Alan Moore. Comics. Brain. Both sides of. Uh . . .

[Eric Plumrose]

The Beardie Weirdie apparently said something during an interview about us using both sides of our brains when we read comics. Is there an http to it? Or someone able to quote it?

[Peter Wolf]

I listened to the same interview and was intrigued by this theory.

Icant help with any references or links right now but later i might look around online and see what i can find out.

[pauljholden]

There's definately a long standing theory that the combination of words+pictures stimulates the brain much more than words alone causing you to be able to absorb more information - the US Army, famously, during wwii used Will Eisener drawn comics to train troops on various things.

Not sure I'd agree it stimulates BOTH sides of the brain - left and right sides deal with logic/creativity - but I'm sure it stimulates the areas of the brain for words and a separate area for pictures.


-pj
ps I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.

[maryanddavid]

I had, aloooong time ago, the good fortune to get a series of lectures off Will Eisner in Dublin back when I had ambitions to be a comics writer, and he did touch on the subject.
If I remember this right, he said that you remember art or pictures with one side of the brain and text with the other. So the theroy is that with comics you are remembering the story with both sides of the brain as opposed to films or novels which is only remembered with one side.

David

[Bouwel]

the US Army, famously, during wwii used Will Eisener drawn comics to train troops on various things.

These are worth seeking out as they're also a wonderful early example of the 'info-graphic' (something I love). I do have an url to a page for them but it's rather long.

-Bouwel-

[COMMANDO FORCES]

There is a quote in this months SFX by him-

"These days, I increasingly get a sense of the comics industry going through my trashcan like raccoons in the dead of night."

[TordelBack]

Erudite grump Eddie Campbell had an excellent blog post on Eisner: The Army Years.  Opened my eyes, anyhow.

http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/2009/08/t-he-usual-summary-of-comic-book-artist.html



An uncontrollable pedant adds: the left-brain/right-brain thing shouldn't be taken too literally - the brain might have two hemispheres, but most functions are distributed in a complex way across different areas, and across both hemispheres.  It's more of a metaphor.  

[Eric Plumrose]

An uncontrollable pedant adds: the left-brain/right-brain thing shouldn't be taken too literally - the brain might have two hemispheres, but most functions are distributed in a complex way across different areas, and across both hemispheres.  It's more of a metaphor.

Yeah, that's pretty much my (admittedly limited) understanding of how the brain works. Specifically interested in what the snake-botherer (missus!) himself had to say about it. I'd forgotten about PS, tho, so chrs fr tht, PJ.

Can't remember the last time I even flicked through THE COMICS JOURNAL. But TordelBack's link did remind me of something I've wondered occasionally, if only fleetingly. Is DouG ROTH, the Marxist intellectual journo from WATCHMEN, based on yer man Gary? As Rorshach said, however:

"No pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose."

And that's kinda why I was asking about sensorium sidings in the first place!