Blood in the Gutter

Reading Scott McCloud’s ‘Blood in the Gutter’, it was eye opening to how incredible and stimulating forms of content can come across through a comic, coming from someone who has never been a massive enthusiast of cartoons. Whenever I attempted to read comics, I simply thought about the images and stories that were being told. However, when reading through, I had new thoughts about the relations that form subconsciously from an audience’s perspective when they read comics, or face the media. Every idea that is essentially proposed is challenged by the audience’s perception of the world. “All of us perceive the world as a whole through the experience of our senses, yet our senses can only reveal a world that is fragmented and incomplete.” Every person is unique in their own way, making the world a different experience for every individual person.

The idea of the title ‘Blood in the Gutter’ is expressed from the purpose of gutters, which is a term used for the space between the panels, which its reason is for human imagination to take two separate images and transforms them into a single idea, filling the spaces with personal creativity or ideas. Gutters can be where a person takes a creative journey to connect the gaps of the black and white spaces, and can ‘mentally construct a continuous, unified reality’. However, the editor also plays an integral and vital role, as they are the brains of the images, to start the audience’s imagination process, using their knowledge to influence the audience, and what someone may gather from their text.

Which is where the idea of closure comes in, which was intensely eye opening, as it plays such an extraordinary role for myself, especially in a world of media where closure plays a significant role in daily life. Closure is described as “observing the parts but perceiving the whole”. However, studying it in this text it shows even from an early time in our lives, playing the game peek-a-boo, to watching a film etc, a person will always come down to draw a conclusion. As we observe the parts but receive the whole through senses, basically gives ourselves and everyone around us closure in knowing how something may conclude. Closure has the power to manipulate and influence an audience to stay engaged to any form of media, making accusations of what may fall within the gutter to satisfy their imaginations!! (I always do it myself)

Comics use a structure to create the ‘gutter’ where audiences find closure through art and craft

1. Moment-to-moment
2. Action- to action
3. Subject-to-subject
4. Scene-to-scene
5. Aspect-to-aspect
6. Non-sequitur

Concluding, the role of an audience is essential in all types of media, television, films, and especially comic. Without the engagement of the audience, and their role of being a conscious collaborator through closure, there would unquestionably be no story.