Annotated comic

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Thu Mar 27, 2003 5:44 pm

Been a while since I saw something different in online comics worth mentioning- How about an annotated comic?

http://www.glish.com/misc/rft-comic/

Move your mouse over it and see if the annotations pop up.

russ · Post by **russ** » Fri Mar 28, 2003 1:44 am

Interesting, though some of the annotations were displayed wrong for me. This sort of experiment runs into pragmatic browser issues.

Seems kind of gimmicky and doesn't feel like "pure" comics to me. I found myself moving the mouse around trying to find the hot spots and thus not paying attention to the actual main image/text itself.

I like annotations fine, but not when they're directly interactively imbedded in the work like that, I guess. I'm kind of a comics Luddite that way; I'm not as fond of interactive Flash-based comics either.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Fri Mar 28, 2003 1:16 pm

You know, I didn't read the comic either...

Wikkit · Post by **Wikkit** » Sat Mar 29, 2003 7:55 pm

IMHO, if the information is important enough to be in the strip, it should be in the strip. Otherwise put it in text underneath (not hidden in another virtual dimension), or put it in a supplementary strip like Unicorn Jelly does.

(Tangentially related to Unicorn Jelly, I finished a recursive perl script today that outputs a POVray file of a 3-dimensional Sierpinski Gasket. Kicks butt, it does, and my bad programming practice of defaulting to global variables kicked my butt for a couple hours. POVray takes >110 MB of RAM to render a 7th iteration gasket, though.)

Wikkit · Post by **Wikkit** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 3:38 pm

Call it Triangle and Robert fan art, a representation of triangle in the 10th dimension (1 to put him in 3-D, 1 for color, and 8 to go from 0th iteration (a tetrahedron) to 8th): http://wikkit.com/render/tetrahedron_8th_color.png

Tim Mallos · Post by **Tim Mallos** » Tue Apr 01, 2003 10:33 am

I am working on a project (an eternal project, it seems) and I have a lot of material I have come up with that is cool (in my opinion) but not helpful to the flow of the narrative. I've thought about offering a mode that has all the extra junk available, kind of like the directors commentary on a DVD. You'd never watch that version first, but it's interesting information none-the-less.

I dunno. I should have something to show in a couple years. *sigh*. My attentions are appropriately on work and family, but, dang, actually making comics will be fun someday.

Tim

InkAddict · Post by **InkAddict** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 3:50 am

a mode that has all the extra junk available, kind of like the directors commentary on a DVD

You know, Tim, a lot of comic book writers are actually doing that now.

If you've read the excellent Peter Pan series by Loisel (go check it out!), there is a behind-the scenes book of the entire first album, and the preparation to the project itself! (how he had to evade copyright etc...)

Fascinating stuff! ( Click on the image ! )
... and a few pages of the original comic to satisfy your curiosity: Loisel

It might however be cool to have a comic that is so annotated as to show you some of (for instance) the thoughts of the main characters...

So you could read the story at different levels, only zooming in on the thought processes when you, as a reader, would like that!

Trouble is,... when it's good, you want to read ALL the extra's... like withthose role-playing books in which "you are the hero"... you still end up leafing through the pages you've missed, even if it kills the reader experience

Zwol.org

Annotated comic

Annotated comic

Follow DVD's lead