Understanding Comics

This is not a pipe, nor is it even an image in the traditional sense of the word,

but merely a collection of a line of code that makes up this visual. Even then, it's not truly what you're seeing, as what you're experiencing is that code being expressed through a screen of some sort, and an array of colors of various miniscule lights that are triggered by a device that assemble certain colors in a pattern.

Semiotics can be expressed through icons, which represents objects directly, index, which regards implied association with the object, and symbols which attempt to invoke a certain idea, and are often directly relied on cultural ties. Comics rely heavily on symbols, and what's really interesting to me regarding what McLeod goes over, is what the limits of some universal symbols are. How simplistic can a smiley face be drawn until it no longer registers can be drawn? How wide or distorted can it be drawn until it is no longer something we associate with a human face? While I know this is not something he covers in depth, it's just something that really caught my attention and has led me to really think about what an experiment regarding this phenomena would look like.

In short, there is no "realism" in actuality, as to draw anything in a symbolic way relies heavily on some sort of abstraction. Every drawing has an aspect of abstraction in it, and comics rely heavily on this aspect of semiotics and symbolism to portray meaning.