Mark Waid provides an alternative perspective to McCloud's infinite canvas in this talk. Rather than focus on the canvas Waid states that digital comics have the freedom to overlay and quickly remove/add static pictures. Through this theory, he develops a sense of depth for scenes and the illusion of motion.
Digital Story Critiques:
Each week I needed to find and critique a digital story. I often focused on the assessment criteria of Story, Pacing/Planning, and Media Application. I gravitated towards these ideas because it became clear early on that a good story or strong message was necessary in the creation of an engaging piece and that the way it was presented and the digital tools used had a major effect in how successful the piece was. I also tried to balance my critiques between actual digital comics and digital stories that discussed the state of comics, graphic novels, and digital comics. Follow the links to read the full critiques.
These Memories Won't Last is probably the most powerful and moving comic I reviewed. Stuart Campbell' story is poignant and uses the infinite canvas idea to create a comic with no pages that flows like a memory.
Scott McCloud's TED talk was one of the first digital stories I critiqued and it changed how I perceived both digital and traditional comics and graphic novels. McCloud introduces the infinite canvas - a concept that in the virtual world a comic's canvas has no physical limitations, freeing creators to make comics that would be impossible on paper. I was so impressed I also read his books on traditional comics, Undersanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.
This making of a comic page video was a fun extra that creator David Revoy included in his crowd sourced/open source digital comic.Communities like the one Revoy has crafted inspired me to have a community presence in my digital story project.
Newzl was the ultimate digital comic I read, not just in the comics I critiques but in all the comics I read this semester. Stuart Campbell, same author as These Memories Won't Last, uses many digital tools such as sound effects, music, animation, non-traditional canvas alignments to create a story that remains a comic but is transformed as a digital comic.
Pax Arena is produced by Mark Waid's Thrillbent Comics and is a good example of Wiad's theory about manipulating still images in a digital comic panel. This was my favorite digital comic. It pushed all the buttons for me. I love the tech-noir genre and the hero has a jacket that she can light up to read french profanity, so much fun!
Matt Wilson's article about the future of comic genres inspired part of the concept for my final project. Because he highlights the importance of educating people about the wide range of genres that go beyond superhero titles. With my project, Graphic Novel Librarian, I want to help people find the genres and titles they can connect with in order to expand readership of comics.
The Boat is beautiful, in art and in story, and demonstrates some of the awesome diversity in comic genres. The Boat is an adaptation of a short story about a young girl's escape from Saigon after the Vietnam War, interwoven with nonfiction information and photographs. Not your typical masks and capes comic.
