Hypercomics

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].