Scott McCloud Questions

1)  When McCloud writes that a character’s personality needs “a specific origin or unifying purpose”, I believe he means that a character needs a purpose in order to seem real and for the writers to understand what their reactions will be to make them be different from the other characters.  McCloud’s reasons for arguing that creating “a compelling inner life” is the “most important” part of a characters creation would be that our history affects how characters see the world and what they expect and want from the world.  Also, it makes for an interesting story when their desires and expectations collide with others desires.

3)  McCloud visually represents psyche as the inner mind of a person, he shows a picture of a head and you can see their experiences. Visually represents autonomy by having two people’s views combine and having their views be different from the others like comparing poor vs heiress and minister vs. anthropologist.  Visually represents conflict by the same way as autonomy and also by saying it can’t be internal and external conflict like the wizard of oz’s characters (visually showed in the comic) and how they had their own conflict themselves of going home, getting a brain/heart/courage. He also visually represents purpose through this by saying/visually portraying the characters purpose in life to get a brain/heart/courage.  A purpose pushes characters to action and to search for something.  Visually represents obsession by showing how some writers are obsessed with drawing the same people and he gave examples of how the characters look a like. Also, how writers are obsessed with writing all about the characters past but all they need is a few background details by  showing a room cluttered with backgrounds of the characters and then the next slide showing just a little information about the people, which seems less cluttered.  Visually represents worldview through the past and present experiences characters have taken part in to represent their worldview. He shows this through two people looking at the small globe that McCloud is holding. Visually represents complexity by showing him as a puzzle and trying to fit everything together in the right way.  Characters need variations of characteristics or they aren’t going to have much to talk about. He also shows how he was trying to choose between similar paint cans which explains how you can’t tell things are different if they look and act the same.

5)  When McCloud appears alone in some panels, he is trying to let the readers think about what he is saying and gives himself as an example to what he is talking about.  The purpose of this is to give an actual example from real life so people can compare the topic to themselves as well.

Question #4 for Mein Kampf (My Struggle)

The irony in Spiegelman showing himself being chased by a gigantic mouse was that he was saying before that how mice were the jewish and cats were the nazi’s. Also, in his two-volume series Maus, the mice were the victims, but now  in the chasing scene he portrayed them as the predator and the chaser. Other ways “Mein Kampf” uses visual and verbal humor would be when he was describing how he use to wear a cowboy until it ripped at the knees and he was wearing the outfit.   The purpose of this was to describe in a funny way and to visualize the problems he is having with memories and how when you get older you forget more things. Also, right after that comment his kid comes in with a super hero costume and Spiegelman was saying how his sons superman costume ripped at the knees as well. The purpose of this was that even the younger kids are starting to forget the major events happening from the past and concerned more with the current events. Also, how his kid comes and says he was sad about the guerilla dying and that he should have eaten the girl.  The purpose of this was that the kid was on the side of the guerilla instead of the innocent girl which sort of portrayed his comic Maus but the guerilla and the girl represented the nazi’s and jews.