As technology evolves and escalate quickly, the usage of technological devices has no signs of getting lesser. These users of the digital age are so familiar to the technology are so accustomed to the technology and it has become the part of their life. Statistics shows that a high percentage of user cannot stay away from their cellphone.
Many of us are using the digital in a daily basis and this allows us to understand the context of digital communication and able to reproduce more of it. Other than just reading digital, interactive narrative has given the user a literary understanding. Compared to the traditional narrative, the digital requires some skills as digital narrative has a more sophisticated format and unique way to interact with. Motion comic is one of the way to portray a story. For example, this motion comic is made as a trailer.
Some people prefer watching video than read graphic novel. Motion Graphic targets people who are lazy to flip open the book and read comic. These people rather choose to watch a video clip as they just need to play the video to understand the story.
Scott McCloud is a American cartoonist and comic theorist. He has some interesting concepts and sayings about comics. He has a good sense of art direction, he says that art tells stories visually. Scott McCloud wrote 3 books "understanding comics","reinventing comics" and "making comics" which are very inspiring in terms of but art direction and theories.
"Comics is a powerful idea, but an idea that's been squandered, ignored and misunderstood for generations," Mr. McCloud wrote. "No art form has lived in a smaller box than comics for the last hundred years. It's time for comics to finally grow up and find the art beneath the craft."
"It's time for comics to balance the scales, see the world and broaden its horizons," he added. It's time for comics to go digital.
"The ancestors of printed comics drew, painted and carved their time-paths from beginning to end, without interruption," Mr. McCloud wrote. And with the help of digital technology, he suggested, comics could break out of their boxes and get back to what he called "the infinite canvas."
In my opinion, I strongly agree with Scott McCloud's saying. There are plenty of space for comic to grow in the digital world. A good narrative structure can be more engaging and is enhanced with all available technology in the digital technology. Hypercomic has break through the box and made a unique and interactive way to engage with the user. It is only just a simple navigation with the animation of the graphic, sound and mouse click has made it stood out. Compared to the traditional comic, it contain more human interaction based experience as traditional comic's is fixed in small boxes in books. References McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics. New York: HarperPerennial. McCloud, S. (2000). Reinventing comics. New York: Perennial.
Hypercomic is a form of Digital Narrative. It is different from comic as new elements from the new technology is added into hypercomic so it enhances the experience when user is reading it. I analysed there are a few differences of the hypercomic and it's traditional medium. 1. Tron Legacy. The story is originated from a science fiction story. It is then made into a film in 1982. A sequel of Tron is then created in 2010.
The hypercomic of this project act as a "trailer" for the movie. It is different from other digital narrative like digital comic as the user can experience with the comic by navigation with it. According to Roland Barthes, this is under the category of writerly text which is because there's not necessary to begin a story and proceed to the end. It can have multiple entrances and exits. "Most online comics are stagnant." -says Dario Di Zanni, development manager for Disney "We wanted an engaging, fluid site that is more like the actual experience of reading a comic book." -says Dario Di Zanni, development manager for Disney Therefore, Disney came out with the idea to create a Digital book in a comic style. With the advance technology, user will get to experience the 'moving graphics' in website.
This is the short video showing how does the Tron Legacy Digital Book looks and feels like.
2. Play Fanta Fanta is well-known for its drink. The company has created an interactive graphic novel which is available on the mobile devices and table for free. The user will get to be in a Fanta and play thought the dangerous parts of the world with the characters.
These two hypercomic's selling point are different. Tron legacy's selling point is to let the audience to have a brief understanding of the story. While Play Fanta's selling point is to get more audience to experience the gameplay and at the same time realise the story is revolving around the product.
References:
Exploring IE, (2011). Behind the Scenes of Disney TRON: Legacy Digital Book Site. [online] Available at: http://blogs.windows.com/ie/2011/06/03/behind-the-scenes-of-disney-tron-legacy-digital-book-site/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2014].
News.microsoft.com, (2011). New Disney Tron:Legacy Digital Book Site Comes Alive With HTML5 in Internet Explorer 9 | News Center. [online] Available at: http://news.microsoft.com/2011/06/03/new-disney-tronlegacy-digital-book-site-comes-alive-with-html5-in-internet-explorer-9/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2014].
Play.google.com, (2014). [online] Available at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coke.fantaSavingSource&hl=en [Accessed 15 Nov. 2014].
TheFWA, (2014). FWA winner | Play Fanta - Saving the Source. [online] Available at: http://www.thefwa.com/site/play-fanta-saving-the-source [Accessed 23 Nov. 2014].
Timely, T. (2011). HTML5|Tron:Legacy:The Comic Digital Book Project. [online] Technology News Blog. Available at: http://techtimely.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/html5tronlegacythe-comic-digital-book-project/ [Accessed 25 Nov. 2014].
