Game comics : An analysis of an emergent hybrid form

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics on 2 September 2014, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2014.943411There has long been a shared history of visual influence and narrative crossover between comics and videogames. Taking this history into account, this article provides a critical examination of the newly emergent medium of game comics. A game comic can be defined as a game that takes the underlying structure and language of comics as the basis for its gameplay. The article presents a case study on two prototype game comics that were created as a practice-lead enquiry into the potential of the form. The study draws ideas from comics, games and new media theory. It uses these ideas to examine changes in the aesthetic experience of the comic form that have resulted from digital remediation. In this manner the article provides a critically grounded exploration and analysis of how the medium of comics can be adapted via hybridisation with the ludic qualities of the videogame.Peer reviewe

Images in Space: The Challenges of Architectural Spatiality in Comics

A selection of hypercomics that extend the concept of the Infinite Canvas are examined to address the challenges of architectural spatiality. As comics gradually leave behind the trappings of the printed page, the language and tropes unique to print are slowly being modified and replaced by new structures native to the screen. Infinite Canvas comics have expanded and made explicit the spatial network at the heart of the medium. The hypercomic form has introduced new approaches to the creation of branching, multicursal narrative structures. Videogame tropes and game spaces have merged with the comics medium, creating distinct new hybrid forms. As the medium becomes increasingly distanced from its origins in print, it becomes essential to consider other forms comics could potentially adopt as a result of this shift in their underlying tropes and processes. The chapter takes as its primary case study an architecturally mediated hypercomic created as a practice-lead inquiry into the workings of the form. Alongside comics theory, the paper draws on the study of narrative space within videogames and new media. It considers the use of tropes appropriated from digital comics and explores the tension between fixed sequence and freeform exploration inherent in architecturally mediated works. Ways in which the relative position in three dimensional space between reader and panel sequence can be used for narrative effect are explored. An analysis of how spatial depth impacts on the reader’s experience of panel sequences is included whilst considering the narrative and navigational roles played by perceptual tags. Lastly, the importance of site specificity in architecturally mediated works is examined.Peer reviewe

Distortions in Spacetime: : Emergent Narrative Practices in Comics' Transition from Print to Screen

Goodbrey D.M., ‘Distortions in Spacetime: Emergent Narrative Practices in Comics’ Transition from Print to Screen’, in: Pearson R., Smith A.N. (eds) Storytelling in the Media Convergence Age (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137388155_4, and at doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137388155_4The medium of comics is undergoing a transition, as digital display becomes an increasingly popular mode of consumption. This is a transition that has been underway since before the general adoption of the World Wide Web and recent developments in portable display devices have advanced the pace of this change. Smart phones and pad computers now provide a single platform that supports a wide range of visual, narrative and interactive media. As comics gradually leave behind the trappings of print and embrace those of the screen, it becomes necessary to re-examine the fundamental storytelling practices of the medium in the context of these changes. This chapter considers the relationship between space and time in comics and how this relationship has changed during the medium’s transition from print to screen. It brings together and examines ideas from a range of comics theorists and practitioner-theorists to develop an analysis of the representation of diegetic time within the spatially-based medium of comics. In addition to comics theory, the chapter draws ideas from scholarship concerning digital media. It applies these theories to an examination of the changes in narrative practices within comics that have resulted from digital remediation. In this manner the chapter provides a critically grounded exploration and analysis of how the representation of time in comics has been changed by the range of new storytelling tropes emerging amongst digitally mediated comics. The chapter also examines the degree to which not only technological possibilities within the digital age have shaped narrative techniques but also preconceptions within production culture regarding what constitutes the comics medium. It concludes by considering the limits of the digital comics form and the role of reader control as a key element within the medium. By examining the manner by which practitioners within the medium of comics havePeer reviewe

The Sound of Digital Comics

Daniel Goodbrey, "The Sound of Digital Comics", Writing Visual Culture, Vol. 7(1), October 2015. Available online at: http://www.herts.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/tvad-theorising-visual-art-and-design/writing-visual-culture/volume-7This article explores the role of sound in comics and provides a critical analysis of how that role has changed with the digital remediation of the form. Comics are traditionally thought of as a monosensory and multimodal medium in which information is communicated through a combination of written and visual languages, relying solely on the reader's sense of sight. The digital mediation of comics has brought with it the potential for plurisensory comics that directly incorporate audible sound alongside the visual modalities of word and image. With reference to the theories of Groensteen (2013), Hague (2014), Smolderen (2014), Miodrag (2013) and Cohn (2013), this article considers the relationship between the imagined sounds of traditional comics and the perceived sounds of digital hybrids. It examines the use of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound, drawing on ideas concerning the role of sound in cinema (Chion 1994) and videogames (Nitsche 2008). Within this framework it considers the potential impact of audible sound on a comic's navigation, pacing, narrative and atmosphere. It considers a range of digital comics that feature audible sound and focuses its central case study on a new digital comic created as a practice-lead inquiry into the incorporation of audible sound with the comic form.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Game Comics : Theory and design

© 2021 The Authors. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial No Derivatives Licence, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/A history of visual influence and narrative crossover exists between comics and videogames. The digital mediation of comics has resulted in the two forms sharing common platforms for creation, distribution, and consumption. In combination with their shared spatial nature, these circumstances have led to the beginnings of hybridization between the two forms. The resulting “game comics” are a hybrid format that exhibit some of the key characteristics of games and use some of the key characteristics of the form of comics as the basis for their gameplay. This chapter focuses on the design and creation of game comics and considers a range of aesthetic, ludic, and narrative challenges that must be met in order to achieve a successful outcome. It provides a practice-based inquiry into how comics narratives can integrate progression-based gameplay and how gameplay in turn can create narrative. It examines how comics can incorporate gaming tropes from the adventure and puzzle genres, without diminishing the key characteristics of the form of comics. The chapter also examines the application of common videogame design methodologies within a comics creation context and highlights some of the practical and conceptual difficulties that can problematize and limit successful game comics creation.Peer reviewe

Sixgun: Tales From An Unfolded Earth

Sixgun was the final outcome of my Masters degree in Digital Practices and is significant in exploring new approaches to the hypercomic form. At its core, Sixgun was an attempt at resolving the inherent conflict between the spatially based medium of comics and the non-spatial relationships between linked lexia that are typical of most web-based hyperfiction. Most significantly, the piece introduced the concept of panels that would operate as hyperlinks but also remain as constants across the two pages being linked so as to reinforce the spatial relationship between lexia

Score And Script

When a cartoonist begins making a comic strip, questions of how to give visual form to narratives expressed in text, or lurking as-yet-unrealised in cognition, form a central part of the decision-making process. What imagery would best depict the essence of the story I want to tell? And how can I organise that imagery into a flowing structure that is at once unified and multiple? These questions cannot, in any meaningful way, be separated – in comics, visual form and narrative content constantly inform and imply one another. But what could be revealed about the process of visual storytelling if an attempt were made to perform that separation? Cartoonist and PhD researcher John Miers created a single-page comic, from which he derived two descriptive texts: The script, a verbal account of the events depicted in the comic, with all visual detail excised; and the score, a diagram showing the dimensions and location of depicted narrative actors, with no information regarding the narrative content. At C4RD (the Centre for Recent Drawing), 30 of the UK’s best cartoonists are creating their own single-page comic in response to one of those descriptions, with 15 working from the score, and 15 from the script. This exhibition presents the first set of results from this project. While examples of comic scripts and their realisation as drawn narratives are not difficult to find, the opportunity to examine a range of responses to a single starting point is rare, and the chance this project offers to examine the relationship between visual structure and narrative content is unique

SiCAF Retrospective

I was invited by the organisers of the Seoul International Comic & Animation Festival to present a retrospective of my experimental webcomic and hypercomic work. Thirteen of my digital comics were translated into Korean for exhibition in a custom built interactive installation at the show. I created new hypercomic especially for the event called Four Derangements and also contributed a talk to the Digital Comics Conference taking place as part of the festival

Choose the Format of Your Destructor : Design Choices for Comic Creators in Print and Digital Media

© 2019 David D. Seelow. All rights reserved. This is the accepted manuscript version of a book chapter which has been published in final form at https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/lessons-drawn/Today, the form of comics is consumed and distributed in multiple formats across both print and digital media. For a comic creator, this variety of formats and media necessitates several important design decisions when creating a new comic. Choosing to focus on only a single format can allow a creator to exploit fully the specific qualities of that format, but it can also limit the potential readership of the resultant comic. Choosing to create a comic that operates well across multiple formats can lead to a wider potential readership, but it also places increased limits on the layout and design of that comic. This chapter seeks to unpack the design decisions facing comic creators in the digital age and examines the repercussions inherent in each choice. It will consider the important choices when creating a print comic that will allow it to adapt well to being read in digital formats. It will examine different approaches to creating digital comics and how these may favour or disadvantage their adaption to print media. As part of this examination, this chapter will also explore the range of additional choices offered by digital media for the incorporation of animation, audible sound, multicursality, and gameplay.Non peer reviewe