Rating: 
Summary: They were right, unfortunately
Review: Understanding Comics (the prequel) amazed me so much that I couldn't believe those negative reviews. McCloud can get a little dense sometimes, so I figured that the reviewers simply didn't want to put any effort into it.Ahem. It appears that I was a fool. Mr. McCloud did seemingly go delirious over the success of the former book and the power of his new Macintosh computer, so he felt justified in dishing out the ultimate critique of market cycles. According to him, at the least. Well, unfortunately for each good point, he gets six quite wrong and four desperately off the mark. Nothing you really need to read. Especially in these post-new economy bubble times.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like comics, you need these books.
Review: Understanding Comics is a chronicle of the infinitely weird connection of words and pictures that is comics. It tells usabout the heart of the concept of moving your eyes across panels, looking at the pictures, reading the words, and perceiving them all as a unified, flowing entity. It told us how and why the concept of reading and creating comics works. Reinventing comics, on the other hand, focuses more on the public's attitude toward comics, the comic industry, and the varied possibilities of new ways of creating, distributing, marketing, purchasing, and reading comics. It contains many of Scott's theories as to how comics are and could be influenced by the internet and the new way of thinking it has brought us. These are two very different books with two very different subject matters. However, they link hand in hand to aid us in viewing the medium of comics as a whole. If you liked Understanding Comics, you may or may not like Reinventing Comics. If you liked Reinventing Comics, you may or may not like Understanding Comics. But if you want to view the authors opinions and ideas on everything and anything that did, does, and will apply to Comics, I advise you get them both.
Rating:
Summary: Great Followup
Review: When I read "Understanding Comics", I was blown away. I looked briefly at "Reinventing Comics" and was underwhelmed (at first glance). A year or so later I picked it up again and read it. It is more impressive than I first thought and I could not recall why I had not continued onto it. Yes, it is different than the first book. It addresses what the title states, how to take the comics industry into the future. Very good ideas and good dissecting.
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