Showing posts with label ren and stimpy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ren and stimpy. Show all posts

Oct 15, 2012

Transformers, Time Travel and Non-Linear Comics.

 ...And that's why I really didn't enjoy Transformers: Robots in Disguise #10.

Cover by Casey Coller
But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Maybe we should start at the start.

Comics are, by their very nature, a non-linear experience. I know, this seems silly to say... don't you read them through in a completely linear fashion? Don't you start at panel A, read left to right, down to panel F, then start again on the next page? Maybe... but because comics are a physical object you interact with, the reader can turn back and forth in the comic... skip parts, move around at his leisure, and just generally read things out of order if the reader so chooses.

You've never done that? You've never read a comic for the second of third time and decided to read the good bits first then go back and fill in the other bits later? Well I certainly have. Comics and other interactive media offer that kind of reading experience (a movie shown in a cinema, a play, an opera, a concert, these sorts of things are completely unchangingly linear). So it's not surprising that a lot of writers over the years have experimented with creating comics that are meant to be read in a non-linear fashion.

Comics that take advantage of the fact that the reader can turn back and forth and move in and out of the page as he so chooses in comics.

Comics like Transformers: Robots in Disguise #10.