CHs. 7 & 8.

Chapter seven, titled "The Six Steps", starts out by discussing comics as an art form.  In its simplest statement, YES, comics are art! McCloud uses a caveman tribe to discuss the idea that art is in fact all around us, the girl making shapes with a stick in the dirt, the boy tapping rocks on rocks, and even the boy dancing in frustration.  He writes, "Art is the way we assert our identities as individuals and break out of the narrow roles nature cast us in." (166).  Art is in fact provides many things to the world, exercise, self expression, and discovery.  Art is all around us and included in everything we do.  The six steps of art are 1) idea/purpose 2) form 3) idiom 4) structure 5) craft 6) surface.  Art is a cycle in itself that follows a certain path.  McCloud views comics as the intermediary between a storyteller and an audience.  The question, "What is enough?", is discussed.  It is enough for the evaluator or the artist? What matters? Artists want an identity, something of some type that has not been done before.  Chapter eight, (the prettiest one!) is titled "A Word About Color".  He discusses the fact that the relationship between color and comics can be expressed in two words, "Commerce and Technology".  McCloud talks about the three primary colors, red blue and green, which can be mixed together to make all the colors on the spectrum and all add up to pure white.  Color boosted sales.. and costs.  At first, the comics were restricted by the printing on cheap newsprint which formed the colors and look of the comic.  Most heres were captured in the strong primary colors.  McCloud talks about the properties of flat colors (emphasize shape) and black and white techniques. One of the importance in understanding comics comes from the inabilibty to get into another's mind, a broken communication.  "In comics the conversion follows a path from mind to hand to paper to eye to mind." (195).