McCloud and Berger

“Vocabulary of Comics” was written by McCloud to show how humans are fascinated with cartoons than actual real photographs. He explains that people have been exposed to comics since childhood and how we are self-centered creatures and see ourselves in the comics. Rather than a real photograph, comic is a blank canvas to our brain allowing it to wonder off and form assumptions. For example in the comic, a circle with two dots and a line are drawn and our brain recognizes it as a face even though it is just marks on a paper. McCLoud claims that the similar the drawing the easier it is for our mind to see ourselves in the comic. In the article “ Ways of Seeing” by John Berger, Berger studies how men and women are culturally represented. He notices that men and women are looked at differently. Men are looked at by their power and what all they can achieve, while women’s potential is only seen by her and not by others. This could be because women are more self-conscious than men and are always aware of their actions. Berger argues, “Men act while women appear”.

            “The Vocabulary Comic” and “Ways of Seeing” can be related in a way of how humans see the world around them. The comic describes how we are self-centered creatures and try to find ourselves in anything. Berger can say this for the article because woman are always conscious of what they are doing and only thinking of how others view them, while men are trying to glorify how people perceive them. Both ultimately only thinking of themselves and how others view them, not how they view others.  For example, in the comic it states how we are aware of who we are holding a conversation with because they are directly in front of us but we are consciously thinking of how we appear to the person even though we have no idea how we look. We just make an assumption.