Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
Published 1993 · 20,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Graphic Novel, Media & Technology, Nonfiction
How hard is Understanding Comics to read?
Understanding Comics scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Art criticism terms explained through the comics form.
- Sentence structure: 22 out of 100
- Abstraction: 42 out of 100
- Abstract theory of visual representation made concrete through examples.
- Information density: 48 out of 100
- Dense with theory, examples, and visual demonstration.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- The form enacts the content. Self-reflexive.
- Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
- Visual examples function as both illustration and argument.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Enthusiastic, occasionally playful.
- Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
- Clear theoretical framework presented.
- Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
- Nine chapters building a theory of comics.
How Understanding Comics is regarded
Understanding Comics holds a literary regard score of 58 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.