Scott McCloud

Half for my Contextual studies and half for for my main project...and half because I wanted to I read 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud. This is a terrific book in which Scott talks about almost every aspect of comics you could think of, from history, to layouts, to philosophy, it is all covered.
Honestly it's crazy how much this guy knows about comics
The most relevant and helpful parts of the comic is the chapters about what happens in the gutter between panels and how time work in comics, both these are related.
He talks about how though not shown the audience makes assumptions about what happens outside the panel and how this works to not only fill in the missing spacial information but to fill in movement and time that passes. He describes this process as 'closure'. He talks about how comics can push this auto filling by the audience, changing setting while leaving a clear image of what is happening to the reader. He talks about the importance of the reader filling in in their own head what happens between the panel and how this makes comics a collaborative experience.
Scott then lists the types of panel to panel transitions, He lists 6 along with examples and when they would be used and the amount of closure they use, some leaving very little to the audience to do and some leave everything to them making the comic as much about what isn't there as is.
There's a lot more said about this which is very useful and interesting but I can't go on forever so I'll move on
Talking about time in comics McCloud hits on how time can move within one panel and how it can move across multiple panels and how the passage of time can be controlled within these. He talks in depth about how within comics time and space are one in the same (like it is in real life but way less complicated). The final main element he discusses is how the amount of visual information in a panel changes how long the panel lasts in a viewers mind and how this effects it's timing.

There is so much more to talk about but it would be just reciting the book. Not only that the information is so blatantly useful I don't even have to talk about how it effects my work. The essence though is there are a hell of a lot of variables to making a comic (I was already aware of this) and they are all very important. Taking them all into account takes a lot of practice time and effort. This makes me think I was right to just dive into making pages for my comic and although I'll make many mistakes (hopefully little ones) I'll learn and develop as I go seeing first hand the importance of these aspects.