Supercrit

I set up the space with my print outs on the wall, my laptop and phone on the side with the comic, a folder with a bit more sketches/moodboards etc on the side, and a feedback sheet in the middle. I also had my phone set up with the comic there.

We’d like to read (1) what critique experience you found useful, why, (2) what you intend doing (and showing us) when you return from break, and (3) a very short summary as a critical opinion of what you saw at #supercrit.

Supercrit 10/5

It was helpful to talk to Caroline a few days after talking about my project, as I got some deep specific advice on my story which is what I'm looking for right now. I also put as much information on my project up on the wall so I could get feedback from people walking past when I wasn't there, as a kind of exposure practice,

One of the main concerns is still the orientation/device, which I have in the last few days decided I will design primarily for the mobile, but still make sure it works on all other devices. I also can still space things out a lot more than what I've done so far - most of my panels are still quite close like a paper comic page, and I could use the space a lot more for pacing. There are definitely still things I need to sort out with that, though, like the exact text size, and whether I'm also going to make a version (code wise) that works for ipad/tablet. I also discussed this briefly with Tristam and Tim, who pointed out if it comes to that I can just make it work for one size device for exposure/presentations and say my intentions are to make it work for both, and do that later.

With Caroline I also talked about the specific real-life metaphors for the quests, I had two of them figured out but the connection of the beast / phone call was something I hadn't thought of. I had some concerns about that implying a negative view on technology but we discussed how it can be more nuanced than that. Once I've gotten the end of the story more solidly written I should also go back over it a lot and figure out the exact pacing, see what needs to be shortened or lengthened and how I can put more meaning into it visually.

My feedback from other students was all good, people like the art style and interactivity of it. I got a lot of people saying it was good I had a lot of concept art up on the walls and explanation. Another thing I was interested in seeing people's opinions on was the nonlinear/fork in the road section - I've had one comment (in my earlier prototype) that it took away some of the immersion, so I made the design simpler and clearer in this version. I got at least three comments that people liked that part specifically, which is good.

It was also helpful to get some questions from people that I have an answer to, but hadn't thought about specifically addressing  - the sorts of things I should think about explaining in my presentation and exposure. 

There was a lot of interesting work from other people. It was good to see some cool design and art from people I'd only seen concepts for previously. A lot of projects had no explanation of their work, though, just some of what they've made on the table - which looked interesting, but I had no idea what it was about. I suppose a lot of people were looking for feedback specifically from when they talked to people about it, rather than from anyone who comes up to look at it as I was. It was good to see how some of the projects I discussed with people at the second showing have progressed.

For after the break, my plans are to have the story/plot completely finalised, and have a working prototype of the whole story code-wise that I can then add in the final art as I do it. I also will do more concept art for locations and overall colour palettes.

Feedback I got:

Pecha Kucha

My slides

Feedback:

Caroline's main points were to think about the dimensions/orientation between mobile and to remember to think about pacing again.

There was also a comment about it 'not looking like a comic' but I think that was purely from looking at my concept art not the thumbnails? the thumbnails are very comic shaped. It did make me realise I think I should do a more fully finished version of a page for the second showing, though.

(Also, I suspect that came from not being aware of the sheer amount of diversity of art styles and forms that comics / webcomics take these days)

Karl also suggested looking into responsive type for my speech bubbles

Second Showing

I set it up with the first two pinned on the wall behind a computer, and the next two on the desk in front of it, with the prototype comic up on the screen. (I also had a sheet of paper for people to write feedback but nobody did)

(I forgot to take a photo of my set up, oops)

When setting up on the mac, as I'd only tested the online version on my laptop and phone (which doesn't work) I wasn't sure if the javascript parts would work on the bigger screen - they don't really, unless I make the window dimensions the same as my laptop. That's definitely something I need to figure out soon. I've set up a meeting with Tim next week so I might bring that up.


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Initially we got into groups of three and spend 20 minutes talking about each of our projects. I was with two people with very different projects and practices to me so it was mostly general thoughts rather than specific bits of advice we gave each other. They didn't really know much about illustration/comics

They thought my concept art was very nice, and liked the style/colours! Read through the comic thumbnails fairly quickly, but thought it made sense as far as it was.

Lydia really liked how the beginning/metaphor of the story was very relatable to a lot of people, uni students etc, and that that made her interested in it even if she doesn't like fantasy

They asked how I was thinking of presenting it in my final presentation, whether I would just go through the comic or something else - which is definitely something to think about it. the interactiveness of scrolling through it yourself is an important part of the experience.

Also, from my point about inspiring other webcomic artists to do more fun things with their webcomics, they wondered if those resources/teaching people how to do it easier could be something for me to design? Which is definitely something I've thought about - but my priority is obviously the comic itself, and I'm not sure if I'll have time to properly design a resource like that. My primary aim is to inspire, not necessarily educate. At the very least though, I will definitely mention somewhere what code/resources I used, and inspiration comics.

I also discussed briefly the responsive design issues I'm having at the moment, and wondering if I should just lock it to a landscape setting

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Observations from other people, once we split from our groups:
Some people read through the thumbnails slowly, some scrolled through them fast.

One person read through it slowly, scrolled back and forth a bit, then when the background changed colour at one point I saw him audibly gasp. He did stop reading at the choice page, and read some of my paper stuff again, then went back to it and I think just went straight to the 'quest complete' page

Another just scrolled through the pages pretty fast, just looking at the cool javascript things rather than actually reading it.


Afterwards when I was looking around at other things, I also (finally) talked to Renee, who's also doing a project on hypercomics. At this point she's focusing on hovering, and having the panels only appear when you hover over them - which is really effective, even at this stage! I especially like how the narration and text are both in the same looking panels, so you don't know if it's going to be text or art before you hover.

Second showing planning

I made a bit of a list of what I want on my second showing presentation- 

so my plan: tuesday - character design sheets (below)

wednesday: concept art, more specific panels, bubbles, characters interacting etc

thursday: get thumbnails into an online version for second showing

friday: finish up anything else before class

I made some little character design sheets for that, to show the development and final (so far)

I added some of the inspiration to the faeries one too, since their designs are less solidified (detail wise)

I then added them into indesign + the main info I want for my presentation. I'll hopefully have a laptop up where people can click through most of my thumbnails, too

Week 3 - lecture and advising

Lecture:
Tim's lecture about interactivity was interesting, and relevant to what I'm doing in some ways, though most of what he was talking about was direct purpose and usability rather than storytelling. I want to talk to him sometime soon about hosting and possibilities for my nonlinear page



Advising  - Caroline.

I basically explained what I was doing. I had a lot more to show than anyone else, and everyone seemed to think I'm on track. The comments Caroline had were to think about the pacing of the overall story, and also to look at Arthur Rackam's work, which she thought was similar to what I'm doing in terms of the nature aesthetic.

Second Showing (week 7)

My presentation - it's basically the same as last week, I just added some more details. And I finished my Mistlands parallax

I chose the inform group because that's basically what comics and storytelling is, a device used to inform people, about whatever the story happens to be about. I suppose it's mostly about interaction and direct exchange, as well as being subjective (depending on the narrative?). In our group we didn't discuss very much how it informs or what kind of informing it is in specifics - because on the surface level it's fairly straightforward.
I didn't get that much feedback from talking to other classmates to be honest; most people seem to think I've got my direction and know where and going, and that it's all clear - which it is to an extent, I just need to figure out what my story is going to be about which will open up more need for research into different areas. I also need to do more detailed research into the things I'm already looking into - what I put up in my presentation is fairly simplified (so I don't have too much text up there.

When talking to people, they mostly brought up how it's very cool and interesting, and they like interacting with it (possibly because they haven't seen my project before), as well as suggesting other cool examples and different areas of webcomics, asking about the overlap of print and web comics - questions about the broad topic rather than specifics. This probably indicates I need to present more succinct detailed information.
I had a few people suggest that my narrative could somehow involve, conceptually, the idea of digital forms of storytelling. Someone also got me thinking that I could create a story in which part of the narrative is a webcomic and part of it is print - like a dual narrative, or from different POVs, and show how the different mediums can be used? I think that's a little off topic and would require a bit of rethinking of my project. My main goal now is to figure out what my story is about, and at least have a more specified and solid direction for that.

Second Showing

Second showing went really well! Apparently not many people knew about it, so I suppose I was more prepared?

• Not many people had questions because my idea is pretty clear. A few people suggested some cool comics to look up but I can't find them (so far).
• A few people suggested that choose your own adventures are cool. 
• Also suggested thinking about the web community / live aspect of it, and having people contribute to the story, using patreon somehow.
• Affordances of the web: the community, and how people use it

First showing

I showed people a bunch of examples and watched their reactions, what they like, and talked to them about it.

The examples I brought up on the screen were my parallax test (with the original comic on another tab behind it), a To Be Continued infinite canvas page, Lights' Skin&Earth Instagram map, Margot's Room and a character twitter account. (will refer to as: parallax, TBC, S&E, MR, twitter)

Some things I noticed:

• Some people were mostly interested in the parallax and TBC. One person in particular commented on how they like the movement, and how you scroll to reveal more of the story, it's very dynamic. He was more interested in the dynamism of the main story as opposed to S&E and MR where you have to click around and discover things (he said that those were't particularly interesting to him). 
• Whereas some people absolutely loved S&E, thought it's very cool and kept saying "wow! wow!!" when I showed them how it led to other accounts/maps. Some people talked about how they love to explore extra things like worldbuilding through maps, or to find little extra nuggets of things when you explore something more.
• People's reactions when they scrolled the parallax and suddenly noticed the different layers, or when TBC suddenly changes scrolling angles was interesting (usually they exclaimed out loud)
• With the parallax (the original version, not just mine) and TBC, some people read it properly and some just scrolled back and forth exclaiming about how cool it was. 
• Therefore something like that needs to have very strong visual storytelling and not rely on the text. Also would probably suit shorter comics that you read in one go rather than long things? If you're not invested in the story you're unlikely to come back to it every update. For example, I think TBC is really cool but I haven't read past season one because I don't actually care about the characters or story, (and only read half the text of what I did read)
• Although I think there is also a point to be made that something that looks cool and is fun to play with and nothing else isn't necessarily a bad thing! It's just in terms of what kind of narrative/storytelling is intended
• I had an interesting conversation with Kezia about that - that there needs to be a mixture of good art, good format and good plot/characters to keep people interested in a comic. Doing fancy web things may bring in viewers but won't keep them if it doesn't work with the rest of the story
• We also talked about the concept of medium of storytelling being determined by necessity - some of the research I've been doing talks about [when adding things makes something other than a comic - if adding some sound effects or animation enhances it, surely it'd be better as a full animation?] but Kezia pointed out that people may not have the time/money/skills to do that, therefore they only add the little bits of it.
• Talked to someone who said what they liked about all the examples was the interactivity - and it really draws you into the story. We also talked a lot about how the different methods work for telling different types of stories. 
• also talked about the ambiguity of these comics and where they become games/animations/etc and how that's a good thing, and that in the end it doesn't matter what type of thing it is if it's an interesting & engaging story
• i think specifically in regards to interactivity in comics - it's something you don't necessarily expect going into it? whereas when you go into a game you expect to interact with it