Understanding Comics: Chapter 3&4

Chapter 3 focuses on a key element in understanding comics, closure.  McCloud defines closure as "the phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole".  In a sense closure acts as a cognitive function in our brain that fills in missing information based on prior experience.  A prime example is a comic book, and how a narrative is conveyed through this medium.  McCloud describes six different approaches to panel to panel transitions in comics (comic narrative).  The first is moment to moment.  Here a picture shows every move with great detail.  The second is action to action where there is a single subject in distinct progressions.  The third is subject to subject which stays within the scene or idea but involves a greater degree of reader involvement to create meaning.  The fourth is scene to scene.  This requires deductive reasoning to understand the transitions.  Here the panels transitions transport the reader across significant distances of time and space.  The fifth type of transition is aspect to aspect.  This bypasses time and sets a "wandering eye" on different aspects to create mood.  The six and last type of transition is non sequitur.  Oddly this final transition offers no logical relationship between panels.  

The main theme of chapter four focuses on the idea of comic frames and how these frames can evoke time and motion.  Scott McCloud points out that time in comics is a very complex notion that can be executed in many techniques.  A single comic panel can be seen as representing a single moment in time and between those frozen moments (or between panels) the readers' minds fill in the intervening moments which ultimately creates the illusion of time and motion.  McCloud emphasizes the fact that the frame itself is an important icon, it acts as a "general indicator that time or space is being divided".  Panel shapes can actually make a difference in the perception of time, thus real time is altered and can be controlled.  To show motion, McCloud explains that idea that a single panel can "represent a span of time through pictures", this can be called a 'motion line'.  Different comic styles to evoke motion have evolved around the world, for example, between America and Japan.