Webcomics

What's in a name?

Are webcomics really comics? This was a question raised in class the other week, and as students of the genre we were sent to do some investigation and report on our findings.

Tow works that I investigated were Scott McCloud's "The Right Number", and The Comic Irregular's "Darths and Droids".

The Right Number:

McCloud's work is a webcomic that experiments with the format of comics and follows a format where each grows past the next to reveal the next frame. In this way, the reader gets the illusion of depth and traveling "into" the story. While this mechanic helps achieve the immersive effect of comics, it is different from its print cousin in that there is no juxtaposition of frames and images.

I feel that this; at least in terms of genre; places The Right Number out of the world of traditional comics. I liked that McCloud kept the pacing in the hands of the reader (clicking moved the story forward instead of a timed animation); however, while going from one frame to the next was reader controlled the flow of the comic was not. As a reader, I had no choice in regards to what order I saw the frames.

When reading comics, I will often be keenly aware of what is coming up next even though I prefer to read a comic sequentially. This awareness of the future highlights the action that is taking place in a frame and helps me to understand the timing involved in an action taking place in the world of the comic. I did not get this sense of timing from The Right Number... thus I would place it outside the world of comics.


Darths and Droids:

The Comic Irregulars work is an "RPG screen-cap comic" which means that it that follows the traditional format of comics while displaying the comic in an online format. A point of departure from traditional comics to note about Darths and Droids is that it contains images taken from the Star Wars trilogy under artistic/fan license.

In terms of genre, I would place Darths and Droids in the realm of traditional comics. Although it uses 'found' images - so to speak - it still communicates in the same way that traditional comics does; with framing, gutters, juxtaposition and all. As for the use of screen-cap images, I think that this is not too great a departure from what is essentially comics.

Even though Darths and Droids is presented in a digital format, the layout and overall structure of the work means that I consider it a comic in true form; if presented digitally.