COMICS & INFORMATION DESIGN, PT. 3: BUT IS IT ART?

Something to consider:

“What is art not? Well, as I’ve described it, Art is not about communication. Art is not a way of conveying information. It’s a way of understanding information. That is, creating a work of art is a means we have of making sense of the world, focusing to make it clearer, not a way of communicating some understanding of the world that we already hold. If you already hold a clear understanding of whatever then there’s no reason to create the work of art. So you don’t. In fact, you can’t. If you are trying to demonstrate some fact pictorially this is called illustration. Illustration is superficial, no matter how skilled, because it is secondary. The idea comes first and the illustration explicates it.”

– James Kochalka, “The Horrible Truth About Comics,” in THE CUTE MANIFESTO