CSotD: It should go without saying
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It took me a little while to comprehend my dislike of a relatively new format, the animated comic strip, but, once I found the simile, it fell into place:
If we're sitting around reading the paper and you come across a comic strip you think is worth reading, I want you to pass the paper over, point it out and then sit back and wait for me to read it.
I do not want you to read it out loud, pointing at each panel. I'm not illiterate, and it isn't the same medium when you interpret the voices and impose your own pacing. Fact is, it's annoying and it keeps me from focusing on the strip itself, much less enjoying it.
That's what animated comic strips feel like to me, and, no, the fact that the creator is doing the interpretation doesn't matter. Show me what you've got, I'll take it from there.
I don't know how many artists — of all kinds — I've heard say that a particular work they thought would go big-time fell flat, while something else they knocked out on deadline turned into a major hit. Sometimes, fans get something from your work that you didn't realize was in there, and see layers of subconscious artistry you weren't aware of.
Unless you shove it down their throats so they can't help but see it your way, which is rarely how you can make a hit of your favorite piece but will almost certainly kill any chance of an unexpected hit from one of your orphans.
Be cool. Have confidence in your art, and in your audience. Shut up and get out of the way.
And, by the way, I hated the Peanuts television specials. I realize that's heresy to people any younger than I am, but, by the time those animations came along, I was already a fan of the strip. I knew how the voices sounded, I knew how the characters moved, I knew what happened between panels.
And it wasn't at all like that. Which reminds me of the Bloom County I was going to put here but then put at the top so we wouldn't have so much text without a cartoon.
So, as your reward for having plowed through all that text, here's a cartoon that I like:
Cartoon Movement has featured a pair of interactive cartoons recently and I don't feel at all about them the way I feel about animated comic strips.
First of all, because they are cartoon journalism, I want to know more, or, at least, have the opportunity to learn more. Second, the interactivity is part of the reportage, but it is available, not imposed.
Take the above page, part of a silent portrait of a day in the life of a homeless man in the ironically-named-but-real Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, done by a trio of creators the lead reporter of which is interviewed here.
You click through 11 of these multi-panel pages and it lets you simply follow the homeless man from dawn to evening.
But see that reporter's notebook in the upper right? If you want to go deeper, you click on it, and you get this:
You'll also see a shopping cart in the lower right of that textbox. Click on it and the text continues in a fresh box, which means they can add as much background and richness as they want and you can join in for as long as you want.
And on the introduction page, they even suggest that you go through the entire cartoon first, then come back and check out the additional information. This is the equivalent of handing you the newspaper, pointing out the comic and then sitting back while you read it before having a discussion about it.
I'm in.
Here's a shorter comic with a little more technological whizz-bang:
This is a graphic report by Victor Ndula of his trip into an arid district of Kenya to explore how the government is addressing hunger issues, which he undertook this past summer during Kenya's 50th Anniversary of independence.
The cartoon itself could have done more: We talk to a person in charge, we talk to some people in the fields, but, for instance, we don't go back to their homes and see their families, and we don't get a strong sense of before-and-after. However, it was created for an African audience and perhaps those things are implicit if you live there.
But note that, rather than simply textboxes, Ndula includes video (lower left) and photos (lower right). On other pages, he also has a small speaker you can click on to launch an audio file of an interview.
This video is simply a 37 second shot of water running through the sluiceway, and the photos basically are of the sources of his artwork, but they put you on the spot.
The net effect is like the additional material on a DVD of a movie, in which the director or the actors talk about the decisions they made and provide you with backgrounders.
Incidentally, Ndula remarks in an interview that the popularity of smartphones in Africa has opened up this interactive medium and made it a viable means of getting information to people. I do not think we have reached the same point in this country, where people are more apt to be tethered to computers. Not a good thing or bad thing, but a good example of knowing your audience from a technological point of view.
As for all this background information, my prejudice as a creator is that a thing needs to stand on its own. That's the starting point and, if a piece of art — in any medium — needs explanation, it fails. End of story.
But I've got an entire book about the writing of "The Sun Also Rises," with images of Hemingway's notes and first drafts and revisions, as well as backgrounders on the people behind the characters and the trip behind the trip in the story.
I wouldn't have wanted to read it ahead of time, and, if I had only "enjoyed" rather than "loved" the novel, I wouldn't have wanted to read it at all. Moreover, the fact that it's out of print suggests that, while I value my copy, it was in line with the review by the little girl who wrote "This book told me more than I wanted to know about penguins."
But cartoons are not only more ephemeral but more economic, and I think this interactive cartooning format has considerably wider appeal because, rather than rigorous and scholarly, it's instantaneous and personal.
Still, if the report on Brazil, or on Kenya, doesn't intrigue you, then the various enhancements won't matter.
But, if you find it compelling, you get a chance to sit down with the creator(s) and talk about how it all came together.
This stuff works. I hope to see more.
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