In Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics", we learn about the different ways that a comic can show us the message that it wants to get across. There is a long discussion of icons and the way that we associate meaning with meaningless objects. McCloud says that we "assign identities and emotions where none exist." This extends into his discussion of faces in comics, and how seeing different types of faces makes us feel differently about what we are seeing. McCloud also gives examples of the ways that comics from different places, for example Japan, use techniques to give its message to the reader. "Understanding Comics" ends up being a comic about how comics use visuals to convey message, and "Understanding Comics" itself uses many different things to convey this message. 

One of the ways that McCloud focuses on the message of his work is through the use of the visual design that he chooses. There is a strong focus on the actual text, more so than in a normal comic. There is also more text than we would expect. Throughout the entire comic, there is a black-and-white color scheme that is meant to remind us of reading a book. With a lack of color, the comic reminds us more of an actual book than a comic, placing more focus on the message that McCloud is trying to present. The amount of text in some of the panels also reminds us of the paragraph format of a book. There is also not much visual information in most of the panels, which serves a purpose. With a lack of color and visual pop, it places more emphasis on the words in each panel. Also, the drawing style of what is actually there lets us put our own twists on the pictures because they are not incredibly detailed. 

Another way that McCloud tries to get his message across is through the use of visual motifs. There are numerous examples of this throughout the text. The first motif that is part of McCloud's main message is on the first page of the excerpt.  The painting by Magritte called "The Treachery of Images" is something that McCloud goes into deep analysis of. The inscription on the painting reads "This is not a pipe", which is central to the meaning of the painting. The image in the painting is one of a pipe, so the message in the painting at first does not seem to make sense. McCloud then shows us the real meaning of the painting. This is not a painting of a pipe, but actually a printed copy of a drawing of a painting of a pipe. This is a key representation of McCloud's definition of what an icon is, because we are assigning our definition of what a pipe is to an image that is not actually a pipe. McCloud here shows us how our definition of icon is part of cartoons. We can assign meaning to things that may not have a specific definition if they were not "iconic".

 A second visual that McCloud uses to convey his message is the face. We see many panels that have different faces on them, with an explanation of how the different types of faces in comics can mean different things. One of the ways McCloud shows us this is the panel showing the 5 different faces. Going from extremely realistic to nearly detail less shows the different ways one thing, a face, can be used as icons. According to McCloud, in cartoons the reason people can feel attached to an individual character is because they can assign their own feelings and viewpoints to the character. When a face lacks specific detail, we can easily see ourselves in their situation. In much the same way we assign our own feelings to individual objects like cars and clothes, we put our own feelings on the character. In cartoons, you can see yourself instead of feeling as if you are seeing someone else. These examples of facial messages further McCloud's message of the comic. 

Another way that we learn meaning through the text is the way that McCloud uses symbols that we commonly associate with certain ideas. There is a whole page that goes through different visuals and shows us that we are not looking at what we think we are. If we see a picture of a cow, we are not actually seeing a cow even though that is immediately what we associate the picture with. There are also many other images that hold the same message. Even though some icons have fixed meanings, there are also some with fluid meanings such as pictures. In the comic, McCloud then has many examples of both of these types of icons. 

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" is about how comics use visual text to convey message, and the text itself uses many of these techniques to show us this message. The way that the text is black-and-white reminds us of a book, and focuses us on the text in each panel. There is not much in each panel for the most part, and some of them have blocks of text that we read like a book. The visual motifs that are there are central to the message of the comic, and McCloud shows us meaning through different examples of these icons. Through all of these techniques, McCloud shows us how we assign meaning to different visuals in comics and how icons come to represent different meanings. 