"This ancient form of art, or method of expression, has found its way to the widely read comic strips and books which have established an undeniable position in the popular culture of this century. It is interesting to note that Sequential Art has only recently emerged as a discernible discipline alongside film making, to which it is truly a forerunner. . . . Sequential Art has been generally ignored as a form worthy of scholarly discussion. While each of the major integral elements, such as design, drawing, caricature and writing, have separately found academic consideration, this unique combination has received a very minor place (if any) in either the literary or art curriculum."

Alex Raymond (1909-1956, creator of Flash Gordon, Jim of the Jungle and Rip Kirby)

"I decided honestly that comic art is an art form in itself. It reflects life and times more accurately, and is more artistic than magazine illustration since it is entirely creative. An illustrator works with camera and models; a comic artist begins with a white sheet of paper and dreams up his whole business -- he is playwright, director, editor and artist at once."

 

Picasso  "The great sorrow of my life is never have done comics"

Scott McCloud (author of Zot and Understanding Comics)

"Understanding comics is serious business. Today, comics is one of the very few forms of mass communication in which individual voices still have a chance to be heard. . . . Today the possibilities for comics are -- as they always have been -- endless. Comics offers tremendous resources to all writers and artists: faithfulness, control, a chance to be heard far and wide without fear of compromise... It offers range and versatility with all the potential imagery of film and painting plus the intimacy of the written word. And all that's needed is the desire to be heard -- the will to learn -- and the ability to see."
 
 

Dave Sim (creator of Cerebus)  "(C)omics is the only medium where it is possible to produce something really idiosyncratic and have it... widely disseminated at a very low cost."

 

Richard Corben (creator of Den)

"Comic books are, primordially, a visual medium. There are drawings, the plane of the pages, the graphic harmony of the images, scenes and characters that first attract the reader. Ergo, the drawing should also be disposed in a conventional way, so that it forms a narrative. Some drawers put more emphasis in the first task -- visual attraction -- while others work more thoroughnesslly the descriptive and narrative elements. I think that I belong to the second category, like the most pencillers I admire"
 
Federico Fellini
"Comic books are the ghostly fascination of these paper people, paralised in time, stringlesses puppets, imobiles, unable to be transported to movies, whose charm lies in rithm and dynamism. It's a radically diferent way to please the eyes, an unique way of expression. The world of comic books can, in its generosity, lend plots, characters and stories to the movies, but can't lend its inexpressible power of suggestion that lies in the permanence and immobility of a butterfly in a pin."

(*A special thanks for Don Woods and his wife, that sent me the original quotes of Alex Raymond, Will Eisner and Scott McCloud. For more information about the sources of these quotes, see the bibliography.)

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