Sequential Storytelling & Digital Comics
Hi, I'm Jim, and I'm a Sequential Storytelling and Digital Comics student. Below are my assignments thus far for the semester.
Final Project
Final Version:
Catharsis by ~Hobbes82 (aka myself) on deviantART
Final Project: Thumbnails and Script
Revised 5/1/2007: Completed jpegs of drawings, text and yellow text background which are featured in current SWF file. Actual images are much cleaner and sharper, the following are just to get a general idea where I'm at and to show progress. Currently working on programming Flash interface, choosing different background door images, and resolving how the end image/text will be presented.
Flash Motion Sketch
Latest progress! Yay!
Example 1
Example 2
What follows is the poem I'll be using as the narrative to the story. It initially was "An Old Book," written by myself, but I have since changed the poem selection to "Untitled" by sash (sash is the online moniker used by a poet I met online while surfing poets.com). To recap, the general idea is to use this poem as a sort of background narrative to the picture story I'll be telling, thumbnails of which are included below. Exact placement is still unknown, but I'm leaning towards preserving the integrity of the original poem's layout by adhering to pictures being narrated with couplets, but that may change as I see fit. Definately still a work in progress...
"Untitled" by sash
I used to have a crypt inside my heart
Where I would bury loves that had expired;
Slow rotting carcass soup, they seeped and foamed,
My vital organs' toxic bouillabaisse.
My lungs exhaled an aura of disgust,
A rabid, howling halitosis beast
That guarded my malignant bitterness
As if it was a treasured golden bone.
But then I built a crematorium
Inside my mind; I undermined decay
Of heart and soul and sundry body parts.
To beat the odds of death of more than faith,
I heaped the putrid bones of loves exhumed
And tossed them heartily upon the pyre,
Expelled all charcoal hopes left unfulfilled
Like backfired puffs of nightmare made benign
and watched
them
swirl
away
on
drifts
of
air
The ending of this poem will be interesting to implement in the story in a fashion that doesn't seemed forced or too contrived. What follows are only a sampling of images that I plan to include, and which give the general look and feel of the story.
Again, each picture is in sequence (so far), and I am currently working on the best way to match the poem to the images. In general, I'm working toward a grungy, decrepit look to the surroundings, making use of both black and white and color frames, the black and white a device to travel to the recent past so as to help understand the progression of the story. I also am trying to obscure faces and too many details, to leave the audience with a puzzle to solve afterwards. Will I succeed? Tune in next week to find out!
Assignment #9: Information Navigation:
This assignment dealt with organizing information for a possible digital comics website. Components as follows:
Information
• Gallery area showcasing all art
• Information about each assignment, including assignment details, date of creation, why I chose each topic and other miscellaneous things about the piece
• About me area, brief, with contact info and links to other sites, specifically, Digital Comics class site, ITP site, and my own forthcoming website
• Extras, such as date, time, and weather, for general convenience
Functionality
• Comments area
• Breadcrumbs
• E-mail form area with comments/questions sent directly to my e-mail address
Wireframe
Site Map
Assignment #8: Typography:
Experimentation with typography and type working with one word or phrase/sentence. In my case, I chose the phrase and sentence "Have a nice day!"
Some scrolling examples, similar to Assignment 7; just scroll down kind of slow until you reach the end...
Nice Day #1
Nice Day #2
Some rollover examples:
Nice Day #3
Download
Nice Day #4
Download
Assignment #7: Time:
This is my attempt at creating a digital comic that represents the passing of time (without using clocks, calendars, etc.). The story will unfold as you scroll down the page slowly to the end.
Assignment #6: Layouts On a Digital Canvas:
(Not sure if this counts, but I couldn't let the perfect opportunity pass to fuse what I've learned from two classes together for this assignment)
Final Project Preliminary Presentation:
1. My Definition of a Digital Comic
A created piece presented in a digital format containing a majority of traditional characteristics of printed comics, while also allowing for real-time visual and structural manipulative capabilities, effects, and user interactivity.
2. My Definition of Interactivity
The capability of an object’s base characteristics and underlying foundations to be manipulated based on user input, and a corresponding reaction from the object to the user.
3. 2 Or 3 Ideas For My Possible Final Project
1. I’d like to combine two of my fictional narratives with similar themes or complimentary characteristics together, by using the textual narrative of one of my poems to enhance an illustrated story with no textual narration. Hopefully, this will form a user/viewer experience somewhat akin, in a literary manner, to viewing a music video whereby the artist attempts to tell a visual story independent of the song’s actual lyrics.
2. I’d like to experiment with telling a comic-book-style story using 3-D animation/modeling and perhaps software like Adobe After Effects, so that animation and interactivity are present, but only as devices to continue the traditional print-visual-style story. For example, to turn the page or switch to a different panel, the user would have to perform an action like clicking a button or perhaps typing a phrase or something. I would personally try to stay away from too much animation, and what animation I did have would probably be in a choppy fashion, to mimic the aesthetic and feel of print comics.
3. The idea of choose-your-own-adventure narratives would be interesting; for example, if I wrote the beginning of a story and made an animation in a digital format susceptible to further manipulation, like an FLA document, other people could take the narrative in their own direction, or write from different points of view, and also have the capability to illustrate it with an intrinsic similarity in visual style if they so desire, or the opportunity to re-imagine the visuals of the story entirely. To do this, I would have to first set-up a system that would make this easy to accomplish, which would probably require setting up a game-type interface for interacting with others and to quickly access their works and to begin experimentation. All this would be necessary to attract those who are intrigued by social storytelling but don’t necessarily have the time or experience to go searching for open-source stories to further manipulate, and subsequently track down the author, explain the intentions, and hope they concur. This won’t work, though, because I suck at programming. This was just a third idea thrown out there in case I ever want to revisit it in the future.
4. Description of One Idea In Detail
• My story will be fictional, probably a drama or comedy instead of action or romance.
• The story will be about a guy walking through a school and having flashbacks that visually tell a different story than what is actually being told in the lines to my poem “An Old Book.”
• Something close to whatever emotion I wanted to elicit from the reader of the poem, though if my experimentation yields interesting results stemming from juxtaposition and similar disassociative narration or elements, I’ll certainly continue on the path that interests me most.
• I would like it to be a series, and then a series only in the sense that the common thread among the stories is of their shared ancestry as poems authored by myself. Otherwise, the stories don’t have that much in common, other than a bleak world view and some weird humor.
• My audience is aimed at those who enjoy graphic novels, illustrated stories, and readers of poetry. Those people who enjoy reading both poetry and graphic novels and have a decent competency to use a computer are ultimately the best candidates.
• Visually, I’d like my story to have a hand-illustration visual aesthetic, but augmented and enhanced by digital tricks such as transparencies, layers, buttons, interactive animations, and other similar methods to present the material in an interesting, engaging way.
• Yes, but in a very limited manner, so as to allow a telling of the story uninterrupted. Essentially, the interaction would most likely take place as a result of flipping pages by pressing buttons or clicking hot spots, or perhaps assigning tasks to the user before they can continue with the story. To keep the story coherent and whole, I’d have to think that too much interactivity might be a distraction to the user from experiencing the full intended effects of the piece, which would make it more similar to a movie than a game.
• Similar to my third idea, I was thinking that a system set up to allow other people on the web access to the source files of animated stories would be cool, since those people could make parodies of the original content, tell the story in the viewpoint of a minor character, or communicate amongst themselves to create sections of a longer animated film. Again, a simple communication interface geared specifically for working and sharing in this space would be optimal, and I definitely don’t have the programming wherewithal to even attempt it. Perhaps this is some sort of future IM chat space/Flash interface program, or perhaps I just need more sleep.
5. Traditional Print Comic Techniques I Think Can Be Expanded Or Changed In a Digital Format, How, and New Techniques That Might Be Used
I think one technique is the ability to “pan” when a story is presented in a digital format. For instance, panning would allow one to navigate across sections of a larger comic in predetermined or open-ended directions, most likely in a program like After Effects or Maya, for a sort of flashlight-on-a-hieroglyphic-wall effect. Getting the comic into 3D space could prove an interesting task, though most likely an excruciating one to pull off artfully, coherently and well-done. Also, the ability to make games and require user input could potentially affect a comic’s presentation of its narrative or to possibly enhance aspects of the narrative for a complimentary experience, for example, a story could unfold based on how the user performs a certain task, which would make the experience much more interactive and game-like.
6. Successful Interactive Stories I’ve Come Across and Why They Were Successful To Me
The first thing I think of when hearing “interactive stories” are games, and more specifically, RPGs, which are successful because their overarching storylines allow a certain measure of freedom in-between presented instances of the story arc. Recently, I’ve seen some cool effects of presenting stories visually that resembles the aesthetic of comic book art, specifically cel-shaded animation, rotoscoping, and forms of digital cinematography. Massively-Multi-Player games/online spaces frequently allow the opportunity for story invention through socializing with other players (for side quests and whatnot), and some games are explicitly attempting to saturate themselves in the aesthetic and structure of traditional comic books, such as the Max Payne series and many games related to film-noir in general.
Assignment #4: Panels and Borders:
Panel Comic 1
Panel Comic 2
Panel Comic 3
Assignment #3: Story to Comic:
Illustrated comic adaptation of "Tooth and Claw," a short story by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Piece completed for Sequential Storytelling and Digital Comics class at ITP, NYU. Bic pen.
Tooth and Claw, pg 1
Tooth and Claw, pg 2
Assignment #2: Sketchbook Assignment #2B:
Interdependant
Montage
Picture Specific
Additive
Assignment #1: Diary Comic:
Here is the list of moments "Monday" came from:
1. Stephen Colbert gesticulating towards his ill-fated guest with a knowing smirk
2. My mother, rummaging through the plastic bag of pills to find my father’s heart medication
3. Greeting my roommate’s girlfriend, who was shocked to see three people when expecting none
4. My father, gasping for breath as he climbs the three floors to my apartment
5. My mother, father and I squished together in the back seat of the same blue cab that picked us up three days straight
6. Standing, shivering at the corner of Pavonia and Washington Blvd. outside the PATH station waiting for our cab through bitter winds
7. My mother and father enjoying their food at Uno’s Restaurant reflecting on everything they had seen in the city
8. My mother explaining to me why the three of us should eat steak and other more upscale foods instead of where I usually eat
9. My father, laughing as we missed our Subway stop as a result of the N train flying right past 8th Street on weekends
10. The trees at the south end of Central Park, after my mother remarked how cool it was that they could twist and reach for the sky in such interesting contorted patterns
11. My mother, excited as she described the beauty of the surroundings near Bethesda statue in Central Park
12. My father, smiling and sweating profusely, as he read the plaque dedicated to John Lennon in Strawberry Fields
13. Crowds of children at the Museum of Natural History and frenetic vision as I try not to step on any of them
14. The men’s restroom, seen from afar with an almost tangible and visible ethereal glow, after searching for about 15 goddamn minutes longer than I felt I could hold it after the IMAX presentation
15. IMAX presentation of Mars Rover
16. The bustling beehive of human activity seen in the form and sounds of the Museum of Natural History’s Food Court
17. Entrance to the Museum of Natural History as we stepped off the C train at 81st street and our seemingly choreographed response of delight at not having to walk far from the train to get there
18. My father, asking me (with good-natured sarcasm, if there is such a thing) just how many liquor stores I need to live close to while surveying the neighborhood and waiting for our cab
19. My roommate Abiade, talking with my parents and I before he headed off to Hoboken
20. My father, waking me up by ripping the pillow from under my head.
Here is the list of moments "Tuesday" came from:
1. My computer screen saver, imbued with a picture of my cat from my old place in Delaware, Ohio
2. Online pictures of my brother’s tattoo examples that he sent me to assist in the concept art stage
3. My TaeKwonDo uniform, much dirtier than I had hoped
4. My roommates as I open the door to the apartment, making coffee and griping about the inability to access the router when the landlord is on vacation
5. The first crazy person after I came back from Ohio: muttering to himself and shaking his head violently as I walk home through the Jersey City ‘hood, surprised at how less shocked I am of the place than last semester
6. A drunk person waiting at the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Station, singing loudly to his presumed girlfriend or significant other, and intermittently interrupting his own singing with defiant proclamations of not “givin’ no shit ‘bout singin’ in front of muthafuckahs waitin’ fo’ a bitch-ass train”
7. The muffin area of the New University Diner, with a disturbing and complete lack of pumpkin muffins
8. My smiling and disheveled reflection, as I reach to open the glass doors of the beverage area of the New University Diner
9. The ceiling of the TaeKwonDo dojo, frequently, after being the self-defense lesson example/ragdoll for the period
10. The pages of Tales of A Young Urban Failure
11. Scanning faces in my class to see who I recognized
12. Blurs of the church and supermarket parking lot in my peripheral vision as I sprint to catch the Light Rail Train from a ways away, and the feeling of triumph as I barely made it inside as the doors were closing
13. Hurriedly hugging my mother and father, who insisted on giving departing hugs while getting into the car, which was parked alongside the street as traffic from both directions kept looming closer and closer
14. My father, sitting down to rest after walking every few city blocks, an image repeated throughout their visit to the city
15. The look of pride and joy on my parents’ faces as I showed them my Intro to 3D project
16. My newly soaked coat collar, from spitting out too-hot chocolate my mother had bought for me while I had been in line getting a new NYU Card to replace the one I lost, after conversing on how pissed I was at that dumbass dispatcher for making me skip my first class
17. My mother and father offering to catch up with me later so I could get to class faster instead of “letting them slow me down,” completely uncaring of their relative ignorance to the public transportation system
18. The look of anger on my own face as seen through the rear-view mirror of the taxicab that picked us up one hour and 40 minutes late, which changed to contemptuous laughter as the taxi driver held up the two-way Nextel to thank me for waiting, despite his inexplicable canceling of our pick-up request
19. A screen full of e-mails and sporadic checks of the clock while waiting for the cab
20. My father, ripping the pillow from under my head to wake me up at 7am.