CCT300+LAB+3

McLuhan was a Professor at the University of Toronto, where he started to write a variety of essays and books on Semiotics and how media affects society. McLuhan was the one to coin the term “the medium is the message” (McLuhan). He challenged the idea that the medium is as (and in some cases more important) than the message, because the way it is carried and shown to people can have tremendous effects beyond a textual message. The idea that we have red stop signs make people believe that red stands for ‘stop’, even if the sign were to be found without text inside of it, one would still stop and decode the meaning as having to stop. This topic leads us into what McLuhan says about comics and their relation with photographic media. Comics and photographic media carry many similarities in terms of composition and other elements. However, in Marshall McLuhan's //Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man// he defines "comics as an extension of photographic media"( Leshinski ). Place into perspective how both a photograph and comics are presented to a viewer. They are both static and capture one specific moment in time that will tell a story. What is fascinating about both is that people who view them or interact with them always create a story that goes beyond the picture or photograph. What I mean by this is that not all aspects of the story are given to you; you have to imagine what is going on outside the frame provided but within the realms of the story. In many aspects, comics are an extension of photographic media because comics take elements of photography and expand them into a more imaginative and alternate world. We as viewers are forced to participate in completing the meaning of comics. Works cited Lapham, Lewis H., and Marshall Mcluhan. //Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man//. The Mit Press, 1994. Leshinski, Guy. "McLuhan's Cool Comics." //The Cultural Gutter//. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. .
 * Do you agree or disagree with McLuhan when he defines comics as an extension of photographic media? **