A Place at the Comics Rock Conference in Bournemouth

On June 28th and 29th the The Third International Comics Conference: Comics Rock is being held at Bournemouth University. I submitted an abstract which has been accepted and I am now working on a Pecha Kucha (a presentation methodology in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (approx. 6′ 40″ in total)) for the event. The title of the Pecha Kucha is ” Pages and Screens; Reading changes and interactions – re adapting the double page spread” and falls under the “Comics and multiple media” heading.

The Abstract which I submitted is below so if you are interested please come along and see the presentation.

“Emergent interactive technologies (e.g. tablet computers and smart-phones) and consumer demand for media forms to be available digitally at any time via the internet has lead to a series of transformative changes in the ways in which we read and interact with comics. With these changes come a series of difficulties and challenges in the way comics are displayed on screen. It is these challenges in our reading of, and interaction with, digital comics that this study addresses through a critical evaluation of the required differences in presentation of the printed page and the on-screen display.
A comic printed in the form of the codex book has a different set of constrains to that of the digital screen and in turn the type and size of screen offers a different set of constraints again. The repurposing of comics from paper pages to on-screen “pages” must therefore reflect these changes in constraints by adapting to them; something which currently is only done to a limited degree. Through a study of super hero comics displayed on tablets with the more popular applications I suggest that simply transferring traditional comic book pages onto the screen is not enough and some other changes need to be made so as not to interrupt the reading process. A consumer’s reading process can be interrupted by the presence of interactive elements that require breaking from the flow of the story (rotating the device, zooming in or out, etc.). These elements require adaptation of specific pages to allow them to be viewed in a more immersive manner. The focus of this paper is on the use of double page spreads and how they can be adapted to the screen for an easier and less intrusive presentation of panels and their sequence.”

And here is a link to the Comics Rock event website; so go have a look. http://comics.bujournalism.info/