Scott McCloud
| Scott McCloud | |
 McCloud, RISD, March 2007. |
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| Birth name | Scott McLeod |
| Born | June 10, 1960 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | artist, writer, theorist |
| Notable works | Zot! Understanding Comics Reinventing Comics Making Comics |
| Awards | Russ Manning Award, 1985 12-time nominee for Eisner, Harvey awards[1] |
| Official website | |
Scott McCloud (born Scott McLeod on June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium.
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McCloud was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He created the light-hearted science fiction/superhero comic book series Zot! in 1984, in part as a reaction to the increasingly grim direction that superhero comics were taking in the 1980s.[citation needed] His other print comics include Destroy!! (a deliberately over-the-top, over-sized single-issue comic book, intended as a parody of formulaic superhero fights), the graphic novel The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln (done with a mixture of computer-generated and manually-drawn digital images), 12 issues writing DC Comics' Superman Adventures, and the three issue limited series Superman: Strength.
He is best known as a comics theorist, following the publication in 1993 of Understanding Comics, a wide-ranging exploration of the definition, history, vocabulary, and methods of the medium of comics, itself in comics form. He followed in 2000 with Reinventing Comics (also in comics form), in which he outlined twelve "revolutions" that he argued would be keys to the growth and success of comics as a popular and creative medium. Finally, in 2006, he released Making Comics. Following publication, he went on a tour with his family that included all 50 U.S. states and parts of Europe.[2]
He was one of the earliest promoters of webcomics as a distinct variety of comics,[citation needed] and a vocal supporter of micropayments.[3] He was also an advisor to BitPass, a company that provided an online micropayment system, which he helped launch with the publication of The Right Number, an online graphic novella priced at US$0.25 for each chapter. McCloud maintains an active online presence on his web site where he publishes many of his ongoing experiments with comics produced specifically for the web. Among the techniques he explores is the "infinite canvas" permitted by a web browser, allowing panels to be spatially arranged in ways not possible in the finite, two-dimensional, paged format of a physical book.
His latest work is a comic book that formed the press release introducing Google's web browser, Google Chrome, which was published on September 1, 2008.[4]
McCloud was the principal author of the Creator's Bill of Rights, a 1988 document with the stated aim of protecting the rights of comic book creators and help aid against the exploitation of comics artists and writers by corporate work-for-hire practices.[5] The group that adopted the Bill also included artists Kevin Eastman, Dave Sim, and Stephen R. Bissette.[6] The Bill included twelve rights such as "The right to full ownership of what we fully create," and "The right to prompt payment of a fair and equitable share of profits derived from all of our creative work."[7]
In 1990 McCloud coined the idea of a 24-hour comic, a complete 24-page comic created by a single cartoonist in 24 consecutive hours. It was a mutual challenge with cartoonist Steve Bissette, intended to compel creative output with a minimum of self-restraining contemplation.[8] Thousands of cartoonists have since taken up the challenge.[9]
- Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993, ISBN 0-613-02782-5)
- Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form (2000, ISBN 0-06-095350-0)
- Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels (2006, ISBN 0-06-078094-0)
- ^ Lambiek Comiclopedia. "Scott McCloud".
- ^ MIT news (September 20, 2006). "'Making Comics' author decodes cartoons".
- ^ The Guardian (August 7, 2003). "Making the web pay".
- ^ McCloud, Scott (2008-09-01). "Google Chrome, behind the Open Source Browser Product". Google. Retrieved on 2008-09-02.
- ^ Coogan, Pete (September, 1990). "Creator's Rights". The Comics Journal p. 65-71
- ^ McCloud, Scott (2000). Reinventing Comics, New York: Paradox Press. Pg. 62
- ^ "Creator's Bill of Rights" (2006-10-13).
- ^ Brattleboro Museum. "The 24-Hour Comic Book Challenge".
- ^ The 24-Hour Comics Index
- McCloud profile on RAW's site
- Scott McCloud French publications Bedetheque (French)
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Scott McCloud |
- Official website
- 24 Hour Comics
- Scott McCloud biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
- "Scott McCloud's 'Zot!' is out of this world" New York Daily News (Aug. 24, 2008).
- "Interview with Scott McCloud, artist behind Google Chrome comic" New York Daily News (Sept. 7, 2008).
