The American cartoonist and comics historian has penned an inventive story about a young man’s deal with death
Not many people have done more to explain comics’ appeal, and to push them as a creative form, than Scott McCloud. His first book, 1993’s Understanding Comics, is a wonderful introduction to the medium, mixing critical theory with playful drawings and taking the reader from hieroglyphics, Hogarth and stained-glass windows into superhero comics and the then novel concept of the “graphic novel”.
McCloud has published fiction, such as his exuberant but thoughtful early work Zot!, which pushed against the late-80s fashion for dark heroes and mixed romance with intergalactic drama. His pioneering work in web comics includes pieces reimagining the comic as diagram, with different narratives branching off in different directions, and a tale of love and statistics in which each panel is embedded in its predecessor and accessed via an immersive zoom. This focus on form, combined with his work lecturing and campaigning for creator rights, can obscure his abilities as a storyteller. And so an intriguing spotlight shines on The Sculptor, five years in the making and McCloud’s first graphic novel in a decade. Can the man’s who’s done so much for the comics canon write a work that leaps right into it?
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McCloud has published fiction, such as his exuberant but thoughtful early work Zot!, which pushed against the late-80s fashion for dark heroes and mixed romance with intergalactic drama. His pioneering work in web comics includes pieces reimagining the comic as diagram, with different narratives branching off in different directions, and a tale of love and statistics in which each panel is embedded in its predecessor and accessed via an immersive zoom. This focus on form, combined with his work lecturing and campaigning for creator rights, can obscure his abilities as a storyteller. And so an intriguing spotlight shines on The Sculptor, five years in the making and McCloud’s first graphic novel in a decade. Can the man’s who’s done so much for the comics canon write a work that leaps right into it?
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