What is...?

This is some funny thoughts that I had about "definition" when reading Scout McCloud's Understanding comics: the invisible art

First, this is his definition about art (page 164): "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and reproduction."

Thus: "Yet in almost everything we do there is at least an element of art."

I don't intent to debate the definition of art, but after seeing his, I came back to his definition about comics (which I wasn't really satisfied): comics: Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response to the viewer.

I doesn't disagree with this. Taking a today's comic, breaking it down and assigning the definition, it suits perfectly. The problem is that the definition suits more than just it.

To that definition, the kind of picture manuscript carved onto cave's walls long ago, or Egyptian painting can be called comics.

But I wonder, how many people will agree with me if I show them those and say "They're comics". Very likely that I'll receive "Hell no."

Manga is comics, right. But to me (and some people), it feels strange to say such things. To me and the likes of me, comics is of western, and manga is...manga, it belongs to Japan. It's just that, the right definition (I'm assuming that McCloud is right, because I agree with that definition) won't work commonly if people don't feel that way. And to my common sense, manga is not comics.

I actually want to say more about common sense but suddenly all the inspiration flew away =.=

But in short, what I'm trying to say: language is very vague and the way we use it is much more vague. As for definition (of any kind), I think the aspect of how it's commonly perceived should be considered more. We live in a community after all. Language is just something we invent to refer to something, and it certainly can be altered by the ones who invented it: we.