McCloud first states, can emotions be visual? I think they can be in several different ways, since certain images describe emotions by an icon, or certain images. I think it really depends on the reader, from their past experiences, and how they relate to certain stories is how they will decipher the story. This is where fine art came to be, from famous artists showing their emotions through their paintings. By looking at a certain painting, people can decipher the emotion pretty clearly by the actual image, shading, detail and lines.

Moreover, comics have a more straightforward style than the famous painters, Van Gogh and Munch.  By just creating certain lines, can appeal to certain emotions, he explains a Peanuts character is more calm and portays introspection. Softer and open lines tend to be more whimsical and peaceful. Where heavy, thick lines with more detail are expressive and show fear or anxiety. Which is true because when a reader is going through a comic, the lines are the most important part of drawing out a certain character, or shading to portay certain emotions. Also, same lines that are drawn for certain objects can be drawn for different emotion or senses too, so they can have a double meaning, where readers will understand. Detail is a main objective to give off emotions and show certain senses in comics.

Additionally, comic writers need to constantly think about choice of moment, frame, flow, word and image, to think about the finished product. To start with, the comic can be a rough sketch of the images, dialogue and narration but always think about the final product. The writer can mess around with the order of the choices, because that is how the comic is different than all the other ones, even just changing the background color, size of the font, or what not. Just keep the flow going even though it might not be logical but if it is random, the writer willl keep the reader on their toes.

However, the way the writer goes into detail of the image from the dialogue is extremely vital. I feel like when I am reading a comic, it is almost a slow motion movie, but in the end it all comes together in my mind like a motion picture. By just enlarging a whole scene of characters, and then zooming into one character makes the reader wonder why is the writer doing this to keep the reader thinking what will come next. Long and short shots of the images make the story more intense by just certain colors, expressions and imagery that the writer makes.

Writing with pictures is a huge way to get a mental picture of what the writer is trying to get across to the reader. McCloud states that there are two things that storytellers want from the audience, understanding what the writer tells them and wanting them to care enough to finish the whole story. Clarity from the writer impacts how the reader will read and follow the pictures in an effective way of understanding the story. Making sure the writer will break down the story enough for the reader to understand and make sure the images follow the sequence. Next is persuading the audience to stay with the story until it is done. If a reader starts a story and it is not organized, it is pretty likely they will not understand or be engaged in the story and not finish it.

Clarity and persuasion are two major roles that affect the writer and reader in several ways. The writer has many decisions to make about the font, imagery, dialogue, and composition because each choice is vital in making the comic by each choice of moment, frame, image, word and flow. I would not think there are that many details into making a comic, since if the reader does see a certain part of the story they can just visualize it but in comics each step of the story is broken down. The smallest parts of the story are the most imporant because if the reader does not see a small part, the whole story is thrown off and they wonder how something happened if they did not see it.

Comics come in all different shape and sizes. Each panel shows a single moment in time, which is crucial when reading a comic because the visual story needs to match up with the story that is being read. If there is space in between the panels, or blanks, the reader is filling their mind with whatever comes to mind that fits in the story that they are reading, so it is important how the layout of the comic is to understand and follow the comic.  However, when comics are filled with dialogue, certain dialogues are faster or slower to read because of the intensity of the certain panel. Where as an icon of a flash, makes the reader think, the character is taking a picture, and think of a flash sound in their head. The smallest details of comics can take the longest to process in a readers head.

When reading a comic from left to right, time can go by fast or slow, which was previously stated. But sometimes it gets too jumbled up with trying to match the balloon with the character when trying to read the dialogue and match it with who was saying what in the comic. When one long panel has a bunch of characters and dialogue in it, our eyes are trained to look at the picture as a whole and then individually look at single characters but it takes to much time to do do. So if each character was split up in single panels, the story would be easier to understand and read. Different panels make the comic move in a faster or slower pace so the reader can understand the story line better.

In McCloud’s comic article, it states all about different icons and cartoons. Icons come in myriad amounts of forms, the word spat is not a sound, a picture of a flag is not a country and a picture of a hamburger and fries are not food. However, pictures do represent the subject, other icons represents symbols from concepts, ideas and philosophies. A detailed picture of someones face is pretty self- explanatory, viewers would recognize someone they knew off of a detailed picture. But when people draw faces, that are more outlines, and less shading it looks cartoonish. Then another way, is just drawing a rough circle, with dots for eyes, a line for a nose and a mouth and lines for hair, people would still know it is a picture of a face. Different images even though they are drawn out differently or certain icons people still know the meaning behind the icon.

The last time I read through a comic strip was probably a few months ago, when I read through the comic section in the newspaper. Comics are entertaining, and put a visual to a story being told, which appeals to many individuals. Individuals recognize cartoon strips, characters, or certain artistry from comics because of how popular some comics/ characters are in our culture. Some characters are universally popular, even live action films are known as comics because of the intensity. Vivid detail is an important step even when people are face to face talking, so they recognize certain features of people. Comics are very interesting and detailed since they add their own spin to they story since it is visual.

From the previous article, I stated that Quentin Tarantino is one of the most original filmmakers of this era. From his biography, he claimed that he got a job at a video store, where several movie industry insiders go to and he wound  up writing a script and giving it to them. All in all, his script was approved, where it satirizes society and how Hollywood was created. Which are the movies, Kill Bill I and II, where they state commentary of American society and culture. Even though these movies are pretty violent and gory, the way he made these films they are almost comical to the audience in certain parts. He makes several references to society, fast food, music, television and movies.

The sensationalist movement is growing and is varied with every innovation in technology. Even with making sensation to the audience, it can be with violence, but not as good as Tarantino. After watching one of his films, people find themselves asking questions about our culture, because of how realistic parts of his film can entail from our society. Tarantino became a cult-figure from his films because of how absolutely anyone can relate to one of his normal or dysfunctional characters. Tarantino paves the way for future filmmakers of any kind of genre of movies. Tarantino makes the best sensation movies for anyone, to always be entertained.

Quentin Tarantino is one of the most original film makers of his era, even though his films can be extremely controversial. His films are high on violence, but in a way that is different to other films, especially Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill series that are explained in this article. These two movies are focused on the appeal to society by almost poking fun of society with violence, because the way he depicts characters in conventional settings. While watching these kind of movies, the individual constantly thinks, wow that was random with the dialog in the story line, or that certain scene was tasteful. Violence in films can get very exaggerated and not needed with how gory, bloody and down right disgusting to watch. However, in this article they stated a scene, where John Travolta’s character accidentally blew off of young man’s head in Pulp Fiction, where you would think people would be grossed out, but people laughed it off because of dialect and the mood of the film. Yet, Tarantino makes his films in that matter, where the audience can laugh at moments like that instead of cringing.

Tarantino does make violent films, but in a way that is tasteful, who deliberately blurs the line of between appeasing a societal depiction of violence against women and nudity. It is interesting to find out that European critics think that American films are a form of pornography. Which I agree with. I am not a big fan of violent films, because of how visual they can be, but even if you look back to older movies, from the 1970’s and 1980’s, the most memorable scenes are when women are always being killed in a sex scene, or in a shower. I do not understand why time after time, even now in our society of film making, it is okay to depict women in that light, always connecting women, sex and violence together. Tarantino is a one of a kind filmmaker, where he does not follow the rules, and he pretty much makes the rules so he can break them

The article states their own made up word- Apatovian, adj. of or pertaining the film comedies of writer/director Judd Apatow. Judd Apatow wrote and/or produced several comedies, for example, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. All of those movies are down right hilarious.  Knocked Up is by far one of the most influential movies in this era, because of how raw the comedy was and how true it can be. Especially that movie, many critics in this decade have stated comedies in this genre are the romantic comedies. I do agree because both men and women can relate to them and they are more realistic. Romantic comedies are not what they used to be, with a man and a woman meeting and from the looks of it they could never be together but they fall madly in love with eachother and everything turns out right, the perfect environment, and the whole atmosphere was classy and sophisticated. Sex was not all in the movies, like it is now.

In addition, even the actors who played in the movies were A-class movie stars, who were sophiscticated, handsome and confident. Romantic comedy actors now are not the most handsome individuals but they are down right funny. They make it seem more realistic that a guy, like them, can get beautiful girls like Katherine Heigl in the end and can turn their life around for the better. Slackers do have certain charms to them, but in the end the slacker turns into a good man that is responsible. Knocked is one of the best films of the era, since it blatantly states pregancy, relationship, and work issues that are realistic for everyone in our society.

Almost every single one of Judd Apatow’s films consists of a man, who is worthless, either stoned out and is a huge gamer. However at the end of the film, time after time, that man is turned into a mensche. A mensche in Jewish terms is a responsible man, that takes care of himself and his family. Which means in a Apatow film, the man is worthless but is transformed into a mensche. For example in the film, Knocked Up, the lead male, who is not that attractive and responsible gets a woman, who is responsible and beautiful pregnant and slowly takes on responsibilty of their un-born child. Even though this movie is somewhat of a romantic-comedy, it sheds a lot of light to people that have gone through situations similiar to that.

Knocked Up and other Apatow films are rated- R because of the sexual content, mature language, and alcohol and drug use. These sort of movies do have good family values but should not be watched by children and young teenagers. Another film from Apatow is 40-Year-Old-Virgin, where an older man acts like 12-year old buy but slowly transitions into an adult with the help of his friends and a woman he likes even thought he goes through embarassing disasters.  These movies are coined as romantic comedies and I do agree because both men and women enjoy this style of movies. These movie are very realistic, since these situations can happen to anyone.

From the last article about video games, it asked the reader what technically is fun for the gamer when the individual thinks gaming is more work than fun. Since individuals spend hours at a time playing video games, the media reports negative affects or influences. With the content of video games always being looked at for having huge influences over teenagers because of violence, sexual content, profanity and other offenses, it is always the target to blame when kids  do violent acts. But with this article, James Paul Gee states that video games are actually positive, good video games illuminates how the human mind works. Another positive main point is that good video games incorporate good learning principles and have a great deal to teach us about learning in and out of school.

Many scholars stated that the human mind was a slate waiting to be written on, mind as software and mind as a network of connections. Throughout history, technology just gets better and better and with the building of technology it can closely capture what the mind can fully take on and do. When individuals play video games, their mind is always stimulated to have goals set in their mind, to have a win state of mind to fulfill achievement. Also, when an individual is playing they goals in the virtual world and can make that similiarity to the real world where they can set goals and and put action to their goals to have a sense of power and satisfaction. Individuals that game are deeply engaged in learning and thinking while playing, that can absolutely transfer to the real world. Gamers need to play the right games to have their minds stimulated in the right, educational way that teaches them right and wrong.