So I officially very much like Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, but I love Making Comics by the same author. One thing I need to mention, though, is that page 171 of Understanding Comics, panels 3-9, gives one of the finest examples of why comics is an extraordinary storytelling method.
And speaking of sequential art, after plowing through Brian K. Vaughan's Ex Machina Vol. 3 Fact V. Fiction, art by Tony Harris and Tom Feister, (thanks again, hannibalvail, for lending it out to me) I have started to read Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art. I just got through the foreword and the first chapter this morning and I was loathed to head off to work because I was enjoying it so much. It feels a lot more academic than McCloud's work. This makes sense since it is a compilation of essays he wrote that were a spin off from the course he was teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
It's interesting what a few extra hours make. For the last year or so, I have had such a hard time finding time to read. Over the last six to eight weeks I have been reading in the mornings before work and in the evenings before bed (instead of dicking around on the computer at both times) and I have been getting through a great deal more reading. It's awful nice.