McCloud's Vocabulary

icon ("any image used to represent a person, place, thing of idea"), amplification through simplification ("By stripping down an image to essential meaning, an artist can amplify that meaning"), closure (filling in), "time frames" (look at examples).

Homestar Runner is all about amplification through simplification. Go to the Strong Bad Emails. Here readers easily become acquainted with the bad guy, the sad guy, and the mad guy, Strong Bad, Strong Sad, and Strong Mad, respectively. Strong Bad answered emails angrily and while being mean to everyone and anyone, even the fuzzy adorable tag-along sidekick, The Cheat. Strong Sad is always depressed and self-deprecating, while Strong Mad has the personality of a bulldozer. Homestar Runner himself is the representation of a good athlete, who needs nothing else, including intelligence or even arms, which he doesn't have, as his sport is running. Each character has about one characteristic allowing an immediate grasp on the situation and easy transition into laughter. When a general cartoon viewer might be asking, why would this character now be drop-kicking a small animal?" a Strong Bad email viewer would be answering, "That's what Strong Bad does."
Bill Marsh's Landscapes is made with a series of five "landscapes" with moving parts and sounds acting as icons of ideas. Words sneak, fly and vibrate by behind the images of the cyber-like settings. Concentrating on the words, the phrases can be read, as the noises and movements fill out the concepts. "I did not hide my face from insult and spitting" parades by visible in circle and square cut-outs. A constant grinding noise and stillness all around accentuate steadfast attitude of the text. "I have set my face like flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame" flows by in the next scene. Pictures of children are included flashed, but the sound, a steady chiming, is ominous as though someone is remembering innocence while preparing to follow through with this flint faced plan to avoid shame. The ideas in order play out like an inspirational movie, ending with scrolling of the text, "I will bring them back from the depths of the sea," as an erie flute noise attaches itself to the quiet triumph of Landscapes' final biblical resolve.