Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form

Reinventing comics, on the other hand, focuses more on the public's attitude toward comics, the comic industry, and the varied possibilities of new ways of creating, distributing, marketing, purchasing, and reading comics. It contains many of Scott's theories as to how comics are and could be influenced by the internet and the new way of thinking it has brought us.

These are two very different books with two very different subject matters. However, they link hand in hand to aid us in viewing the medium of comics as a whole. If you liked Understanding Comics, you may or may not like Reinventing Comics. If you liked Reinventing Comics, you may or may not like Understanding Comics. But if you want to view the authors opinions and ideas on everything and anything that did, does, and will apply to Comics, I advise you get them both.

Understanding Comics (the prequel) amazed me so much that I couldn't believe those negative reviews. McCloud can get a little dense sometimes, so I figured that the reviewers simply didn't want to put any effort into it.

Ahem.

It appears that I was a fool.

Mr. McCloud did seemingly go delirious over the success of the former book and the power of his new Macintosh computer, so he felt justified in dishing out the ultimate critique of market cycles. According to him, at the least.

Well, unfortunately for each good point, he gets six quite wrong and four desperately off the mark.

Nothing you really need to read. Especially in these post-new economy bubble times.

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   Written on October 19, 2001
   Summary: Competent but sometimes labored follow-up to _Understanding_
Let's call this 3 1/2 stars for most people . . . add a 1/2 star if the first book floored you.

Scott McCloud continues his analysis of the world of comics, this time spending more time on the history of the industry and possible future paths.

The reinvention in the title refers to McCloud's suggestion that Internet will free comics from the tyranny of print distribution and retail channels. I think he makes a good case -- some really amazing online comics are starting to appear -- but it does take him a long time to do it.

Many parts of _Reinventing Comics_ are just as brilliant and well-crafted as _Understanding Comics_, but as a whole it's a bit long and not as well paced as the first book.