Digital Comics: Panel Structure in a Digital Environment

Home , Arcade Comics, First Comics, Future Comics, The Right Number

A Thesis

Submitted to the Faculty

Drexel University

Nathaniel Shaw

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree

Masters of Science in Digital Media

May 2011

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Troy Finamore, for all of the constructive criticism and support throughout the process of this thesis project. Without his suggestions and technical help the project would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the committee, Matt Kaufhold and Jervis Thompson, for their contributions, comments, and suggestions. If Matt hadn’t told me to make sure to have a beginning, middle, and end to my story I wouldn’t have thought to do the opposite.

Special recognition goes to my sister, Nyssa Shaw, for her help when I was struggling with the story. Additionally, I would like to thank my fellow graduate students

Dan Bodenstein, Bob Piscopo, Simon Littlejohn, and Greg Ruane for the support and sense of community. This thesis and Drexel Digital Media wouldn’t be the same without them. Thanks also goes to past Drexel students Evan Boucher, Dave Lally, Nick

Avallone, Christian Hahn, Jessie Amadio, Justin Wilcott, and Tom Bergamini for their help throughout my education here at Drexel. I learned so much from each of them.

Finally, I would like to thank the Drexel Digital Media faculty that helped me along the way. Dave Mauriello for his enthusiasm for teaching and dedication to the

Digital Media program. Ted Artz for his interest in my thesis and creative input on other projects. Chris Redmann for his creative and technical expertise in the classroom and

Glenn Muschio for his support in the development stages of the thesis project. ii

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ...... 1

Abstract ...... 3

1. Key Terms ...... 5

2. Introduction ...... 6

3. Overview of Print and Digital Comics ...... 8

3.1 The Definition of Comics ...... 8

3.2. The Development of Comics Throughout History ...... 12

3.2.1. History of Western Comics ...... 12

3.2.2. History of Eastern Comics ...... 19

3.3. Comics and Digital Media ...... 22

3.3.1. Digital Production of Comics ...... 22

3.3.2. Digital Distribution of Comics ...... 26

3.3.2.1. Zuda.com ...... 30

3.3.2.2. Comixology ...... 30

3.3.3. Digital Structure of Comics ...... 32

3.3.3.1. Pup Contemplates the Heat Death of the Universe ...... 35

3.3.3.2. The Right Number ...... 38

3.3.3.3. Nawlz ...... 40

3.3.3.4. E-Merl.com ...... 41

3.3.3.5. HoboLobo.net ...... 43

4. Digital Storytelling in Comics ...... 45

5. Approach ...... 46

5.1. Digital Structure of a Comic ...... 46 iii

5.2. Production Considerations for a Digital Comic ...... 56

5.2.1. Non-Traditional Story Development and Panel Structure ...... 56

5.2.2. Software Considerations ...... 60

5.2.3. Scalable Art Creation ...... 65

6. Conclusions and Future Work ...... 70

List of References ...... 73

List of Illustrations

1. The second and third paintings in the Marie de’Medici cycle of paintings...... 13

2. Trajan's Column: Major battle against the Dacians and Flight of the Dacians into the mountains ...... 14

3. The Adventures Of Obadiah Oldbuckby Rodolphe Töpffer ...... 15

4. William Hogarth: The first four prints from The Rake's Progress ...... 16

5. Eisner's examples of creative panel use. [5] ...... 18

6. Panel from a Japanese narrative scroll, Tale of Genji, 1130 ...... 20

7. Several brush strokes from Adobe Photoshop's brush selection...... 23

8. With the red dot on a separate layer, compositional changes can easily be made without redrawing the image...... 24

9. Penny Arcade comic strip, May 2nd, 2011. [23] ...... 29

10. Traditional style print comic strip echoed by many web comics...... 32

11. Traditional style print comic page echoed by many digital comics...... 33

12. Pup: Panels start out small. [21] ...... 36

13. Pup: As the reader scrolls to the right, panels begin increasing in relative size. [22] ...... 36

14. Panels progress by coming forward from the center of the frame. [15] ...... 39

15. Panel separations are implied by changing pictorial compositions between panels...... 41

16. Full layout of E-merl's PoCom-UK-001 ...... 43

17. Scrolling the browser to the right simulates parallax shift in the layers of depth...... 44

18. One of the story Circles of the thesis comic...... 47

19. Both of the story circles ...... 49

20. Rotational control: The panel in color on the left is framed correctly ...... 50

21. Rotational control: The story has progressed and now the panel on the right is framed correctly...... 50

22. Smaller panels show quicker series of events...... 52

23. Larger panels in color hold the reader's attention longer...... 52

24. Panel with further panels inside at a greater zooming depth...... 55

25. Smaller comic within the larger comic...... 55

26. Story diagram for planning story flow. Arrows indicate reading direction...... 57

27. Rough panels on the story diagram in Prezi...... 58

28. Even keeping in mind traditional western reading habits it is difficult to know which panel is next in the sequence...... 59

29. This is problematic when panels are arranged in a two by two grid...... 59

30. A line is used to guide the reader to the next panel...... 60

31. Reader clicked background element and was zoomed to a medium distance for these panels...... 63

32. Map of the invisible background elements for zooming. Each section frames a group of panels...... 63

33. A circle image at 512 x 512 pixels square. Individual pixels are evident...... 66

34. A circle image at 1024 x 1024 pixels square. Individual pixels less easily seen...... 66

35. No pixelation occurs on vector art...... 67

36. Viewport screenshot of the robot model in Autodesk Maya...... 68

37. Model rendered in Maya by Mental Ray using contour shading...... 69

Abstract Digital Comics: Panel Structure in a Digital Environment Nathaniel Shaw

For over a hundred years, comics have been a way for artists to tell stories in unique ways. An important storytelling device to comics is the relationship between the panels. When one panel is placed next to another we derive meanings from the relationship that is formed. For years comics have adhered to panel placement dictated by the page, whether it is the Sunday paper or a comic book. Digital media presents an opportunity for artists to experiment with new ways of forming comics. By leveraging digital technology’s ability to simulate an environment with infinite canvas space I will attempt to show how new panel arrangements can open up new opportunities for artists to tell stories not possible in print comics. 4

CHAPTER 1: KEY TERMS

Artifact In computer graphics it is unwanted pixels being displayed in an image.

Comic Strip Two or more panels put together to form a narrative that will fit on the equivalent of one printed page or less.

Digital Comic A comic that exists in a digital form and can be viewed using a digital display device.

Digitize The process of converting analogue information into a digital form.

Gutter The space between panels of a comic.

Graphic Novel Two or more panels of a comic put together to form a narrative that will fit on the equivalent of more than one printed page.

Infinite Canvas Originally coined by Scott McCloud to mean a space to arrange panels that has no borders in the X or Y directions.

Manga Generally refers to comics from Japan after World War II.

Panel One image out of a sequence of images that form a comic.

Pixelation A type of artifacting caused by viewing a raster image so closely that the individual pixels are visible.

Prezi Zooming presentation software.

.swf File format for vector graphics and ActionScript for Adobe products.

CHAPTER 2: INTRODUCTION

Comics are on the brink of a major revitalization. Vassari and Gombrich’s arguments, that the history of representational art is that of the discovery of the technology of visual representation. With respect to comics David Carrier argues that this is not true [4].

Instead he states, “All the necessary visual technology was available by the time of

Giotto.” In this paper I will argue that, with the advent of digital media, comics are undergoing a revolution. Comics can now be liberated from the physical limitations of older analog versions. This new freedom will allow storytellers to create new types of stories in comics that were, previous to digital technology, impossible to tell. The limitations of the page no longer have to define the form of a comic. As comics move into the digital space, new ways of thinking about comics may be formulated. Scott

McCloud, comic’s foremost theorist, writes that the computer screen is not the digital equivalent of the page, rather the page can become an infinite area and the monitor is a window onto a comic [11]. This way of thinking can lead to new ways of structuring comics, comics that contain all the formal elements of a traditional print comic, but in ways that print cannot be structured.

The majority of comics in digital form are scans or copies of analog versions. While there is much to be gained from digitizing analog media, this does not fully take advantage of the qualities of digital media. This “cultural lag” is slowly being resolved.

By thinking beyond the boundaries of the page and putting comics in the context of art that exists in an infinite virtual space, they can be re-imagined in the digital realm. 7

Through a review of contemporary digital comics and the creation of a digital comic that will demonstrate how digital media offers new form and structure, it will be demonstrated that digital media can have a profound effect on how a story is told through comics.

CHAPTER 3: OVERVIEW OF PRINT AND DIGITAL COMICS

3.1. The Definition of Comics

“Throughout Europe and Latin America, and in Canada and Japan, comic books and comic strips are regarded as serious artistic and cultural productions” [8]. Despite

Harvey’s assertion that comics constitute a scholarly area of study, very little scholarly work on the subject exists. However, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics leads the way in what constitutes a definition of a comic, and is one of the most cited written works on the subject [8]. I will first summarize how Scott McCloud defines comics in

Understanding Comics and then discuss how other theorists and writers have defined the medium. Through this discussion I will arrive at a general consensus among authors and a workable definition of comics for this paper.

In order to define comics, McCloud states, form must be separated from content [11].

Just like other media; such as painting, music, and film; content may vary wildly but the messenger or the form of the medium is separate from the message or content. McCloud focuses on form when he defines comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.” [11] He separates comics from animation by including the word

“juxtapose” in the definition. He writes that, “Space does for comics what time does for film.” [11] The spatial relationship of images becomes integral to the definition, meaning, and interpretation of a comic. McCloud goes back in time to include various works on a cultural and art historical timeline. Because of the visual spatial relationship of Egyptian hieroglyphs he includes this early form visual sequential narrative along with Trajan’s

Column, Greek Vase painting, and Japanese scrolls as comics. A notable exception to this 9

definition is the exclusion of the single panel cartoons. McCloud says that these are something different and important in their own right but cannot be included as comics because there cannot be a sequence of one. Ultimately he makes the distinction between cartoons and comics. Single panel cartoons, included in the former, are only a part of the greater whole that is comics. To illustrate his point he compares a still from a movie to a full-length film. The still is only a part of a film, it could exist as a single and important piece of art but could not be defined as a film.

McCloud puts an emphasis on the meaning that is implied between frames or images. It is the juxtaposition or montage of images that is important. The space between frames is as much a part of the definition as the use of words. It is what implies motion; movement through time and space. This emphasis on the unseen is something that is unique to comics. A panel of a basketball player dribbling a ball followed by a ball going through a hoop implies a moment immediately following the preceding panel. If, instead of a ball going through a hoop, the next panel depicts an old man sitting in a chair, the relationship between panels becomes very different. The motion and implied time becomes more drawn out but slower. Words affect the pacing as well. Without words, the panel of a basketball player would read as a single moment of time, like a photograph.

However, when some text is added, for example, that of the announcer narrating the play, the single frame implies the movement of the player through the time it takes for the words to be read or spoken.

Essentially, the definition that McCloud is illustrating is that a comic is a sequence of narrative images that imply time and motion through the use of space and 10

placement of panels. Single panel cartoons, illustrated storybooks, and animation do not qualify as comics according to McCloud.

Offering a competing definition is RC Harvey. In his article, “Comedy at the Juncture of Word and Image,” Harvey deliberately references his need to depart from McCloud’s definition. “McCloud’s definition is simply too broad to be useful as anything more than a springboard to discussion.” [8] Harvey believes that under McCloud’s definition the

Bayeauz tapestry, Mexican codices and written Chinese qualify as comics. Harvey goes on to offer his own definition by saying that, “the essential characteristic of “comics” is the incorporation of verbal content…To McCloud, “sequence” is at the heart of the functioning of comics; to me, “blending” verbal and visual content.” [8] Harvey’s definition hinges upon the interplay between text and the image. Single panel comics are included yet wordless comics are not.

A third and different definition of comics comes from David Carrier’s The Aesthetics of Comics. Carrier bases his definition on David Kunzle’s work on early comics that states that comics are “a sequence of separate images, a preponderance of image over text, a mass medium, and the sequence must tell a story that is both moral and topical.”

Eventually he comes to the conclusion that comics are defined as a “narrative sequence with speech balloons.” [4] What he is trying to imply is that what gives comics its unique identity is that comics are neither a purely verbal nor a purely visual medium but a unique hybrid of the two. It is a medium where text and pictures can both exist in the same space but be apart at the same time.

The award winning comic author and artist, Will Eisner defines comics as, “...the arrangement of pictures or images and words to narrate a story or dramatize an idea.” [5] 11

His definition emphasizes pictures and storytelling but taken literally could include many other media. Both film and gaming can easily fall into this category as they both rely on a type of visual storytelling.

Each of these definitions contains the common thread of a visual narrative. Scott

McCloud’s definition is the closest to being inclusive enough yet still able to eliminate what is not a comic. Carrier and Harvey’s emphasis on the interrelationship between words and pictures should not be discounted though. In order to formulate a working definition of comics for this paper, I synthesize the above definitions. The definition that

I will be using for the paper is that comics are made up of primarily static sequential images that drive a narrative with the intent to be advanced at the reader’s own pace. The two keys in this working definition are inclusion of the visual narrative as well as reader control over the pacing of the story. This definition also includes wordless comics by not specifying that there must be words. Books with illustrations are excluded because they are not generally pictorially driven. For example, the text could exist without the pictures in a book and still be comprehensible. Lastly, in order to exclude what is not a comic, we must examine the words we use to refer to our use of media. One “watches” a movie, one

“plays” a game, and finally one “reads” a comic. A comic is something that is meant to be read, the word “reader” in my definition is imperative.

The term comics does not imply any sort of sense of place, the definition is independent of comic books, graphic novels, painted walls, or websites. Comics are the formal elements that make up a medium.

3.2. The Development of Comics Throughout History

3.2.1 History of Western Comics

To understand how changes in technology have affected the development of comics I will briefly talk about the history of comics. Comics as a type of narrative visual representation and art have their roots in the cave paintings and other prehistoric artwork but it is not useful to begin to look for early comics until Rodolphe Töpffer combined words and narrative pictures. Scott McCloud calls Töpffer, “the father of the modern comic...whose light satiric picture stories, starting in the mid 1800’s, employed cartooning and panel borders, and featured the first interdependent combination of words and pictures seen in Europe.” [11] Before Töpffer, most narrative artwork took the form of paintings or public art such as decorations on architectural structures or inside religious buildings. Most of this work is what Robert Peterson refers to as “cyclic narratives,” in Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels. Cyclic narratives are multiple- frame narratives “where each picture in the sequence represents a unique scene and each subsequent picture is related through a common story or related story.” [16] Peterson goes on to say that each frame does not have a causal relationship where actions from one frame do not lead across frames as they do in modern comics. The cyclic narratives illustrate specific events that fit into a story where comics serve to tell a story.

An example of a cyclic narrative is Peter Paul Ruben’s Marie de’Medici cycle of paintings (Illustration 1). The series is a biographical account of Marie de’Medici’s life.

The paintings are narrative and are arranged in a temporal order but there is never any 13

causal relationship between the paintings. More examples of cyclic narratives are stained glass windows in religious buildings that illustrate stories from the bible or lives of saints, the Trajan Column (Illustration 2), and the doors of the Abbey Church of Saint Michael.

The column represents scenes from a victorious military campaign and the bronze doors illustrate scenes from the Bible. All of these examples are illustrating specific events that are linked temporally and by subject matter but do not form a causal series of events. A modern day example of this type of work would be a children’s book. The pictures illustrate events in the story but they do not generally exist as explicit events driving the story forward.

Illustration 1. The second and third paintings in the Marie de’Medici cycle of paintings.

Illustration 2. Trajan's Column: Major battle against the Dacians and Flight of the Dacians into the mountains

Töpffer can be credited with giving narrative art and comics narrative pacing. He did this by “describing a single idea over several closely linked pictures, as if one were seeing the action unfold.” (Illustration 3) He also used different sized panels to set the pacing of the story. [16] These two qualities set his work apart from previous work because the pictures were now telling the story; setting the pace and showing events as they happened rather than illustrating one specific event in time.

Illustration 3. The Adventures Of Obadiah Oldbuckby Rodolphe Töpffer

Another important difference between Töpffer’s work and the earlier examples of narrative art was how the artwork could be viewed. In all of the earlier examples, the viewer had to go to the artwork to be able to see it. By the time Töpffer was creating his comics, the printing press had been in use in Europe for almost 400 years. Töpffer printed his comics and distributed them to his students, eventually publishing them. Such was the effect of his work; Töpffer’s comics immediately influenced caricature artists such as

Cham, Nadar, and Gustave Doré. [16]

His work is not without precedence either. Prints of narrative paintings and caricature prints had been around for a number of years for the general European public to consume. However, Töpffer lists Hogarth’s work as the only inspiration for his comics.

[19] Hogarth produced two series of prints after a series of paintings he did, entitled “A

Harlot’s Progress” and a later series, “A Rake’s Progress.” (Illustration 4) The prints were combined into a portfolio and were intended to be viewed in sequence. However, 16

Carrier argues, “Hogarth’s Rake’s Progress is not a true narrative, for the successive images present discrete events that are too distant from one another, and require too many intermediate stages to be filled in, to be view as one continuous story.” [4] The change from the discrete events in Hogarth’s work to causal relationships between images seen in Töpffer’s signifies the shift from narrative art to the modern idea of comics that the panels form causal relationships to tell a story. However, the way in which a reader was intended to consume Hogarth and Töpffer’s printed work demonstrates a more modern way of viewing narrative art. Where once the art was place specific it was now something a reader could take with them anywhere. Töpffer’s comics demonstrate a modern approach to the structure of narrative art. Pictures are intentionally juxtaposed to form causal relationships between adjacent panels.

Illustration 4. William Hogarth: The first four prints from The Rake's Progress. 17

During the 19th century, after Hogarth and Töpffer’s work, most comics and cartoons were published alongside text in the form of humor magazines or newspapers.

Because of the technology used to print the artwork, lithographic prints for many French comics and woodblock prints for many of the British prints, any extensive text was difficult to incorporate in the comic. [16] Additionally, in the case of the newspaper comics, space limited what the comic could look like and how the story could be structured. At the time, few of the artists considered themselves comics artists. Instead, they identified themselves as journalists, illustrators, or entertainers. Comic artists, journalists, and editors moved between publications constantly and copyright laws were thinly developed. [16] These issues led to competing comic strips that had nearly the same characters and story lines.

By the early 20th century, comics began licensing their work instead of publishing the work themselves. [16] Until the 1930s, the primary place to read comics remained in magazines and newspapers. While many earlier comics had been regularly republished as collections in books and magazines, they came out too infrequently to gain a regular following. [16] However, eventually a formula of regularly releasing licensed collections of reprinted comics worked to consistently deliver comics outside of the traditional publications of the time.

This development led to companies beginning to produce comics released in their own publications with all original work. This new format opened up the possibilities in how popular comics could be structured. By 1940, comic artist Will Eisner was asked to create a sixteen-page comic book. Eisner, an early innovator used this opportunity to 18

break from the traditional orderly square panels that were commonplace at the time. [16]

Eisner recognized that the artist must control the reader’s attention with composition and pacing of the pictures in the panels and the framing of the subjects in the panels. Eisner also experimented with using the panel as a narrative device. His panels are often in shapes that reflect the mood of the scene or enhance the narrative occurring within.

Jagged panels reflect a character’s anguish, panels tilted at varying degrees enhance a character’s sense of dizziness as he falls, characters burst from the borders of the panel, and other panels dispense with the border entirely. (Illustration 5) Eisner writes “the range of possibility of outline is limited only to the requirements of the narrative and the constrictions of the page dimensions.” [5] As comics moved from being only printed as supplements on the pages of magazines and newspapers to being made for dedicated books opportunities arose for more space to dedicate to longer story development.

Illustration 5. Eisner's examples of creative panel use. [5]

By the 1950s there was significant public interest in the content of comics.

Various religious and conservative activists and politicians began a crusade against what was deemed unacceptable material for comics. This public and political discourse ended with the creation of the Comics Code. This code was a self-regulated form of censorship by the major comics companies. It limited what content could be seen in comics and was, in part, responsible for the narrowing of subject matter of comics and the contraction of the mainstream comics market. [16] The sixties saw the start of the shift towards selling comics from comic book shops as opposed to the newspaper distributors. As comic book shops became the primary place to purchase comics, shelf space became a limiting force of what types of comics were sold. Comic shops often sacrificed a diverse reader base for a more reliable profit margin. [11]

3.2.2. History of Eastern Comics

Art and comics developed along a slightly different trajectory in Asia and Eastern countries and it is worth mentioning the differences. The woodblock printing press had been used since the 8th century in China but the way the regulating bodies controlled the printing technology the amount of printing that was done by anyone outside the government was limited. [16] Japan, however, supported a strong tradition of narrative scrolls that circulated throughout the country, lasting up to the 19th century. These narrative scrolls consisted of a written story framework followed by a series of images depicting different scenes of the story. (Illustration 6)

Illustration 6. Panel from a Japanese narrative scroll, Tale of Genji, 1130

The earliest cited examples of caricatures are The Animal Scrolls of Bishop Toba from the 11th century. They featured humorous drawings of animals as satirical representations of the upper class. Because of the limited printing technology of the time, it wasn’t until the 17th century that caricatures were produced for a wider audience of people that could afford the prints.

The early 19th century saw a rise in popularity of caricatures of celebrities. This type of art eventually gave rise to graphic narratives that were often bound into book form. These kibyoshi featured a variety of stories of different subjects accompanied by text of the narrative, the thoughts and visions of the characters, and occasionally speech.

These kibyoshi are distinct from comics because of their lack of a causal relationship between panels. They are much like Hogarth’s experiments in graphical narrative.

Typically the images of the comics would exist one per page of the kibyoshi and no spatial relationship developed between the panels. 21

By the mid-19th century, along with the arrival of the American navy, there came a great amount of western influence. This spread of culture included magazines that frequently featured comic strips. In the late 1880s, George Ferdinand Bigot started an especially influential French magazine, Tobae. The French magazine had satirical cartoons arranged in temporal sequence. This, in combination with other Western magazines’ uses of word balloons and the influence of the earlier book-style kibyoshi, formed the basis for modern manga. [10]

During World War Two, the Japanese government established regulations on what types of manga could be produced. Acceptable material included propaganda against the Allies, pro-war manga, and manga created with the intent to increase industrial worker output. As the war came to a close and eventually ended with much of

Japan poor, the thematic restrictions of the government lifted and manga became a cheap form of entertainment for the Japanese people. From this time forward, manga continues to be an important form of Japanese culture and a ubiquitous form of Japanese media.

[10]

The development of comics in both the East and West shows how technology and other factors have affected the development of comics. In Europe and the US, the form and structure of comics was dictated by the magazines and newspapers but was later expanded when comics spread out to include the larger and longer page comic books.

Content was narrowly regulated by many of the larger comic publishing companies.

Japanese comics developed out of a combination of the precedence of the kibyoshi and western influenced magazine comics. The formal structure of both of these types of comics comes from the physical object it was printed on. The stories were written and 22

drawn to fill an existing medium. Next we will see how contemporary comics are expanding and developing beyond the boundaries of these physical comics.

3.3. Comics and Digital Media

With the invention of the personal computer and the Internet, the way in which comics are created, distributed, read, and structured has changed. Some writers, such as Scott

McCloud, champion comics’ entrance into the digital realm as a force that will revitalize comics. Others lament that digital comics spell the end of the traditional comic book shop community and wide spread fame of individual comics and comic artists. I will write about 3 main areas where digital technology is affecting comics: the digital production of comics, digital distribution of comics, and the digital structure of comics.

3.3.1. Digital Production of Comics

Digital technology is common in all aspects of the comic production pipeline. Even comics that have been created using all analog techniques can be scanned into a digital form, and further changed. Every physical comic production technique has a digital equivalent. Programs like Adobe’s Photoshop can simulate drawing techniques with infinitely mutable brushes. Photoshop, and other image manipulation and painting programs like it, have in some cases, hundreds of styles of brushes that mimic the line quality of pencils, chalk, crayons, ink pens, ink brushes, and any other medium that is used to make comics. (Illustration 7) Additionally, most paint programs allow the user to change a brushes size, stiffness, flow, opacity, texture, and shape. An artist can create brushes from sample artwork; effectively making stamp brushes to speed up certain 23

repetitive tasks. For example, a brush of a few short lines that represent grass can be used to make an entire field of grass.

Illustration 7. Five different brush strokes from Adobe Photoshop's brush selection.

There are digital tools that replicate the physicality of drawing with analog materials as well. Digitizing tablets are common input devices for digital artists. Tablets such as Wacom’s Intuous, have a surface that detects an input device shaped like a pen called a stylus. The input surface corresponds to the user’s computer screen and the stylus is used to move the cursor around the screen by moving the tip of the stylus around the sensitive area of the tablet. Most tablets have a range of pressure sensitivity and can often sense at what angle the user is holding the stylus. Many programs use this information to adjust the brush shape accordingly. More advanced tablets combine a monitor display and the input surface into one device. This allows the user to draw directly onto the image, further mimicking the analog drawing experience. 24

Layer based image editing software allows artists to separate image elements into their own discrete part that can be individually changed without affecting other parts of the image. For example, if two characters are standing side by side and each one is drawn on its own layer their compositional relationship can be easily changed by changing just one of the characters. The artist can move the first character around the frame of the picture, re-size or even duplicate it without ever affecting the second character.

(Illustration 8) This level of control can greatly decrease production time on a comic as the artist can make changes to panels without redrawing the entire image.

Illustration 8. With the red dot on a separate layer, compositional changes can easily be made without redrawing the image.

Coloring can also be completed digitally using paint programs. LCD monitors support up to 24 bits of color which translates into 16,777,216 colors. This allows the comic artist 25

the flexibility to choose from a very broad color palette. Coloring can take on any form as the brushes can take any color and simulate any medium as a brush. Color correction is also easily done with digital image editing software. Artists can drastically change the colors of an image very quickly without re-painting any of the artwork.

Lettering is also frequently done digitally. The letter artist has a variety of options for creating text styles. Just as line art and coloring can be drawn into a paint program, so too can the lettering. Additionally, letterers can also use specialized programs to create their own font from their hand drawn letters. Finally, the comic artists can choose from the prepackaged fonts that ship along with most graphics editing programs or download them from the Internet. The ability to freely arrange and re-size text allows for the artist to quickly test out new text and image compositions. The computer stores the text information separately from the font information, therefore allowing the artist to make changes to the style of the text without redoing all of the text.

Panel layout can also be done digitally using any graphics editing program or a more specialized layout program such as Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. These types of programs allow the comic artist to quickly move around panels and experiment with placement without investing in printing or physical versions of the comic.

Image creation can take new forms when it is done digitally. Computer generated 3- dimensional graphics, commonly seen in animated movies like Pixar’s Up or in visual effects sequences in films such as the dragon in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, can be used to create still images for use in the panels of comics. Initially, models of environments and characters must be built in virtual three dimensions in a 3d modeling program like Maya or ZBrush. Once it is built in 3d, the artist can rotate around the 26

model, choose different perspectives on the subject, and if the model is rigged, the artist can pose the character in any number of positions. This type of workflow demands more time in the planning and pre-production stage than drawing every panel. Once the assets are created panels can be quickly rendered. Changes in the point of view or panel composition are easy to make because there is no need to redraw any of the forms.

Complex images with difficult to draw perspectives become much simpler when the computer handles perspective problems. This type of image creation can aid in creating styles that were previously difficult or time consuming to make. Texture maps used for giving the 3d models color and surface qualities are mapped onto the three-dimensional forms so that when rendered, the models will be in full color at any angle without the need to hand draw or color in the characters. However, because of the substantial initial time to create the assets for rendering, this type of image creation is most useful for time saving purposes when the project is very large.

The digital nature also allows for easy transportation of the comic. If there are multiple artists on a project, physical distance is less an obstacle than before digital technology.

The components to a comic are data and can be sent nearly instantaneously without loss to the quality of the comic. This allows for collaboration among artists all around the world.

3.3.2. Digital Distribution of Comics

When Scott McCloud published Reinventing Comics in 2000, a relatively small number of comics were available for digital delivery, meaning they could be read through the

Internet. Now, however, the digital distribution is beginning to shape future comics for 27

good. Digital comics are available for reading on computers, cell phones, and other digital devices that connect to the Internet. In October 2010, ICv2, a “geek culture” market analysis company, CEO Milton Griepp announced that the US and Canadian markets for traditional comics dropped twelve percent in the first half of 2010 while graphic novel sales dropped thirty percent in bookstores. However, sales of digital comics have reportedly grown from $500,000 in 2009 to an estimated $6 to 8 million dollars by the second half of 2010. [9] This type of growth indicates that digital comics will take up a larger share of the comics industry than in past years. More people than before are reading digital comics.

Even before this growth in the commercial sales of comics, there have been writers and artists that have been using the Internet to self-publish their own work since the 1990s. Known as “web comics,” these comics are issued primarily over the Internet, some through specialized comic hosting services and others on a creator run website.

Often these types of comics are free to read. Graphical web browsers such as Mosaic,

Internet Explorer, and Safari allowed comics to be easily published and distributed over the Internet. While it is virtually impossible to count every web comic on the Internet as there is no central cataloguing service or a way to search for only web comics, some estimates count at them greater than 20,000. The website thewebcomiclist.com monitors over 17,000 individual comics online. Such a large growth in both commercial comics and ones released as a web comic in a short amount of time means that comics are on the verge of a major expansion in who reads comics and the way they read them.

This shift in distribution affects both the production and structure of comics.

Before digital distribution was a possibility, most comics were sold in comic book shops 28

or were featured in other publications such as newspapers and magazines. Printing large runs of a comic can be costly and the large corporate comics publishers controlled most publications. This older model and the shift to Internet and specialized interests are explained by Chris Anderson’s Long Tail Theory and are very similar to the music industry. In his essay, Anderson explains how the record companies created a false scarcity of bands that they would market. [1] When print comics were the only choice and corporate publishers were the only one distributing comics, comic producers had to choose which comics to promote. This choice led to fewer comics being widely distributed and sold on the limited shelf space of the comic book shops. Fewer comics being sold led to fewer stylistic and thematic deviations. This, in turn, led to less original work being available to buy, influence new artists, and bring in new readers.

Publishing web comics on the Internet is vastly less expensive than printing physical comics and can potentially reach a much larger audience. While major comic companies were reluctant to move their work into the digital realm because of fears of piracy, [16] independent artists embraced it. The advantage of reaching a wider audience is the ability to specialize on certain interest groups. Anderson writes, “As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.” [1]An example of a narrowly targeted comic is “Penny Arcade.” “Penny Arcade” is a web comic written by

Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik about video games, computer games, and other gaming topics. (Illustration 9) Before the Internet, this type of comic may not have 29

fit in with the normal profitable comics on the shelves of comic book stores or been able fit in with the newspaper comics that targeted the largest audience possible. However, on the Internet, the audience seeks out content that interests them and tends to find its own niche.

Illustration 9. Penny Arcade comic strip, May 2nd, 2011. [23]

“Penny Arcade” is one example of many comics that used digital technology to expand the types of stories it could tell and gain an audience for. As the larger publishing companies begin to realize, as did the record companies, that moving digitally is to their benefit, we may see the long tail affect the large companies as well. Perhaps there will be greater diversity in the types of stories they promote, and lead to more artistic freedom.

Two examples of mainstream companies entering digital distribution take the form of zuda.com and comixology.com. The former is now defunct and the latter has seen a very strong growth with Apple’s release of the iPad. 30

3.3.2.1. Zuda.com

Zuda.com was an excellent example of comics that have been digitized and representational of most work currently present on the Internet. Zuda.com used the conventions of print based comics to digitally display and distribute user submitted comics. Creators could submit their work and readers would vote on the ones they liked the best to be featured. The site was a subsidiary of DC Comics. If a comic was voted for enough, DC would support the creator while he or she worked on continuations of the comic. The format of the comics was a fully opened standard sized comic. Little arrows under the page indicated buttons the reader pushes to advance the story. This movement of media is the natural progression of print comics to the Internet. It is the digitization of the printed page that is then displayed on a web page. While the formal elements of the page were very conservative, the thematic options were more open than DC’s typical publications because the site cost DC relatively little to maintain; the content for most of the site was made by the readers of the site and the company did not have to invest in any physical product. The site ran from October 2007 until October 7th, 2010. [22]

3.3.2.2. Comixology

Comixology.com is an online resource for retail comic sellers and, more importantly, an online comic reader. The resource claims to have the largest collection of available comics with over 6,000. Customers can read comics on the computer screen or mobile device page-by-page or panel-by-panel. This type of format is an important bridge between print comics and digital comics. Comixology is often digitized versions of a print comic; however, it breaks from the usual by giving the reader the ability to view 31

individual panels separately. This separation changes the panel-to-panel relationship and can create different relationships between events that occur between panels.

In an interview with tfaw.com, the CEO of Comixology, David Steinberger answers a question about how comics publishers are changing the way they make comics with, “Most major publishers have not adjusted how they produce comics, although I have heard tales of lettering sizes getting a little bigger to have them more readable on the iPad, but haven’t actually seen that other than digital-first comics.” [18] The major comics publishers are hesitant to create work designed only for digital environments.

While digital comics are still only a small fraction of the total sales for comic publishers, the total market for comics in 2009 was $680 million dollars and with digital comics accounting for roughly $500,000, [9] the major companies have been very slow to embrace the digital format. Comixology released its first digital reader for these comics in 2009, sixteen years after the first graphical browser was released. Steinberger cites the iPhone as what prompted his company to venture into the digital format. The reasoning is that the handheld devices better simulate the reading experience of a print comic book than that of the personal computer. The digital distribution of comics is still focused on creating digital versions of print comics rather than creating new stories made specifically for this new medium.

3.3.3. Digital Structure of Comics

The third effect of digital technology on comics is the opportunity to imagine new structure and visuals impossible in print versions of the comics. Most web comics and commercial comics come in one of two forms, the comic strip (Illustration 10) or the comic page. (Illustration 11) Both of these comic layouts make direct reference to the structure of panels of print comics. [13]

Illustration 10. Traditional style print comic strip echoed by many webcomics.

Illustration 11. Traditional style print comic page echoed by many digital comics.

In Reinventing Comics, Scott McCloud writes about the twelve directions in which comics can grow. The twelfth is in a digital direction. [12] McCloud outlines different directions comics can take when moved to a digital environment while retaining the basic definition as a narrative spatial temporal map. He writes that in the beginning of digital comics there was an intense interest in adding elements of sound and animation to comics. These early attempts, while potentially valuable in their own right, began to 34

move away from the definition of comics. An animated panel becomes a window into an animation, a completely different medium.

The tendency of digital comics to present one image at a time to capitalize on screen resolution leads to a natural comparison with hypertext. “Just as documents filled with ideas and images are linked throughout the Web, inviting us to explore them in any order, so too can individual panels be linked in an interactive matrix of narrative choices.” [12]

Displaying a comic panel individually allows the next panel to be anything and changed on the fly. This interactivity and disconnect of images breaks the fundamental spatial relationship that is inherent in the definition of comics.

Instead of adding extra elements into comics, creators can be rethinking how we view and structure comics. The printed page assigns artificial restrictions on how comics are formed and where panels must be placed. The panels must be arranged on the page, this arrangement forces the comic into a box. If we view the monitor as a window onto an

“infinite canvas,” the comic can take new forms of spatial relationships not possible in the printed medium.

Some of the new forms McCloud suggests are pages that extend in any direction for any amount of distance, panels that sit in three-dimensional space, as in The Right

Number, or panels that take any two dimensional shape. [15] The key, according to

McCloud is maintaining a spatial relationship between panels.

In an article about the relationship between hypertext and comics, Licia Calvi argues that hypertext can inform the aesthetics of comics. The article argues that hypertext becomes the form of the comics. The absence of the spatial relationship can act as a formal element the same as the presence of the relationship. [2] I disagree with this 35

evaluation. Once the images are spatially divorced they become orphaned images that lose their juxtapositional energy as a part of a greater whole. This is not to say that hypertext could never be a part of comics. Links between other images and information could enhance the community and environment that surrounds the comic while it remains a self-contained media object. This could take the form of a wiki of the story arc of a comic in an abridged form for new readers to catch up on the story or it could take the form of a forum where readers could discuss the comics. The hypertext could form a virtual bookshelf, allowing readers to choose a comic to read but in all of these instances the comic retains its form while the hypertext qualities only seek to enhance the ancillary experience surrounding the digital comic.

There are contemporary comic artists and writers that are pushing the boundaries of what can be done with digital comics. I will review several of them and highlight what techniques they are employing to push those boundaries.

3.3.3.1. Pup Contemplates the Heat Death of the Universe

“Heat Death” by Drew Ewing is a comic accessed through the artist’s webpage. It consists of panels as images embedded into an HTML page. In "Heat Death" Pup, the protagonist, sits on his front porch and thinks about how small he is. (Illustration 12) The reader is transported further and further away from the world in a series of frames. To navigate this comic, the reader must follow along a line starting from the upper left of what is essentially one large page. The reader then uses the scroll bars to move along a horizontal series of images. The frames range in size, the smallest measuring a fifth the size of the largest. (Illustration 13) 36

Illustration 12. Pup: Panels start out small. [21]

Illustration 13. Pup: As the reader scrolls to the right, panels begin increasing in relative size. [22]

While this comic could be transferred to print form, it would certainly have a different effect. Viewing the comic through the window of a monitor limits the reader’s field of vision, forcing him to see the images successively. If the comic were in physical form the reader could see the comic as a whole, more of a unified image rather than a 37

series of images. This effect would be minimal, however. The comic is clearly meant to be read along a continuous plane so if it were in print form it would have to printed on a large sheet of paper or painted on a wall. The creator could have easily put each image on a different page and forced the reader to click through the comic. However, the artist chose to put everything on one page.

The artist uses the continuously increasing scale of the images to show how small

Pup is compared to the universe. As the reader, we begin to feel overwhelmed and hopeless as Pup's field of vision pulls further and further out and the images increase in size. This device is impossible in a traditional comic format where the size of the image is limited by the physical borders of the page. A digital landscape allows for an "infinite canvas,” to use the term coined by Scott McCloud, to mean that an image can exist in digital space and extend infinitely in all virtual directions with the monitor serving as a window onto this ever-expanding comic.

The comic runs into some problems that break up continuity and interfere with the storytelling. The first is that the reader is limited by screen size or screen resolution.

While the image is not limited by its digital size it is by how big of an image can fit on a screen. This problem ties in with the second issue, the navigation of the comic. To move around the page, the reader must rely on scroll bars on the bottom and right hand sides of the image. This can be awkward and non-intuitive. To have to look away from the image to locate the scroll bars causes the reader to lose the sense of immersion they had while reading the comic. The screen resolution could be fixed in several ways. The first is to view the comic with a monitor with a higher resolution. The problem with that is that the higher resolution means smaller images in many cases. The other option is to view it on a 38

much larger scale. If we could read the comic on a wall sized screen or projector it would convey the feeling of the comic much more effectively. A combination of higher res viewing and larger format would add to the immediacy of the comic. It is simpler to solve the problem of comic navigation. The creator could have chosen to use the mouse as a hand. The best example of this operation is used in the popular website Google maps.

The user left clicks his mouse and then moves the mouse to move the image around in front of the monitor. The advantage of this method is that is already a function that is used heavily in navigating 2D images in a variety of software.

3.3.3.2. The Right Number

“The Right Number” is about a man who accidentally dials the number of a woman he doesn't know and asks her out to dinner thinking he had called his girlfriend. Because the new woman looks exactly like his girlfriend, he talks to her for nearly half the date thinking the woman is his girlfriend. Eventually the man discovers his mistake but he ends up falling in love with the new girl. Eventually they break up and a similar coincidental meeting occurs between the man and another woman.

The comic progresses through the story through panels that fly directly towards the reader. (Illustration 14) Moving from one panel to another is along the z-axis, in parallel with the monitor’s virtual plane and perpendicular with the picture plane. The next panel is always placed in the center of the current panel. This creates a feeling very different from reading a printed comic. In a traditional comic the reader moves from panel to panel across a plane, the page. “The Right Number” has a very different spatial 39

relationship between panels; it is very similar to watching a cartoon that is really slow or a slideshow. Because one image replaces another, the reader never gets a sense of lateral motion. While I believe this work to definitely be in the realm of comics, the method of advancement in the comic detracts from one of the fundamentals of comics. The importance of what happens between frames is lessened in this comic because each frame is immediately replaced by a new one that is the same format and size. This technique begins to blur the line between comics and T.V. and film. One panel replacing another fully covering the screen is very similar to a sequence of images being played back. The only difference is that film and T.V. have an intended play back speed and the comic does not.

Illustration 14. Panels progress by coming forward from the center of the frame. [15]

3.3.3.3. Nawlz

Nawlz is an Adobe Flash based sci-fi comic about a man that uses substances to be able to control an otherworldly avatar projection of his body. The comic moves on an extended horizontal axis. Images inside the panels consistently break the borders and panels bleed together. The monitor acts as a window on the panels that are progressed by the reader pressing buttons inside of the panel. When the main panel is focused on the main character and the reader moves to the next panel the entire comic slides over to bring the next panel to the front of the readers view. (Illustration 15)

Nawlz occasionally uses sound and animation; qualities that McCloud felt had no place in a strict digital comic. However, in this case it is permissible because neither the sound nor the animation is intrinsic to moving the narrative forward. The animation is contained within the panels and is fully controlled by the reader. At one point in this story, the main character is awoken from his drug use by a construction worker. When the reader clicks on the worker’s doughnut, he turns into a puffer fish and then quickly back to human form. This is an example of the animation that is used throughout the piece. This type of animation does not share the same role as a progression of panels.

Illustration 15. Panel separations are implied by changing pictorial compositions between panels.

3.3.3.4. E-Merl.com

E-Merl.com is a website that contains a collection of comics created by Daniel Merlin

Goodbrey. The website has a section entitled "Webcomics." The webcomics section of his site includes many examples of relatively unique digital comics. While some of them are simple three panel comics, others, like "Icarus Tangents" and "PoCom 001" push the formal boundaries of what is possible with comic layout. The most important aspect of these two comics is the ability to pan and zoom. Rather than the traditional, vertical page layout, the comic stretches across the entire screen with all the panels next to each other.

By using the mouse to click on individual panels within the comic, the window in which the viewer sees the comic moves to focus on the specific panel. This interface allows the creator to place very small panels inside of a larger panel. In the example of the "Icarus

Tangents," entire conversations occur between two characters inside of just one panel.

While the panel within a panel convention can be seen frequently enough in many 42

comics, in this instance the smaller comics are not legible at the resolution of the larger comics. "PoCom 001" is similar to the previous example in that we can see the entire story laid out on one giant window and have to zoom in to read many of the panels. In this example, the story line isn't necessarily linear. (Illustration 16) The panels still form spatial relationships with each other but the reader can choose a branching sequence rather than just one path. There is one main story thread that leads the way through the story. From that there are many intersecting story lines that start out separate but eventually affect the main story. The main story reads horizontally from right to left with each branching story either above or below it. The branching stories are a series of panels that eventually mix with the larger main story line. This and the previous type of comic are only practical in a digital form. To have a print comic the shape of either example would require printing on such a large surface that it would make mass distributing it or reading it impractical. 43

Illustration 16. Full layout of E-merl's PoCom-UK-001

3.3.3.5. HoboLobo.net

Hobo Lobo of Hamelin is a JavaScript based comic created by Stevan Živadinović. The comic features a series of comic strips on a series of web pages. Each strip visually blends the panels together by continuing the art from one panel to the next. (Illustration

17) Each panel is separated by vertical elements within the image. Characters all face into their individual panels. The reader progresses through the comic in a horizontal fashion by sliding the browser’s slider from the left to the right. When the browser moves through the comic the artwork appears to move at different speeds depending on how far back in the picture it is supposed to be. This parallax effect simulates depth in the otherwise two dimensional artwork. Occasionally, animations will play in a panel. This is 44

sometimes triggered by the reader scrolling to a certain point in the comic but other times one of the images in a depth level will be animated. For example, in one frame the main character is hanging up a sign above a booth as the reader slides to the beginning of the panel. However, as he slides towards the end of the panel, the character disappears from his original position and reappears on the other side of his booth. This, in combination with artwork rotating in and out of visibility at regular intervals make up the subtle animation in this comic. These elements act on the temporal timing of the comic. Since there is little time and space, gutters are only visually suggested, for the reader to rest his eyes, everything in the comic feels as if it is happening very quickly or nearly all at once.

The simulation of the parallax is an interesting use of an illusion common to film or animation repurposed to comics and is an element that could not be reproduced in printed comics.

Illustration 17. Scrolling the browser to the right simulates parallax shift in the layers of depth.

CHAPTER 4: DIGITAL STORYTELLING IN COMICS

Changes in technology have been shaping comics since their earliest beginnings.

Likewise, digital technology has been slowly changing the way people read comics.

However, there has been little work to create comics that experiment with new panel layouts for greater storytelling capabilities. Typical web comics and digital comics emulate either the comic strip form or the graphic novel form of structuring panels. Panel layout dictates the timing and overall structure of the story and if comic creators working in the digital medium limit themselves to print page restrictions they limit themselves to only stories that could be told in print.

While there is still a strong interest in print comics and digital versions of print comics, artists continually seek new ways to tell new types of stories. Before Töpffer created immediate causal relationships between panels, images supplemented existing stories rather than being the primary storytellers. After Töpffer, artists used print to arrange panels into narrative sequences. Eisner demonstrated that the panel was the medium of control in comics and that by manipulating the layout an artist could have further control of how the story was read. McCloud then expanded on Eisner’s theory and applied it to digital media. He wrote that panel layout could break free of the restrictions of the page when placed in a digital environment. The computer screen could be used as a window onto a larger digital landscape rather than the panels being placed on the surface of a physical page. Through the creation of a short narrative comic, I will demonstrate how unique panel placement on a digital canvas can completely change how a story can be structured. 46

CHAPTER 5: APPROACH

5.1. Digital Structure of a Comic

In order to break the fundamental story structure of a typical comic, I had to make a story that didn’t fit the common story elements of a beginning, middle, and end. The comic uses three structural devices only practically achievable by a digital comic. The first is arranging the panels in a circular fashion to be an infinite and repeating story. The second is infinite space on the digital canvas in the X and Y directions; the third is panel movement along the Z direction. On a digital canvas, panels can be as large or as small as the story calls for.

The first device in defying print comics’ use of panel structure is creating a story that is does not have a beginning, middle, and end. With this in mind, I thought about a common animation exercise, given to beginning animation students, called the “loop-a- thon.” The prompt for the exercise is that they must create an animation that can be played continuously without a break in the flow or action. This means that the first frame must be exactly the same as the last. Or, to be more precise, the last frame must be logically followed by the first. A simplified example of this is an animation of a ball spinning. The animation would show one frame short of a full revolution. The last frame would be followed by the first and it should line up as if it followed naturally. If played on a loop, the animation would have the effect of a ball continuously spinning in a circle.

There would be no noticeable start and no end.

This “loop-a-thon” is the fundamental idea behind the thesis comic. There is no obvious beginning panel and no end panel. The panels exist in a line around the circumference of a circle, giving the reader the sense that those events have been 47

occurring forever and will continue to happen forever. (Illustration 18) Characters will continuously make reference to events that have happened on other parts of the circle that the reader may or may not have read yet. In this way, many events are either foreshadowing or setting the stage for a future event or it is resolving an earlier conflict, depending on where the reader entered into the story or how many times he has read the circle.

Illustration 18. One of the story circles of the thesis comic.

The comic has two separate story circles that tell a repeating story. (Illustration

19) There is a character, a bird, that goes between circles and participates in both story circles. When the reader gets to a part where the bird departs one story and bridges over to another one the reader must make a choice as to which story line he follows. This choice is distinct from “choose your own adventure” type of books. In the comic, both paths happen whether the reader decides to follow that path or not, whereas in a “choose your own adventure book” the choice affects the story. The difference is that in the thesis comic all events happen but the reader gets to choose in what order he wants to read it. In a “choose your own adventure book,” the reader has some control over how the story develops.

The bird character goes between story circles on two bridges of panels going in opposite directions. These bridges along with the two separate story circles form a third and larger story circle. The format of these story circles defy the normal formatting conventions of print comics where most fit on a standard 6 ⅝ inches by 10 ¼ inches page for most American comics, smaller but more variable for manga books, and small enough to fit on a newspaper page. For legibility one would have to print the smallest panel on the story circle as large as the average panel of a comic in the newspaper. If the smallest panel were about three square inches the large panel would be roughly 150 ft. square. If printed so that all of the story circle panels were legible, the three beginning panels would be over 450 feet long. Cutting the theoretical printed version of the comic into more manageable sizes would mean breaking the fundamental aspect of comics, the 49

relationship between panels. The story is meant to be a continuous flow from panel to panel.

Illustration 19. Both of the story circles

Additionally, there is no top to the comic. As the panels progress around the circle, the bottom of each panel is perpendicular to a line starting at the center point of the circle and drawn to the center point of the panel where it falls on the circumference of the circle. In this manner, the reader is always at a convenient viewing angle for at least one panel in the comic regardless of how the comic is turned. (Illustrations 20 and 21) 50

Illustration 20. Rotational control: The panel in color on the left is framed correctly

Illustration 21. Rotational control: The story has progressed and now the panel on the right is framed correctly.

The second device is infinite expansion in the X and Y direction of the digital canvas.

Currently there are only three story circles but more could be added on to any part or panel of the comic where a character enters or leaves the story, leaving the comic to be infinitely expandable in service of the story. Theoretically, these story circles could expand in any direction for an infinite amount of space, providing the software and hardware could support the information processing required.

The final device is creating panels that have a size relationship between each other that is greater than print comics. The panels along the edge of the story circles are of greatly varying size. The purpose of this change in size is to create a relationship between panels that furthers the story. In the story, a woodland creature breaks open the robot bird’s cage and flies away with the robot bird in tow. The actions leading up to the robot bird escaping are contained in small panels to emphasize the hurried events that lead up to the actual escape. The escape is contained in a panel six or seven times larger than one of the smaller panels leading up to it. This drastic scale increase plays a two-part role.

First, the size indicates a change in the intended pacing. The intent is for the reader to move through the smaller, simpler panels quickly. (Illustration 22) This gives the reader a sense of the frantic action of the woodland creature breaking open the lock while the owner of the menagerie is distracted with fixing the broken wheel. When the reader gets to the large panel, the bird and woodland creature have taken to the air and the menagerie owner notices but is too far to catch the pair. Because the panel is larger, the reader lingers on the action contained in that panel a little longer. (Illustration 23) 52

The drastic change in the scale of the panel emphasizes the change and places importance on that panel.

Illustration 22. Smaller panels show quicker series of events.

Illustration 23. Larger panels in color hold the reader's attention longer.

Second, the larger size corresponds with other large-scale panels around the circle. This grouping by scale creates alternate ways of reading the story. The reader can move through each panel zooming in for the smaller panels, and then zooming out for the larger panels to get the details of the entire story. Or the reader can choose to stay at a distance that allows for only the larger panels to be legible. At that distance the story would still follow the storyline and the general idea of the events would be readable, but many details on how events happen would be omitted. This gives the reader a way to read the comic at two different levels, an amount of scalability not possible on a printed page.

The story circles and the minor scaling of panels offer two ways of forming space and time relationships between panels. The digital canvas allows for even greater zooming than what is evident on the story circles. To show that the digital canvas extends in great distances, the comic uses extreme scaling to illustrate the relationship between the story circle comics and the three large introduction panels. The first panel the reader sees upon loading the comic is a panel of a wolf person standing next to a plane. On the plane is a black symbol similar to the symbol for infinity. As the reader either clicks on the symbol or zooms in closer to the drawing, he will see that there is an entire comic laid out on the symbol. This is the story circle comic outlined above.

It is not uncommon to have one panel completely inside another panel in a print comic. Because the digital canvas allows for great amounts of zooming, over 120 panels could fit inside just one panel. This relationship between panels is in service of the story.

It explains events that make up a part of the identity of the wolf character and the plane and it provides information about the relationship between the minor character and the background object. This relationship challenges the idea that there is ever a main 54

character and that the story has a defined beginning, middle, and end. By reading the largest panel the reader may assume that the whole comic is about that character; however, by diving into the story on the plane, the reader discovers there is more to the comic than just those two characters.

This technique of zooming in to find more information about a character is repeated on the object the bird is preventing the large robot from pulling from the ground.

(Illustration 24 and 25) When the two characters find an object protruding from the ground the bird stands in front of the object much to the annoyance of the large robot.

The reader may not know why the bird does this or why the piece is bad for the bird. If the reader zooms into the object under the ground he will find another short comic strip.

This strip tells the story that briefly explains some background information on the buried object and alludes to another object in that story circle. This allusion could be a foreshadowing of future events or it could be a background explanation of how an object the robot uses later (or earlier, depending on where the reader started) works and where it comes from.

Illustration 24. Panel with further panels inside at a greater zooming depth.

Illustration 25. Smaller comic within the larger comic. 56

The three ways in which the comic uses the digital canvas to form panel relationships, circular panel layout for infinite stories, infinite space for large scale comics on one page, and movement along the z-axis all demonstrate that the comics artist is able to tells a story that the print medium is incapable of telling.

5.2. Production Considerations for a Digital Comic

The development of the thesis comic leveraged a combination of traditional and nontraditional story development techniques, traditional artwork, digital artwork and a special consideration for finding the right tools for creating an infinitely scalable comic.

5.2.1. Non-Traditional Story Development and Panel Structure

As the story developed from character ideas with back-stories to a plot, there was a need to begin structuring the story. Once it was established that the comic would be a circular narrative, there needed to be a way to outline it in an intuitive way that took into account the intended panel structure. Many traditional stories that rely on a beginning, middle, and end-use some form of linear outline to structure the story. This could be in the form of a script book, storyboards, or some combination of the two. However, this type of linear structure does not take into account the circular structure and panel layout of the thesis comic’s intended story. In order to address this problem, a story diagram was developed to outline the structure and basic flow of the story. The story diagram consists of lines that represent the flow of the story. (Illustration 26) In the case of the thesis comic, the story was represented by two circles joined by two lines flowing in opposite directions. This type of diagram helped the artist to visualize a timeline of events that 57

happen in the story. Once the basic outline of the story was fit to the story diagram, the artist could begin drawing rough panels of the comic.

Illustration 26. Story diagram for planning story flow. Arrows indicate reading direction.

The panels were drawn on paper and digitally scanned. Once each panel was digitized it was brought into Prezi, the software application used for driving the comic’s navigation.

In Prezi, panels were rearranged to experiment with how the format could be leveraged to form different types of spatial and temporal relationships between panels in service of the story. (Illustration 27)

Illustration 27. Rough panels on the story diagram in Prezi.

Every type of traditional print comic panel layout follows its own common formula.

Western comic strips are read from left to right, western comic books are read from left to right and top to bottom, and manga is read from right to left and top to bottom; however, the thesis comic has little to no precedence in the form of panel layout, so a new type of panel layout had to be developed. Because the thesis comic is directed to western readers and western readers are accustomed to reading from left to right, the comic should be read from left of the monitor to the right side of the monitor when the panel is turned in the proper direction. However, organizing the panels in a continuous circle is problematic. If the panels are in a line side by side in a continuous circle, the way in which the reader is supposed to progress through the comic is fairly obvious. That type of panel layout does not take advantage of the extended canvas space. If panels are too 59

spread out, though, it may be difficult to determine which panel follows the current panel.

If panels are both side by side and stacked on top of each other it is not clear in what order the panels are intended to be read. (Illustrations 28 and 29)

Illustration 28. Even keeping in mind traditional western reading habits it is difficult to know which panel is next in the sequence.

Illustration 29. This is problematic when panels are arranged in a two by two grid.

In the thesis comic, panel distance is varied but small enough so that the reader can see the next panel at a reasonable distance from the preceding panel. Additionally, there is a visual cue outside of the panels in the form of a line woven through them, leading the reader to the next panel. (Illustration 30) This visual cue, in combination with careful panel placement and a familiar directionality, is meant to guide the reader through the comic in a natural way.

Illustration 30. A line is used to guide the reader to the next panel.

5.2.2. Software Considerations

The thesis comic has certain software requirements in order to give the reader necessary navigational control to properly read the comic. The first requirement in creating the canvas for the comic needed to allow artwork to extend for any distance in the X and Y direction; the second requirement of the navigational software was the ability to scale the entire canvas a relatively large amount; the third requirement needed to allow the reader to rotate the canvas to keep the panels properly framed in the monitor; a fourth 61

requirement was that the software needed to be able to accept a variety of types of custom images with little technical knowledge of programming.

Prezi, a Flash-based zooming presentation software, fit all of the above requirements. To pan the view up and down and side to side, the viewer uses the cursor to click and hold on the canvas and drag the cursor in the opposite direction he wants to move the view window. This type of click and drag navigation is consistent with many graphics creation programs as well as common website applications like Google Maps.

Additionally, Prezi allows navigation through single clicking on graphical elements.

When clicked, the view will bring the element to the center of the screen, moving in the

X and Y directions, rotating and scaling the view so that the element is framed within the view of the monitor. Prezi’s canvas extends in a far enough direction on all sides that it fits all the panels with enough room to give the illusion that the comic could be infinite.

Prezi also supports multiple levels of zooming. To demonstrate how differently scaled panels form relationships between each other, the comic needed to be able to scale an amount such that the smallest panel was smaller than a pixel when the view was far enough back to see the largest panel in its entirety. Prezi allows for a greater than 6400% zoom factor, enough to achieve the desired zooming. In addition to the click and focus feature, the user navigates through the zooming by using the mouse scroll.

To be able to read the panels as they progress along the outside of the story circle, the reader needs to have rotational control over the canvas. Prezi supports rotation by the click and focus functionality described earlier. However, there is no support for free rotation, a limitation of the software.

Prezi’s single click focusing functionality was both beneficial and a detriment to 62

the navigation, if not properly used. If the reader misclicked on a graphical element that was drastically larger than the element they were trying to focus on, the field of view would rapidly expand to frame the larger object, occasionally pulling so far out that the intended target was no longer visible. This was especially the case when the largest panel was used as a backdrop for the much smaller panels of the story circle. If the reader clicked anywhere on the border around the panel, the view would expand so much that the small panels were completely lost. To combat this problem, the panels were always surrounded by a graphical element that was only five or six times the size of the panels.

(Illustration 31 and 32) This type of stepped graphical scaling has two effects: the first is to prevent the user from ever accidentally scaling too far out from the graphical objects it is zoomed in on, the second effect is to create mini-sections of the comic. The reader can click on the negative space surrounding the panels and get a slightly zoomed out view of a small section of panels, each one still legible. At this distance, the reader can see the how the panels relate to each other in terms of story pacing.

Illustration 31. Reader clicked background element and was zoomed to a medium distance for these panels.

Illustration 32. Map of the invisible background elements for zooming. Each section frames a group of panels. 64

Because production time for the comic was relatively short, there was not enough time to develop navigational software from the ground up. The personal computer version of Prezi is capable of easily importing and displaying the types of images that were needed for the thesis comic. Prezi’s ease of use, ready compatibility with the necessary types of images, and all of the necessary navigational controls made it an excellent solution for the thesis comic’s platform. With the ability to scale images comes the issue of graphic resolution.

5.2.3. Scalable Art Creation

An important aspect to the thesis comic is its ability to scale the comic to focus on very small images and then pull out to focus on very large ones. Choosing the most appropriate type of image was instrumental to presenting legible and attractive images.

There are two types of digital images, raster and vector. Graphics resolution is an important aspect of raster graphics. The term raster graphics refers to the representation of colors in a generally rectangular grid or array of bits. The bits represent a specific color and all of the bits in an image combine to form a picture. When the bits are small enough, our eyes optically mix them together and we don’t see the individual squares but we do see the picture that they form. Resolution commonly refers to the ratio of bits or pixels over a certain area. Most monitors can only display between 72 and 130 dots per inch, or dpi. When a raster graphic increases in relative size on a monitor, the individual pixels become noticeable to the eye. This pixilation results in unwanted artifacting.

(Illustration 33) One method of reducing the pixilation is to use images with more pixels per feature. (Illustration 34) However, the more pixels in an image the greater the file size is. Larger file sizes means the computer needs more computational memory to load the images.

Illustration 33. A circle image with a resolution of512 x 512 pixels. Individual pixels are evident.

Illustration 34. A circle image with a resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels. Individual pixels are less easily seen.

An alternative to raster graphics is vector graphics. Rather than designating colors by individual pixels, vector graphics designate points for the computer to use to redraw the image. In this way, the resolution is only limited by the monitor’s own resolution.

Regardless of the level of zoom, vector graphics will not cause unwanted artifacting.

(Illustration 35)

Illustration 35. No pixelation occurs on vector art.

The initial sketches of the panels were drawn on paper and then digitized with a scanner. These raster images served as a basis for the black and white line drawings that became the line work. The line drawings were either drawn in Adobe Photoshop, primarily a raster image manipulation program, or they were created by 3d renders from

Autodesk Maya, a modeling, animating, and visual effects program, and cleaned up in

Photoshop. The elements that were rendered from Maya were the cart, both of the robots, the robot’s home, some parts of the plane, and the destroyed city. Once the models of 68

those elements were complete, it took seconds to set up the composition and render a panel. (Illustrations 36 and 37) The initial set up was time consuming but once the models were ready, drastic changes could be made to the composition of the panels without the need to redraw anything.

Illustration 36. Viewport screenshot of the robot model in Autodesk Maya.

Illustration 37. Model rendered in Maya by Mental Ray using contour shading.

Once the image was completely drawn and cleaned up in Photoshop, the images were vectorized by Adobe Illustrator, a vector image manipulation program. Illustrator has the ability to take raster images and interpret the lines and shapes into a set of points to be converted to a vector image. The software supports scripting for automation, so all of the panels could be vectorized with one script. This automation functionality greatly sped up the process of creating the artwork. Illustrator has the ability to export vector files as swf files, vector graphics files native to Adobe Flash. All elements of the comic were converted to an swf before bringing it into Prezi so that there would never be any visible artifacting due to raster graphics.

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

The fundamental way in which comic artists tell stories by panel arrangement has changed throughout history. We have seen how digital technology can be used to create new relationships between those essential building blocks of a comic. By treating the computer screen as a window onto an infinite digital canvas of a comic that can infinitely scale and rotate, a comic artist can structure a story so that there is no beginning, middle, or end. The panel structure of this type of digital comic enables the infinite story and is completely unique to a digital medium. It is impractical and irreproducible in a print medium. The thesis does not dictate a mandate for future digital comics. Rather, it offers a novel alternative way of telling a story through comics that was previously impossible.

In terms of the broader scope of storytelling, the comic starts to edge towards something that is not a comic and may not even be a story that we can understand. On one end of a hypothetical spectrum of comic storytelling there might be the most basic and traditional three-panel comic. On the other end could be panels existing in three dimensions without the window of the monitor extending into infinity. The far end is nearly impossible to visualize using current technology. Stories that would be told from this future comic would be necessarily far removed from what we have now in the media in terms of storytelling. I see the thesis comic as a step in that direction; it is bending what could be considered a comic and a story. While it doesn’t follow normal and popular story conventions, it is still basically a linear story, albeit one that could be read infinitely. The hope was to push comics forward into areas that make the reader question if what they are reading is a story or something different. My work could be 71

expanded upon both by immediately improving upon the project from technical standpoints, making small improvements on the way the thesis comic is structured, and taking the spirit of the project and moving forward into areas that make the reader further question what a comic and story is.

Technical improvements include using a more open platform for the comic than

Flash. Some browsers and mobile devices are not compatible with Flash so a more open platform could allow more people to read the comic. The software currently is too slow to allow the reader uninterrupted reading. There are delays in the window movement and occasionally panels will not load. Rotation in Prezi is currently only available through focusing on panels. If there were a way for the reader to freely rotate the canvas, reading the comic would feel more intuitive. A specialized application built just for displaying this type of comic would help to alleviate these concerns.

Structural and artistic work could be done to expand upon the thesis as well. One way to do this would be to expand on the options of how panels could be placed next to each other. The space between panels is important to the pacing and how a reader progresses through the comic. This area has potential to see more types of stories created by forming new relationships between panels not explored in this thesis. The idea of one comic artist could be challenged; an infinite comic could grow with more writers, artists, and programmers contributing to the comic. It would be an open canvas that anyone with access to the Internet and a desire to add to the greater story could edit.

The final way to move forward with this thesis would be to further push the idea of the infinite story. What could a comic with an infinite story look like, would it still be a comic, would we be able to understand it as a story or would it be something else entirely? These types of questions would push comics and stories beyond the conventions that they have adhered to.

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