Scott McCloud's cartoon on "Vocabulary of Comics," attempts to describe how the use of image and icons represent different things.  The audience is for the human mind, because this is something every person in the world does everyday.  Reality can alter the physical appearance of a man to be a cartoon face.  Cartooning is not only a way of drawing, but seeing.  That is why the article is so easy to understand, because McCloud uses his own icons and cartoon to explain his views.  I used "his views," because that is his own opinion of an easy way to explain cartoon and icon is by doing just that in his article.

     John Berger's article attempts to explain the images of gender, and how it could have changed overtime.  He talks about how the ideas or ideals become cultural norms thought repetition, reproduction, and circulating.  Advertising becomes the primary circulator.  Berger tells the way a woman treats herself is what men survey.  The way she dresses, acts, or talks shows her intelligence and attitude towards how she wants to be treated.  Women are watched by men, and become an object or a vision to the men.  He also describes how nudity can be perceived as dress.

SYNTHESIS 
     In Berger and McCloud's articles they both agree on the same issue, but in different forms.  McCloud discusses the human face being transformed into a cartoon.  He talks about how the mind can see a simple circle, two dots, and a line, connecting it to the image of a human face.  Berger discusses the image of woman, and the structure, for, and pose of their body in oil paintings and how it is surveyed.  Both articles show how the human mind depicts images from forms of painting, drawings, symbols, and icons.  I also believe, they agree to humans as being self-centered.  Scott McCloud makes this clear by explaining how humans make everything in their own image.  John Berger explains this through women self-surveying themselves to later be surveyed by a man.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.) McCloud uses the comic book to explain his idea because it explains the concept of image through cartoons.  He makes it clear that if he would have sketched more to his person narrating that he would have been looked at as a real person speaking.  The cartoon he drew was looked at as more of a concept.  His point would have suffered if it were through writing, because there would have been no image or icons to compare the writing.  His cartoon is writing in symbol/icon format.

2.) Berger assumes that women are treated by the way they display themselves by dressing, acting, and treating themselves.  He talks about God telling man indirectly that they are greater than women, and this could be why men are expressed through their strength and power.  The audience is always the surveyor(s).  These are different from the 1970's, because the demand for certain times and style is no longer the same, but in the end it is still the same concept.

3.) The articles share the same ideas, but are expressed in different terms.  The cartoon article speaks within itself, because it talks of image and symbol, the definition of cartoon.  Ads, books, pop culture, etc, are all forms of what Berger and McCloud's articles are based on, image.


     My point of view on Scott McCloud's cartoon were very positive.  He made many points very clear, and showed me that the human mind can see what it wants.  The fact that it was cartoon format made it interesting and almost exciting for me to read, because it was not in regular research style. 
      In John Berger's article, "Ways of Seeing," I found the most interesting.  I agree on women self-surveying themselves.  I as a female, display myself in a way that shows I take care of myself, I am intelligent, and appropriately dressed.  I feel that the way a person dresses gives you an idea of who they really are, and this is why men survey women.  If a man does not like what he sees he will just overlook it.  Some could argue that this is a stereotypical article.  I would see the view they are coming from, but would completely back Berger's article up based on fact.  The fact of the matter will always be, people will treat you however they know they can get away with.  If someone knows they can push you around, they will do this.  If you portray yourself as being a strong-minded person, people will look at you in this way, and also treat you as they see you.  It is good that women self-survey themselves, because if gives them a feeling of self-worth.