Response to Ashali's Question

2. Why can't "realistic art" amplify the meaning of something like a simple cartoon can?

This question touches on one of McCloud's fundamental arguments. The simple answer is that we can see ourselves in a simple cartoon. He repeatedly gives the example of a circle with two dots and a line as a face. Even a face with emotion depending on how the dots are slanted and the line is positioned/curved. In fact, this image is so ingrained in our recognition that we cannot see it as anything else. I think a simple cartoon also frees up the artist to twist reality in a way that "realistic art" doe not allow. A simple cartoon thus champions symbolic descriptions through images rather than precise recreations of reality. A symbol, of course, is not sutured as closely to the signifier as reality aspires to be. So we as readers or watchers can bring the signifier (cartoonish symbol) back to the signified (what the cartoonish symbol represents or signals) by implanting our own meaning into the symbol -- a far easier task when the cartoon is simple.