New "Reiterating Comics"" installment"

Discuss the Zwol comic. (Random yammering also allowed.)

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Greg Stephens
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Post by Greg Stephens »

Tomorrow- Saturday, June 30- by the one and only Frank "Damonk" Cormier of FRAMED!!!.

Note: It's a much larger comic than I usually run, so please be patient with the download- it's worth it!
Good morning! That's a nice tnetennba.
John2two
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Post by John2two »

But well worth the additional bandwidth.

Dangit, Frank, when you make and entrance, you make an entrance!

I'm looking forward to this arc very much. Damonk does his 4th-wall interactions so smoothly and with such wit, I'm on pins and needles! I will be quite keen (pun intended) to read what he's got to say not just about the general form of 4th wall interaction, but about how the strip format makes it juicier. (Umm, that is where this is headed, no?)

Across the 4th wall and the 8th dimension,
John
Max Leibman
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Post by Max Leibman »

I find the bit about the hammer crashing through the floor interesting -- it's almost as if the characters are acknowledging that Frank "Damonk" Cormier has broken <I>Zwol</I>'s normal dimensions with it's downward-scrolling arrangement. Granted, the new movement has a more vertical look so far, but all of <I>Wonderfullness Ensues</I> that I recall was strip-format or horizontally-scrolling, and the new strips don't extend down far enough to warrant much vertical scrolling.

Damonk has broken through <I>Zwol</I>'s floor metaphorically with his design, and literally with his heavy hammer in the strip. Intended or not, that bit of symbolic conceit is noted and appreciated.

Analytically,

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Greg Stephens
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Post by Greg Stephens »

Granted, the new movement has a more vertical look so far, but all of Wonderfullness Ensues that I recall was strip-format or horizontally-scrolling, and the new strips don't extend down far enough to warrant much vertical scrolling.
Yeah, the shape has changed a little bit for the moment, due to the fact that the layouts I was given were vertical and a bit "widescreen". Interestingly enough (to me, anyhow) I've been able to follow that lead while maintaining the same area as before. The new shape is essentially the old shape, chopped in half, with those two halves stacked atop each other.

Damonk loves his comics to scroll, but I don't think I'm quite ready for that. Yet.
Good morning! That's a nice tnetennba.
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Post by shadefell »

the scrolling is an interesting effect, but it also chops the comic up.

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Post by Jason Alderman »

It appears <a href="http://www.zwol.org/">Greg</a>'s given the latest "<a href="http://www.zwol.org/reiterating.php3">reiterating comics</a>" a nice long spotlight (thanks), and <a href="http://framed.keenspace.com/">Damonk</a>'s forgiven me for misplacing his ears (thanks!), and megazone27 <a href="http://www.zwol.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... m=1&0">got a nifty idea</a> out of this installment, ...so I generally got more than I bargained for!

This "reiterating" was inspired by a conversation that I had with Greg on the web, personal expression, collaboration, and comics--one that turned out to be much faster to write down in a screed than draw an epic comic about. I'll spare you the original text, but here are the general points:<ul>
<li> Will Eisner wrote, in his book Graphic Storytelling, that "In the comics medium, the continuing adventure narrative first appeared in the daily newspaper strips. This was feasible because until the 1930s, newspapers dominated popular reading and were a regular uninterrupted family companion." Today, especially in homes with 24/7 broadband connections to the internet, the Web's taken the place of newspapers as a "regular uninterrupted family companion." It's probably not too big a leap to suggest it's only <b>natural</b> that comics narratives would begin to flourish on the Web. And as I said in the strip, unlike a conventional periodical, which comes only once a day, or week, or month, the Web is always there--always available, and constantly updated, constantly archived.

<li>The web is (quite literally) an amalgam of pictures and text--a comic of sorts, and each site, whether it's a company page hawking goods or the home page of a youngster two continents away, has a story to tell. (The web gurus at <a href="http://www.webmonkey.com/">Webmonkey</a> used to <a href="http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/boo ... >recommend Scott McCloud's <i>Understanding Comics</i></a> to web designers for pointers; "it might just change the way you think about web design.") Even the interstitial imaginings that are required for the gutter of comics could be compared to the void that exists between a hyperlink and it's destination (or maybe I'm reaching too far with this metaphor). Consider all this exposition as reason #2 that it's only natural that comics should flourish on the web.

<li>Webcomics creators can use messageboards, e-mails, polls, audience cameos, newsletters, and blogs to allow the global audience to shape the storytelling in a way that is rarely seen, or seen with such immediacy, in any other medium. Examples of old media trying to grasp this kind of audience/consumer interaction are <a href="http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45 ... l">Douglas Rushkoff's new book</a> and the recent <a href="http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45 ... ml">hubbub about blogdex</a>.

<li>Some traditional newspaper daily comics (e.g., Jantze's <a href="http://www.thenorm.com/">The Norm</a>, and Cho's <a href="http://www.libertymeadows.com/">Liberty Meadows</a>) have tried to take advantage of the options above to build a tight community of fans, but with a 1- to 2-week delay between paper publication and web publication, there's a bit of a lag, and web comics also aren't subject to the editorial decisions of the papers and syndicates (which in the end are still trying to please the most people they can in order to make sales, unlike web comics, whose authors seek only to please themselves and their fans). Not that this is always a good thing...but it's a factor nonetheless.</ul>
I guess that's about it.
Long and rambling as usual...

jason

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jason Alderman on 2001-08-28 07:44 ]</font>
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