The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Not content with Monkeys With Machine Guns (yes, I still love that name!) Chris Lynch has sent me a link to his rather unusual webcomic, Photonic Graffiti. Actually, I say webcomic, but as a label that doesn’t really quite describe it properly – the title Photonic Graffiti is perhaps more fitting as Chris takes images he finds and can use under the Creative Commons license, which he then reworks and adds text to as the picture inspires him.

I’ve remarked before how some webcomics are starting to exploit the digital medium a bit more and how some creators are adapting to the web, creating work more suited for it rather than simply reproduce strips similar to the printed medium (although I enjoyed those too I have to say and they can serve as a good taster to a new creator’s work).

I think here Chris has shared an experiment with us (I’m sure he’d love to hear reader’s comments) which, being essentially a single image with overlaid text is very well-suited to web-browsing, where most readers don’t want to follow a long strip or text in the way they would with a printed comic. It is a little like a combined graphic/text poem, conjuring an idea, a feeling, an atmosphere, rather than delving into a full narrative – suggesting ideas to the reader’s imagination rather than spoon-feeding them a linear tale. I like it. I’m especially taken with the Gone With the Wind tale.