This book is the third in Scott McCloud’s “trilogy” (I’m not sure if there are more coming but for now it’s a trilogy). First there was Understanding Comics (also highly recommended), Reinventing Comics (didn’t really rock my boat much) and now Making Comics. This third book is really about putting into practice the principles outlined in the Understanding Comics about how comics work, on the part of cartoonists. But it’s also useful for readers to see, “Wow, so that’s how they do it”, etc.

What I like best about Scott McCloud’s work is its self-referentiality. His books are in comic form as well, and it’s interesting to see how the comic illustrates the principles he’s expounding on, and how the principles elucidate what’s going on in the text. Pictures and words mutually aid each other to give you a more complete understanding. You can tell that he has thought about the principles of exposition very carefully and that this book has a lot to offer. (The comics-based exposition also makes it really fun to read.)

And this book does give a lot. From the first page I found myself learning about the principles of story-telling, then goes onto drawing, setting the mood, etc., etc. There is also an online half-chapter about web comics but it appears that it’s not live yet on his site. I particularly liked his illustrations of how combining various fundamental expressions (e.g. joyful, sad, etc) can produce many other more complex emotions. But the whole book was illuminating and I highly recommend it to anyone, even those who are not particularly big on comics.