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Eric Rutgrink 2535153 – Transmedia Storytelling 1/10
Eric Rutgrink 2535153Connie Veugen, J.I.L
Transmedia StorytellingDecember 3rd 2013
Why are comic strips ideal for use in Transmedia Storytelling?
As we scan the current field of Transmedia storytelling1, there is one medium that seems to
have become something of a staple storytelling ingredient. The Walking Dead, Start Wars, Assassins
Creed, Clockwork Watch, The Niantic Project to name a few, all have pivotal story elements
developed or extended through the use of comic strips. It seems these story-worlds thrive in the
comic strip environment. But is this phenomenon simply due to the current audience demographic for
Transmedia storytelling (TMS) – namely younger people with whom comic strips have always held
an appeal2, or is the comic medium uniquely suited to the very concept of TMS?
By looking into the methodology and production of comic strips, and the cognitive processes
required of the reader, this essay aims to show how these aspects allow for, and even encourage;
world-building, fan participation and story extensions – characteristics of TMS as defined by media
theorists Henry Jenkins and Christy Dena.
The Comic Medium
Today comics, although still undervalued by much of conventional academia, have been
accepted as a unique medium of communication within popular culture. Tyler Weaver, author of
Comics For Film, Games, And Animation says; “comics merges the tried and true of drama: books are
about what people think, plays are about what people say, movies are about what people do. If you
can make it work, you can have people doing, saying and thinking in one comic panel” (Weaver
2012) Although arguably overstating their potential, Weaver does bring to light a reality; comics can
do what no other individual media does. It is a multi-expressive and textually layered conduit – a
1 A transmedia story is a story that unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuablecontribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does best—so that a story might beintroduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as anamusement park attraction. (Jenkins 2006: 95–96)2 Scott McCloud notes the instant popularity of the comic medium in the 1930s with the younger reader for a number of reasons; the textswere not demanding, the images were iconic and the stories dynamic. Henry Jenkins describes TMS as a type of storytelling that is toldacross various media platforms and interfaces – the native domain of the digital generation. Not surprisingly today’s digital generation isstill attracted to the same qualities that the early comics provided – undemanding texts, iconic imagery and dynamic stories but now have anew native environment in which to access them. This does mean that at this stage in its development, TMS is best suited to the habits andlifestyles of the younger generation.
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Henrichon, Nico. Noe, for Darren Aronofsky’s movie Noah
complex medium mixing iconography, received and perceived information with illusions of sound in
an unrestricted spatiotemporal mode.
This potential is not lost on Darren
Aronofsky, director of the upcoming large
budget production Noah, who teamed up with
artist Nico Henrichon to create a graphic novel
of the story to aid his pitches.3 By using a comic
strip, Aronofsky gave the investors an
opportunity to set the pace of the narrative and
engage with his ideas as they ‘filled out’ the
story themselves. As comic theorist Scott
McCloud states, “comic creators rely on and
must trust audiences to fill in the blanks in their
stories” (67). For Aronofsky, the blanks
between the comic panels provided fertile space
for imagination – imagination that could be financed and manifest into film adaptation. Christy Dena
explains that through this very process to adaptation, a fictional story-world is being developed across
media. She would argue that this is in essence the beginning of TMS4. But how does this process
take place and why is this type of sequential imagery5 ideal for media migration?
3 LeBlanc, Will. ‘First Look At Darren Aronofsky’s Graphic Novel Noah’ www.cinemablend.com, published: October 21, 20114 Dena uses the example of The Red Shoes: The Novel; the novelization of the film, The Red Shoes, where the writers were given theopportunity to ’add new narrative threads and expand upon the film’s original themes and characters’ (Jeremy Irons, in Powell andPressburger 1999 [1948]). For Dena, ‘Adaption is taking the essence of a single story, game or event that is expressed and accessed throughdifferent media, and different artforms. This resonates with the spirit of transmedia, in which each medium is seen as an equally viableexpression of a fictional world’ (Dena 158).5 For McCloud, comics are “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence” (15). However, as we’ve understood fromWeaver’s earlier claim, there must also be recognition that comics are inherently heterogeneous – that they are a ‘qualified media’. In LarsElleström’s specification, qualified media may involve other conventional media in a culturally accepted way – just as the comic combinesvarious conventional arts in its form of storytelling.
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The Reductional Methodolgy of Comics
Noe, Comic Strip Example Comic Strip Elements
Comic strips create stories through reduction. According to McCloud, in a successful comic
the conventional arts involved (narrative art, literature, drama) need to be simplified for the sake of
cohesion and readability. Narrative artwork that is traditionally realistic becomes more iconographic.
Literature in turn pulls away from its ‘high art’ status – becoming less dense and more instantly
‘received’ like images. When integrating sound and motion, comic creators use techniques developed
by modern artists such as Marcel Duchamp who being more concerned with the “idea of motion than
the sensation, would eventually reduce such concepts [...] to single lines” (109). Managing this
process of reduction is the true craft of the comic strip artist.
Cartoons – the vocabulary of Comics
J. Maggio explains in Comics and Cartoons: A Democratic Art-Form that cartoons act
similarly to diagrams or ‘Iconic Legisigns’6 in that they are “based on empirical appearances but are
essentially abstracted from empirical sense data” (237). According to McCloud, this is why cartoons 6 C.S. Pierce (1940, 116) defines this group, writing: An Iconic Legisign e.g., a diagram apart from its factual individuality is any generallaw or type, in so far as it requires each instance of it to embody a definite quality which renders fit to call up in the mind the idea of a likeobject.
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 – Transmedia Storytelling 4/10
come closer to the perceptual nature of written text – nearer to what we ‘imagine’ than what we ‘see’.
This reduction in realism allows us to read cartoons as free from our physical laws, so that a flying
man or talking clock do not seem absurd but entirely possible.
Panels, Gutters and Bleed images
When telling a story, comic panels act as a ‘general indicator that time and space is being
divided’ (McCloud 99). The space between the panels is known as the ‘gutter’. This negative space
is where the reader is explicitly needed to create ‘closure’ by linking instances together7. When
‘bleed images’ are used, “time is no longer contained by the familiar icon of the ‘closed’ panel but
instead haemorrhages and escapes timeless space” (103).
Tycho. Comic for The Niantic Lab’s The Niantic Project Abraham, Daniel, drawn by Tommy Patterson. A page from HBO’s The Game of Thrones Comic series
When flipping through the Niantic Project’s comic, we see this to be the case with most fixed
actions and dialogue existing within panels while bleed images show more contextual detail. The
comic strip produced for HBO’s the Game of Thrones however uses minimal bleed imagery and its
gutters are filled in black. This produces the feeling of restriction – as if the artist needed to block out
7 “Nothing is seen between the two panels but experience tells you something must be there” (McCloud 66-67).
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the opportunity for the reader to fill in an already completed story. Unsurprisingly, reception to these
comics was mixed with a Broken Frontier reviewer asking for "a more serious take on the art" (Yell).
The Economics and Scalability of Comics
From the earliest days of serial fiction, Charles Dickens would release his novels as short
episodes in popular periodicals. The cheapness of mechanical reproduction allowed the stories to be
extended almost endlessly while the speed at which an episode could be produced and distributed
meant Dickens was able to adjust his narrative based on the reactions of his readers (Graham 13).
This ability to produce work quickly, cheaply and in serial format was perfected by the comic strip
with serial television following afterwards.8
Clockwork Watch is an example of a TMS that exploits the economic rationalism and
scalability of comics. This complex and highly interactive story is almost entirely ‘crowd-funded’
and is planned to run for five years. This is possible in part because it uses comics as its primary
storytelling medium. As fan communities began to form around the story, participants produced
clothing and artefacts to sell or exhibit at Clockwork Watch live events. Through producing episodic
graphic novels, Yomi Ayeni was able to include these objects and events into upcoming storylines,
with financial contributors featuring as background characters. By being iconified through the comic
medium, objects, performers and events are integrated into the very canon of Clockwork Watch while
at the same time imbued with the potential for expansion. Here we see in practice how the dynamic
comic medium can function within TMS.
8 In TV and the Neo-Baroque, Angela Ndalianis explains how serial television learned a valuable formal lesson from thecomic book industry. The episodic format had been proved by serial comics to maintain sustained interest from readers andallowed for the idea to be applied to television programming.
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The Expanding Opportunity of Comics
When discussing TMS, Henry Jenkins states, “more and more, storytelling has become the art
of world building, as artists create compelling environments that cannot be fully explored or
exhausted within a single work or even a single medium” (2006, 114). This process of world-building
encourages an encyclopaedic impulse in both readers and writers9. Due to the reductional
methodology of comics, a wide range of opportunities for this impulse are inherently present.
For example, simplified texts can be expanded into novels, while sequenced imagery expand
almost naturally into film or television10. Objects in comics that take on an iconic status can be easily
reproduced as merchandising – which allows for fans to ‘act out’ story extensions. As McCloud
explains, because cartoons link closer to our ‘conceptual sight’, we don’t just ‘observe’ a cartoon – we
become it.
9 Jenkins, Henry. Transmedia Storytelling 101. published: March 22, 200710 Christian Rivers who created complete storyboards (a form of sequenced imagery similar to comics) for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Ringstrilogy points out that storyboarding gives everyone, including the movie director, a good feel as to the flavour of the film. For PeterJackson, storyboarding effectively puts him through the process of making the film and is vital to communicate with all the technicaldepartments.
Reduced Comic Strip Elements Transmedia Storytelling Potential
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As inexhaustible imagination is linked to ideas, cartoon imagery is particularly enticing for
use in building and exploring fictional worlds. Being free from empirical sense data, comics require
readers not just to follow a narrative but actively engage in the formation of a new reality or ‘Lore’ –
although often an implicated rather than a highly formal one11.
Yomi Ayeni’s The Arrival. Graphic Novel for Clockwork Watch
In comics, bleed imagery can be used by the artist to better establish these story-world
realities. By filling a page (including the gutters) bleed imagery can subtly influence the reader’s
process of ‘closure’ and intermittently make them aware of a reality beyond the narrative itself. For
example, every inch of the Clockwork Watch comic pages have been considered as a surface revealing
glimpses into a story-world. The panels are drawn on what looks like ‘aged’ paper – as if made in
Victorian times – regularly pulling the viewer out of the specific plot to consider the world beyond.
Bleed images are used to define an otherwise intuitive ‘lore’ and encourage the reader to explore
beyond the specific story – and even to migrate to other storytelling components12. In this way, the
11 Intermezzo: The meaning of Lore in the context of Gaming Communities, Lore is ‘a body of (fictional) history, (fictional) background,(fictional) traditions and (fictional knowledge connected to a fictional universe, often applied as binding preconditions for any expansion ofthe fictional universe’. In Gaming communities, ‘lore is a construction by a co-creation between a producing institution and an interpretingcommunity, and is intrinsically subjective.’ (3).12 Author Matt Hanson actually uses the term ‘screen bleed’ in his description of the modern narrative condition where fictive worlds extendinto multiple media and moving image formats” (174). In this way, bleed images can be made to act as migratory cues, allowing for theworld to ‘bleed’ into other media.
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‘gutters’ between panels can expand to allow not simply ‘closure’ but ‘interaction’ in the story-world
– like ‘negative capability’. Negative Capability, as described by Geoffrey Long, is “the art of
building strategic gaps into a narrative to evoke a delicious sense of 'uncertainty, mystery, or doubt' in
the audience, persuading them to explore” (Long 137).
In Conclusion
There are two ways in which comics are currently used in TMS – firstly in the development
of a story-world, and secondly in the expansion of an already existing one. In both instances, the
expanding potential and economic rationality of the comic makes it an ideal medium to use.
Because the comic reduces imagery to visual iconography and literature to selected texts, I
propose that its expanding potential is greater than for any other single storytelling medium. Through
reducing detail and including space between the story panels, comics are a ‘cool media’ (using
Marshall Mcluhan’s definition) – a media that demands participation to make them work. But this
demand on comics provides opportunities for TMS as artists and readers need to develop a story-
world lore, and can engage with negative capability while finding closure in a story. Even the comic
strip reader is ideal for TMS. Ronald Schmitt writes: “The effects of comic books on youngsters are
quite subversive […] in their effects on traditional, hierarchical modes of reading and on the entire
notion of literacy” (153). Such unconventional readers are required for TMS as its stories are
“dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels” (Jenkins 2007).
Added to this are the economic advantages of comics – providing the ideal means for vast
story-worlds to expand. When the Wachowski brothers, creators of The Matrix “needed something
to sustain the hard-core fan's hunger for more information [...] they offering up a few Web comics”
(Jenkins 95). In relation to other forms of media, the economic benefits of comics and its ability to
implicate story-worlds make it ideal for use in ‘unfolding’13 transmedia stories.
13 A transmedia story according to Dena is ‘A story world unfolding across media platforms’(Dena) Jenkins description of TMS also usesthe word ‘unfold’ to specify the fluidity and dynamism of this type of storytelling.
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Distinct Media and Environments.” (Unpublished PhD dissertation). Sidney, Australia. 2009: 96 -
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