Comics Man and Science Guy are a couple of characters I created a little while back as a joke between a friend and I (on whom the two characters are loosely based) Comics Man is me (doing a PhD in Comics) and Science guy is him (doing a PhD in Astrophysics). The original story was a little short thing based on an actual scientific discovery which reminded me of a comic book story. This comic can be found here (and later an updated version will appear on my website proper). To read the comic just mouse over the greyed out areas on each side of the panel to move forward or back along the narrative.
I have recently had an idea for a comic which is navigated based on chess moves and as such I decided to use Comics Man and Science Guy as the subject of the story. The idea itself is to navigate a comic which is made up of 64 uniform, square panels in 8 rows of 8 (the number and layout of the squares on a chess board) by using chess moves. The navigation would be operated by clicking on the symbol of a chess piece in the navigation bar of the comic. For example you might click on a bishop and move diagonally a random number of squares from the panel you are on or on a rook to move in a vertical or horizontal line a random number of squares. Or even a knight to move in a random 3-2 or 2-3 movement. The content of the panels would be similar to the example given above and show the two characters sitting at a chess board playing chess. Each panel will be differentiated from the others by an element of change; this may be something happening in the back ground or a statement/conversation between the characters. Other ideas I’ve had which i may implement are things like a character leaving the frame to go to the toilet or receiving/answering a txt message. Possibly having other characters come into frame or a cat jumping onto the board.
As I progress through the creation process certain considerations will need to be made in order for the comic to work. These will be addressed as they become apparent but at current I must consider how each panel works independently of the others (due to the multi-linear narrative caused by the navigation method) and also how the comic will end (currently I am considering having “stop” panels which when reached conclude the comic).
I shall add more posts and tests to this blog as I go.
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