Mid Semester Break 22/04/16 Friday

I went ahead and wrote my findings on motion comics and interactive comics. Writing helped clarified my thoughts, and I was able to find opinions on both sides of the arguments. Those were all worth mentioning, but the referencing process was rather long and tedious. In my writing I have discussed the diverging views on motion comics, and the advantages of a hypercomic. I have yet to investigate interactive comics that employ both animation and gaming elements. In my essay I will delve deeper into reader participation in each of these different comic forms, and make judgments based on existing material as to what works or what does not. I believe I am on track, and I hope to complete this contextual review within the next week.

Here is an excerpt from my essay:

"Comics in the Digital Age:

With the advancing technology in nowadays society, it becomes necessary for comics to break free of its printed media, and move into the digital realm. There have been many attempts to expand comics’ potential in a digital environment; whole web pages have been dedicated to hosting comic page scans and original web-comic creations; discussions arose in reader-led sites such as Fourth Frame Forums[1], cinematic and animation elements have been integrated into various comic books and graphic novels to create what has been known as the notorious motion comic[2]; and lastly, some comics have employed interactive aspects as a way of exploration of the comic medium. As an intrinsically hybrid form, comics are continuing to evolve by incorporating elements from other media, and expanding its potential. Practitioners have devised ways to explore these relatively new forms of comics, and the latter two forms mentioned have been drawing more attention of recent times." 

---

[1] Andrew S. Gordon, "Fourth Frame Forums: Interactive Comics for Collaborative Learning", in 14th Annual ACM International Conference on Multimedia (Santa Barbara: ACM, 2006), 69.

[2] Craig Smith, "Motion Comics: Modes of Adaptation and the Issue of Authenticity", Animation Practice, Production & Process 1, no. 2 (2012): 358.

I foresee that by the end of my first iteration, I will need to go back and edit out a lot of things I have written. There is a fair amount of information regarding comics I could discuss; but it is essential to keep the topic focused and the prose clear. 

Here is a monster I drew on the train. I seem to be rather fascinated by this type of amalgamation of flesh and body parts of various biological species. It is disgusting in a good way.