About Digital Comics

While surfing through the site Deviantart.com, a popular art-based image hosting community, I came across an entry that had been featured as a work of note. Made entirely in Flash by Yves Bigerel (account name Balak01), the work discusses the storytelling potential of digital comics. Apart from a few grammatical errors (English is not the artist's native language), the information presented in it provides a newer way of seeing and appreciating comics in a digital format. In the comic, two characters go over the pros and cons of the medium, mainly by having one of the characters beat up the other as a way of demonstrating how the storytelling can be controlled. As artist points out, digital comics allow artists "new ways to create time with space," mainly in controlling the arrangement and size of the panels, have panels spontaneously appear to set up surprise viewers with content they may not have expected, control the passage of time within the events of the comic to create a slowing effect, and so on. The tone of the explanations is similar to that in the publications of Scott McCloud, who wrote and drew Understanding Comics and other books on the subject, an aspect that the artist acknowledges.

Due to the fact that we have been working in Flash, I the felt it was appropriate to discuss the work here. Mainly in, as the characters note, how the artist can control what the viewer sees as they progress along the comic while the viewer can take their time in absorbing the information in the comic or go back to catch something they may have missed. It is this type of interactivity that I find interesting, mainly in the equal control given to both the artist and the viewer. What also made it stand out to me was the fact that it talked about sequential works, a topic that never fails to interest me. As such, I may try my hand at creating a digital comic at some point in the future.

Isometric Screenshots

Art is often attributed with trying to make viewers see the world or its events in new ways, something that Isometric Screenshots does well. Made by Jon Haddock, they are meant to give the impression of being a screenshot from a computer game, mainly in how all objects in the space are of the same size throughout the image, not unlike what is seen when playing The Sims or some derivative like it. However, far unlike a game, these images are renditions of major iconic events in recent history (often of the more violent variety) or are of iconic fictional events seen in films (such as The Sound of Music and Twelve Angry Men), mainly in that they are images that "that created a cultural event". In seeing such events in isometric space, the overall effect makes these scenes seem less visceral even though most viewers understand the power behind such scenes should not be lessened in strength, creating an odd disconnect upon seeing the picture and connecting it with the images of the real event. As Haddock notes further down in the page, the events he chose to render are those that had a major impact in his life and the images would likely have been different if another had made them.

I found these images to be interesting mainly in that it makes viewers rethink just what events are being portrayed in the images and try to match them up with what they know or if they don't, then it makes them curious to look up the events being portrayed. In my case, several of the images were of events that I had no idea of beforehand (the beating of Reginald Denny in 1992) or I had an idea of but was uncertain if it was correct (the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.). By reinterpreting these cultural images in isometric space, one has to think about what they know of recent history or go out to learn about the events depicted and explore things they would not have otherwise thought about.

Velvet-Strike

Protest of war can take on many different forms, from mass demonstrations to writing public denouncements to the less than legal act of vandalizing buildings with anti-war themed graffiti. In the case of the works presented in Velvet-Strike, most of its works act in the latter form. But instead of being based in reality, the works of graffiti are made for the purpose of being used in the virtual reality of the game "Counter-Strike". The game is a multiplayer shooting game based on the premise of the War on Terrorism, where player can take the side of either the terrorists or the counter-terrorist commandos. However, the greater social and political dynamics are often put aside in order to engage players of the more exhilarating aspect of being in a fight. The graffiti spay paint modifications offer a point for players to remind others of the greater effects of the War on Terrorism. As the description in the About page succinctly puts it: "Velvet-Strike is a collection of spray paints to use as graffiti on the walls, ceiling, and floor of the popular network shooter terrorism game 'Counter-Strike'." By downloading the spray-pattern files, players can easily add such anti-war messages to any point in the game's settings for any other players to come across. It is in these small modifications that more conceptual art can find its way in unexpected settings like a shooting game.

What compelled me to take a closer look at this particular new media site was partially spurred by my own interest in the military and partially by video game dynamics. Upon discovering the more subversive aspects of the intentions behind what drove the creation of Velvet-Strike, I found the idea of placing an anti-war theme into a war-based setting to be an amusing way to pass on ideas to others not intentionally looking for such things in a video game. Because of this, I am curious as to whether there is the possibility creating such spray patterns for other MMORPG games such as Halo or Warcraft to promote the anti-war messages apparent in Velvet-Strike's collection.