ch. 7 & 8 of "Understanding Comics"

Chapter 7 is about the "six steps" of comics. These steps include: Idea/Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft, and Surface. Before the author gets to these steps he gives a few demonstrations as to how art is life and life is art. He first shows us how a group of inactive, bored cave-dwellers is in fact "a thriving art colony!". The cave-woman is drawing lines with a stick and the form of her lines indicates that today she has a stomachache which is why her lines are tight and angular when yesterday she felt fine, thus her lines were curved and open. One cave man is tapping rocks on a giant rock he is leaning against. The smaller rocks tapping on the larger create a rhythmic beat. A boy nearby kicks up dirt and pebbles and pubbels the air with his fist because today he lost a fight to his brother and "now all he can do is dance away his frustration". Lastly, a small girl child sings some weird song composed of non-words. The whole group together is actively living and being and while being and exercising art at the same time. With the six steps the author conveys to us that you can be stuck at step 1 or step 6 or step 2 or any other step between and sometimes it may be good enough to satisfy you, while other times you strive for more, strive to fulfill the next step. Typically people move from step 6, surface, to step 1, idea/purpose. This is because it is easier to create something you like/others would like than to come up with an initial idea and try to create something that you can expand from it. However, as the author points out, this is not the best way at all because it is even harder to get steps 1-5 to relate to step 6 than it is to get steps 2-6 to relate to step 1. ;)
Chapter 8 talks about color in comics and how it derived from commerce and technology and how it changed comics for good. Many different comics styles emerged from the introduction of color as well as different techniques. Even certain characters became associate with specific colors: i.e. super man= red, blue, yellow; hulk= red, green. Overall, the main message is that the black fundamental behind all comics, as is white, and the black line will always exist so it is more important to develop your skill with black and white because if you are good at that, you are a master of color and a master of comics.