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Underground > Comic Books >

Interactive comics

08:59 / 01.04.03

At his talk at the ICA, Grant Morrison claimed to be creating a new genre of comics; interactive ones. Since he wasn't exactly forthcoming on what particular mode they will take -- mostly because, as he admitted, he hadn't thought it through yet -- I was wondering what form people thought they might take?

Comics are already "interactive", because they're easy and cheap to make -- anyone can do it -- and they involve a narrative form that requires audience participation. So where can they go? How can they be more interactive?

Some suggestions were raised amongst some of the people I was talking with after his interview on Friday:

* scratch'n'sniff
* 3D glasses
* psychoactive ink

What else could make a comic more interactive than it is already?

09:13 / 01.04.03

I think he probably just watched "Big" before the interview and decided to rip that off.

Can't think of many other ideas, how about every comic being slightly different although I imagine that's impossible.

Or maybe along the lines of those choose your own adventure books?

09:14 / 01.04.03

Perhaps the comics will be full of undeveloped ideas and obscure references. Then people can go to a website and talk about what the hell is supposed to be going on. Grant will read their messages and use them as fodder for his book. He will then create characters based on the members of the website and have horrible things happen to the ones he doesn't like.

09:19 / 01.04.03

I know fuck all about magick, but I think he has some kind of spell-casting in mind. Perhaps it will be a comic the reading of which casts a spell that modifies reality and, reflexively (or synthetically, or whatever...), the comic itself.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

09:28 / 01.04.03

Milligan & McCarthy's Rogan Josh was kind of interactive, the subplots were interweaving and inconsistent, it was up to the reader to choose what 'happened'.

Or maybe he means readers get to submit their own fanfic endings? :¬)

09:38 / 01.04.03

How is any of this any different from what he already did with The Invisibles, though?

09:43 / 01.04.03

Perhaps he'll only release each successive issue on completion of a specified task set in each edition, such as a wankathon or 100 people dressing up like the main character and dancing in Trafalgar Square.

Oh, and welcome back, Kooks.

09:54 / 01.04.03

IIRC talk of this comic came up as part of a wider discussion about emergent properties. So when he says he wants to create a comic that's like a "wee animal", I really think he means alive.

How exactly he intends to do this is anyone's guess, but I reckon he's thinking more about Mill & Broad than Jackson & Livingstone.

10:01 / 01.04.03

"How exactly he intends to do this is anyone's guess"

Well, yeah. That's why I was curious what everyone thought. So far the guesses have been pretty much what Morrison already tried, and from the way he was talking, he implied that this would be something different and new...

10:03 / 01.04.03

"100 people dressing up like the main character and dancing in Trafalgar Square."

He couldn't even get a full audience at the ICA to turn up in animal masks! (I meant to but I forgot. But I only noticed about eight or so other people with them)

10:47 / 01.04.03

From what I remember of the conversation this all came up at the point where, as Smoothly mentions, Morrison was discussing emergence, which, if I understand it correctly relates to how intelligence can arise from a critical mass of seemingly 'simple', er (can't think of a great word here), objects.

So, individual termites (the example he used?) wouldn't be considered all that consciously intelligent, but together they inexplicaby build termite mounds and that higher level analysis is something we do not often engage with, tending to adopt reductionist approaches to such systems.

So, I think Morrison was hinting that these theories of convergence clearly tie in to some of the ideas he's played around with in comics (The Coyote Gospel, Flex Mentallo, pretty much all of the Invisibles and the Filth). And, what he was wanting to do was create a comic that was truly interactive in the sense that it was alive, so not like the Invisibles etc. that explore these issues, or allow you to read/re-read from different perspectives and 'play' as different characters, but something altogether different.

My hunch is that he was spinning this a bit, though. I'm not sure what I'm expecting but certainly not Jackson & Livingstone for the post-human era.

Thinking out loud a bit there so if I haven't got it, help me out.

11:48 / 01.04.03

A comic with the last five pages left blank, packaged in shrink-wrap with a pencil attached.

A

01:17 / 02.04.03

A cliffhanger ending with a phone number on the last page for you to call to decide whether Ragged Robin lives or dies.

04:55 / 02.04.03

Nah... he just wants to be the comic equivalent of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. Turn to page four, panel three...

17:58 / 07.05.03

Not sure if this is the interactive project Morrison was talking about, but it is something he's talked about (making the DC Universe "wake up" and realize it's a sentient entity). Read on, true believers....

From Lying in the Gutters, Rich Johnston's comic rumour column at www.comicbookresouces.com:
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What is Grant Morrison doing after "X-Men?" Well, he's talked about some creator owned work in a vague non-announcey way. But as for his Next Big Super Hero Thing? Well, I hear he's been telling people it's his sequel to "Crisis on Infinite Earths," "The Hyper-Crisis On Infinite Earths." This sprawling cross-over series would alter DC's characters and would spin off a bunch of new Morrison-conceived titles, at least one of which he'd write.

This may well be part of Grant Morrison's announced intention to access DC's vast complexity of continuity and use that continuity to make the DC Universe self-aware, as well as writing a living, breathing comic book.

However, I hear that DC, after doing its umpteenth crossover series over the last few of years, including "Worlds at War" and "The Last Laugh," has taken on board criticism from both pros and fans. There may have been sales spikes during the events, but creators and readers as a whole didn't seem that happy with this trend.

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I remember Morrison saying he wanted to a lot more someday with Hypertime, the device he created along with Mark Waid in THE KINGDOM.

Thoughts? This sounds cool. I don't think DC will tank it just because LAST LAUGH and OUR WORLDS AT WAR sucked. This is Morrison we're talking about here.

18:27 / 07.05.03

Yeah, that sounded suspect. And by time he finishes X-Men, it will be a couple of years down the line, so the concern about crossovers will have dissipated. My only concern is that DC won't let him really change their universe, because they've been so reactionary in the past.

Pirate Ven Will Teach You To Lambada (The Forbidden Dance)

20:34 / 07.05.03

A comic made out of Magic Mirror blobs. "Every time I watched it, it was something different."