Scott McCloud Quotes

Think of your face as a mask. That's what it is, after all. A mask. Facing outward. Worn from the day you were born. Slave to your every mental command. Seen by everyone you meet. But never by you. Open its eyes now. Just think it. The mask will obey.

In comics at its best, words and pictures are like partners in a dancer and each one takes turns leading.

It would take a lifetime to read all the webcomics published in one year.

Comic book readers are just as abandoned by the corporate system as the creators, despite the importance supposedly given their hard-earned dollars. The average comics shop can offer only a tiny fraction of an industrywide selection that is itself extremely limited in scope. And even when readers know exactly what they want, the search can be maddeningly futile.

There's a very big part of me that just wants to take all of comics history and toss it on the bonfire. I'd sort of like to get on to the future.

Space does for comics what time does for film!

My dad was an inventor, and I think I've always had a rosy view of technology, or at least its potential.

A medium is a bridge between two minds.

Form and content must never apologize for each other.

If you think about it, for any kind of content on the web, the natural price per unit of these things should be under a dollar.

Webcomics are much bigger than any one scene can circumscribe.

To be a "thing" that thinks and moves and wants ... that's MIRACULOUS.

Creator and reader are partners in the invisible creating something out of nothing, time and time again.

If a comic comes out on the scene and it's really knock-out brilliant, the community is pretty good about getting the word about good newcomers.

It wasn't until I discovered comics that I actually began to approach drawing as a possible career.

The panel acts as a sort of general indicator that time or space is being divided. The durations of that time and the dimensions of that space are defined more by contents of the panel than by the panel itself.

The idea that comics stores, distributors and publishers simply 'give the customers what they want' is nonsense. What the customers wanted they didn't get - and they left.

By stripping down an image to its essential "meaning", an artist can amplify that meaning in a way that realistic art can't.

When you're free of editorial control, you owe it to yourself to obtain feedback from friends and readers. Some take those criticisms to heart and incorporate it into their work, and some ignore them.

The notion of getting under the hood and explaining how something works, that's fairly familiar territory to me.

And what better way to reinvent the form than to toss virtually 99% of everything that's been done with it and start with a brand-new canvas, reinvent it from the ground up? Digital comics gave me the opportunity to do that, and producing things digitally gave me the opportunity to do that.

I may have drawn an axe being raised in this example, but I'm not the one who let it drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why. That, dear reader, was your special crime. Each of you was committing it in your own style.

I don't think the potential for comics in nonfiction has been exploited nearly as much as it could be.

If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.

So this is it. This is the Great Escape.
Is it wrong for us to want this? I keep thinking, if there are so many worlds, who decided which one to put us on? No one asked us what we wanted. Don't we have the right to look for something more?
We'll be back; we know we can't stay away forever.
But just for a while ... just for a while.

> First, move out of that big Manhattan loft and head upstate. You'll find a little place you can afford and start a new life. Maybe get a job teaching at a community college. Maybe meet a girl at Best Buy, start dating. She'll put up with your crazy habits. You'll put up with her musical tastes.

> I don't understand. What's going on here?

> Time will pass. You'll make it official. You'll settle down, get a starter house. Two boys. Yellow Lab. Minivan.

> That. . . That isn't me.

> Why not? It could be. You'll make art in the basement for yourself for a while. The boys'll get married. Have kids of their own. Maybe y'get divorced. Meet someone new. And yeah, you'll wonder what could have been. But less, as the years go by. "Just wasn't meant to be," you'll say. And there'll be good times along the way. Sweet memories. Until it starts to wind down. Until your body fails. Until you don't recognize the world around you. Until it's time to go.

> That. . . isn't me. It can't be.

> Why not? It's a decent life. Food, sex, running water, a roof. Not to mention love and family. Those aren't small things.

> But it's not enough.

> You kids, you're so spoiled! Y'know billions would kill for a life like that. So what if the art thing didn't work out? Is it really that important?

> It's all I have.

The natural world creates great beauty every day, yet the only rules of composition it follows are those of function and chance.

I'm back, boys and girls! back from the pink padded couch palace!