Today the panelists discuss Scott McCloud's classic, Understanding Comics, a book that purports to be a lecture but in many cases comes off as a manifesto. We discuss Scott's messy definition of the medium, his genuinely good insights, and also his strong creative biases.

This book is impossible to spoil so there is no spoiler section.

• (00:00) - "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud
• (03:18) - Front Matter
• (05:22) - Impressions
• (10:18) - We’ve moved past this
• (13:10) - The mechanics of comics
• (20:20) - Part lecture, part manifesto
• (22:15) - Another opinionated textbook
• (33:15) - The definition of comics
• (41:11) - This about video games
• (42:41) - Scout has a callout
• (46:34) - Dude predicted emoji
• (47:36) - Great iconography
• (49:29) - A short biography
• (50:58) - Gutters!
• (53:23) - Pacing
• (55:27) - Public discussion
• (59:49) - Further Reading

- Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud
- Making Comics by Scott McCloud
- Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner
- The Comic Book History of Comics by Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey
- Inventing Comics (from Comics Journal #234, June 2001) by Dylan Horrocks

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This week’s panelists can be found at:
Scout
Matt
Robin

Jillian

Editing this week by AJ Fillari.
Cover art by Scout Wilkinson.
Intro/Outro music by Boqeh.