Puppetry has a lot in common with two other extremely visual arts, animation and comics. When it comes to comics, Scott McCloud is probably the most visually literate man on the planet.
Scott's famous first book, Understanding Comics, is one of the best books ever written on the subject of visual media. Applying many of the concepts Scott discusses in his books to puppetry has changed the way I look at the artform. His second book Reinventing Comics cemented my interest in the web as a distribution medium for puppetry and is what originally inspired me to start blogging.
As you can tell, I'm a fan.
Scott's latest and possibly best book is Making Comics. On the surface the book is exactly what its title suggests, a book about how to make comics. But this is Scott McCloud so Making Comics goes much deeper than that. Scott discusses how successful comics are made and the underlying principles he explains are so insightful and universal they can be applied to almost any kind of art. Even if you'll never make a comic in your life, it's a great read. The book's second chapter on character design is especially useful to puppeteers and puppet builders (a few pages from this chapter are included in a review on Kevin Kelly's web site).
The first few pages from the book are available online in .pdf format here. Scott and his family are spending a year touring all 50 U.S. states to promote the book. You can follow their adventures on the road at the Making Comics Fifty State Tour blog.
Keep an eye on PuppetBuilding.com, I'll be discussing how some of the ideas from the book can be applied to puppet design later this week.
