Understanding Comics

It is not the actual item. It is a drawing of the item. Those are not people in that painting, those are paintings of people. An icon represents a person, place, or thing. There are images that stand for something else, there are images that convey language, there are pictures (resembles the object). However, images can change and mean something else. It really has to do with how you see something. Letters and numbers always represent the same thing, but pictures are the things that change. Words are abstract. You can change the face of someone by just drawing lines and it still represents that person. A cartoon can put the meaning out there that was intended. There is a slight chance that it will be misunderstood. You can point out exactly what you want to point out. You can focus on what you want people to see. You can express emotion in a drawing. Words only do so much. An image can really speak to a person. You can create an emotion with one image that might take several sentences to evoke in a person. Art makes things visible. Even a line can be strong, dynamic, or angry.