Understanding Comics

A major point that Scott McCloud covered is what the different types of transitions are, and how they effect the storytelling of a comic. I've read a lot of comics, and although I've seen many examples of each of these transitions, I never was really aware of or noticed how they all serve different purposes, until it was brought to the center of my attention and broken down in an easy-to-understand way. Exploring and learning more about the actual types of transitions has been very eye-opening, and has helped me to understand the medium of comics better as a whole.

Personally, I am quite fond of the moment-to-moment transitions. I feel that they do a very nice job of portraying suspense. I also very much enjoy the aspect-to-aspect transitions because of how powerful they can be in setting the tone of the scene. I grew up mainly reading Japanese and Korean comics, so that might have contributed to my preference in these particular transitions, as they don't seem to be as widely used in western comics.

 Speaking of that, it was also very interesting to visually see the differences in how western and eastern comics use transitions through the charts he made. It makes me wonder if the same patterns still apply to more modern comics, since consuming media from all over the world is so accessible now. Inspiration and preferences comes from what you consume and enjoy, so I would imagine that being able to read works from all over the place could shift the cultural dynamic at least a little.