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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Comic readers are conditioned by real life and other media to expect a _______ progression in comics.

2. What is typically the third most common type of transition in the most storytelling technique used in comics?

3. The author describes comics as a ______, or a medium which "can hold any number of ideas and images."

4. What was the name of Max Ernst's surreal plate sequence?

5. What is the space between comic panels called?

Short Essay Questions

1. Is Scott McCloud the ultimate authority of comics?

2. For what do Japanese mainstream comics use aspect-to-aspect transitions?

3. What is McCloud's notion of the Picture Plane?

4. In the panel with the basketball players, how could you add words while depicting one single moment?

5. How is the screenfold of 8-Deer "Tiger's Claw" considered a comic?

6. How do words introduce time into a single frame?

7. How do Japanese comics physically differ from Western comics?

8. How can an artist depict time in comics?

9. According to McCloud, everything that people experience in life can be separated into which two realms?

10. How is the Egyptian painting referenced in the book considered a comic?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

McCloud states that "to kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousand deaths." What does he mean by this statement? What is the reader's involvement in the space between panels, the gutter?

Essay Topic 2

McCloud notes that "We see ourselves in everything. We assign identities and emotions where none exist. And we make the world over in our image." Personification is a literary device that demonstrates McCloud's statement. Think of a time where you personified an inanimate object or abstract notion. What was it? What human attributes did you give to it?

Essay Topic 3

Eastern and Western approaches to art differ. In graphic arts, for example, Western art often focuses attention to foreground objects only while Eastern art emphasizes both the foreground and the background of negative space. Argue the merits of shortcomings of each approach.

(see the answer keys)

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