Scott McCloud

Jimmy introduced T.E.D., which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and the website to us on Wednesday, April 6th.  Scott McCloud gave a talk on Comics, which was very interesting.
Scott McCloud on TED

I watched Scott's talk on Comics on the TED website three times just so I could take in everything he said and jot down several of the references he made.  I loved how he opened the talk with his family.  I enjoy learning about people's history and roots.  His father being blind and

Charles Babbage Who was the first the ever think of the computer's invention? Charles Babbage.  This was something I did not know, so I googled him.  Babbage was an inventor, philosopher, and a mathmetical engineer.  He is known as "the father of the computer."

Moore's Law

 "The observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. In subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law, which Moore himself has blessed. Most experts, including Moore himself, expect Moore's Law to hold for at least another two decades." 

(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Moores_Law.html)

Look for patterns  I had taken an art history class last quarter and learned about Egyptian hieroglyphics and Roman Columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan but I had never made the comparison between those and comics.  They are very much alike in the directional storytelling of images.

 

Roman Column of Trajan

Infinite Canvas  I found his idea of having comics on the computer screen, but "looking at the monitor as a window."  I thought this was a clever idea and I had a chance to look at some of the comics on his website.  I found the presentation of "Mimi's Last Coffee" to be great.  It was totally interactive in that you, the user, had to click to the next comic scene, and there were even different directions in which the story could go.  The story, however, was a bit morbid for.  I guess it was also the use of the color red, black, and white that got me, too. Visit his website if you haven't at http://scottmccloud.com/

At the end of his talk, Scott said, "Media, all media, provide us a window back into our world."  He later explained that media allows us see the world  in different ways, therefore allowing us to reshape it.  I think this tied in well with his idea of using the monitor as a window to view comics because virtually we can now view comics in all directions, which makes them more appealing to the viewer.  Since newspaper are going digital, why not comics? I think it makes them so much more interesting. 
 
Durable Mutation Scott brought up durable durable mutation and at first I did not understand what he was talking about, but I thought about it and to me I think he meant that with the ever growing and changing technological advances, especially with the computer, we as designers, creators and inventors, have to find ways to make things "adaptable to it's environment". Technology will always have to be proven functional for us because it's supposed to make life easier, and sometimes more interesting.  So, any idea or creation that doesn't stick will not last, and therefore is not durable.