “Closure in comics fosters intimacy surpassed only by the written word, a silent secrect contract between creator and audience” (69). He adds furthur to this subject that it depends solely on the artist to what extent and how much he want to manipulate this art. This is a very important claim maid by McCloud because an artist uses different types of closure in a single book which shows that type of closure depends on a particular scene or emotion at that very particular momemt. To support the above statement I would like to take a few examples from Eric Drooker’s graphic novel “Flood”. The book revolves around a man living in the corporate superessed city of New York. Drooker proficiently employs closure throughout the book by focusing on critical details and dropping unexpected images, to keep readers engaged and apply their notions to complete the bigger picture. Like in the image below (right after the scene where the protaganist is kicked out of the house after the one night stand), by just looking the first few pictures we can easily make out that the protaganist is looking down, and wandering alone on the streets on an urban city which symbolises the emotion of sadness and lonlines.

Also in the third row of the picture, in the series of images we can see two types of closure. First, “moment to momemt” where the protaganist is asking for something and the couple completely ignores him as if he does not even exist. The wide eyes open out as soon as the couple passes by depicts the emotion of shock. This is how humans react to a surprise, they open their eyes wide to make themselves absorb in the feeling. This example explains how small details aid the readers to perform closure. Also, taking this thought forward we see that the protaganist is in supermarket and is likely trying to steal a fruit or vegetable, which help us understand the previous scene more better that the protaganist must be asking for money for food as he was hungry but as he was unsuccessful in his attempt so he tries to steal but fails in that as well. In this particular sequence we performed a much bigger closure as we relate and connect the unlinked images. This is called “aspect to aspect” closure, as place, time and idea all come together to make sense of the emages (72).

All these thoughts and emotions are not written but as a reader, we are able to make sense of the images without giving it much thought. Because we as a human relate facial expressions to emotions and actions to situations. Like in this case, hands of the protaganist are still reaching out even after the couple has passed by and when he looks back to them reflects a sense of surprise/shock. Similarly, the action of stealing food shows that the man must be hungry and do not have money that describes his situation. Closure is basically an extention of our thoughts that assist us in completing the unseen part of a story which is significant to understand the real meaning behind the graphics. Like here the aim of Drooker is not to narrate a story of a sad man in a big city. Instead, he uses the space between the gutters in the images above to show how indifferent people have become to their surroundings and how this corporate revolution is eating out all the emotions out of the world. And closure helps us in understanding this bigger context.

But its hard to perform closure without meaningful graphics or icons. Therefore, McCloud also explains how icons help in bringing a story to life. Icons can be of various types and each icon depicts a different meaning. Unlike closure which cannot be seen and is just experienced, icons are visible to us and their characterstics help us shape our thoughts around them. In his book “Understanding Comics”, McCloud mentions how a simplicity in drawings lead to universality (31), which is very true because the less there are critical details on a drawing the more difficult it becomes to distinguish it from others.

Like in Eric Drooker’s “Flood” , the protaganist is just a solid plain black drawing of a human with hands and legs, no details except the occasional heart or bones we see inside him which makes it more obvious that it is a human. This simple drawing has no face to it, and as readers while reading through the book we are able to relate ourselves to him because we don't see any distinctions to differentiate the drawing of the protaganist to a particular person. In McCloud’s language, the drawing of the protaganist has no mask to it and so we can put and imagine it anyone we can, even ourselves (34). Not because we are sad or lonely in our real lives but this adoption of character from the book help us in diving inside the story and making it as real as possible in our heads. Therefore, we are then able to better understand the flow of emotions the protaganist must be going through.

This phenomenon of simplicity is highlighted further in his book as well. The two consecutive images below will help us understand it bit better. The images represent the scene after the protaganist ran away from the police officer.

The main point here the author is trying to show is the insignificance of the protaganist in the world and to show this he uses simplification to amplify the effect. We can see in the first image how the person is still a black body with some weight to it but as we turn the page the image of person is represented through the stick model, i.e the most basic way to draw a human. The use of such an unadorned icon is to showcase how negligible the protaganist is feeling during this point. He is not able to distinguish himself in the crowd of millions and is somehow lost among it. This example shows how powerful role does these small details play in shaping the bigger meaning of the narrative. Icons is a tool, that empowers the author to help him put his ideas and thoughts on paper, so that his/her audience can relate to them.

This explains how small details or the way of drawing i.e icons trickels certain societal or personal notions in the minds of readers and help them comprehend a story and understand the broader picture more easily. In addition, we understood how icons complement closure by dropping in ideas or moods through certain kind of images, which gives readers the headstart in the parellel world of imagination to create a unique story on their own. And how closure aids the writers to engage their audience with varied emotions of drama, comedy or actions by skipping certain scenes and leaving it to the imagination of the reader to interpret it in his/her own way. This explains how closure is being constantly peformed by the readers in the back of their minds and pave a path for them to get the true prespective.

References:

Drooker, Eric. Flood!: A Novel in Pictures. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics:. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.