Researching Interactive Comics
When setting out to create my own interactive comic I wanted to evaluate
ways in which existing projects tackled issues of sequential art and
interaction. Although not an exhaustive list here are some of the projects
I investigated:
- Fourth Frame Forums
- Comic Chat
- ComicDiary
- Choose Your Own Carl
- Popup books
- Visible
- My Black Cat (Visual Novels)
- Comic Book Dollhouse
- Mobile Manga
- Textual Healing
I wanted to look at a broad selection of interactive comic narratives
both technological but also paper based.
Most of the computer-based comics had a simplistic level of interaction
involving a large amount of clicking. Often involving clicking text
to progress the story, it does not allow users to really explore the
environment or manipulate stories in a meaningful way.
Some allow users to create their own stories and discuss what they have
created however even these can be seen as addition to existing Internet
communication tools such as IRC chat and BBS. These can become quite
quickly a novelty, although it could be considered that they add an
extra dimension to the communication process. The use of characters,
particularly in comic chat gives users a physical and emotional presence
in virtual space.
(image: emotion wheel from comic chat)
Ultimately computer based tools raised questions about the purpose of
interactions, how meaningful they were and how much control users were
able to have.
I was particularly interested in the potential of interactive books and
how interactive devices could be added to a paper based comic. This
was influenced by my user group who stated that they preferred
the physicality of books to using computer based tools.