Presentation Comics

[nemorathwald]

1. I'm good at delivering presentations.
2. I like making comics, except for the part where I have to make up a fictional dramatic narrative.
3. Presentations with hand-drawn explanatory slides instead of those powerpoint slides full of redundant words. YES. This feels like destiny.

Reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics struck me with the incredible explanatory power that comes along with combining words and pictures. Above all traits, it is a book of overwhelming lucidity. Words alone, or pictures without sequence, carry a lot of interpretive workload for teacher and learner. Films don't wait around for the learner's pace. In Understanding Comics, McCloud does not just describe why comics possesses vast communicative aptitude: he demonstrates it.

The religious propaganda tracts of my upbringing soured me on didactic comics literature. I now believe this was needlessly so. If it feels like squeezing blood from a stone to think of a story, what of it? I don't need to wait around for a story. I can teach something and make it fun. I love explaining things.

To start with, I'll draw a comic about the Penguicon Solar System for the "What Is Penguicon?" page. The twin suns of SF and Free/Open Source Software; the planets of music, webcomics, gaming, etc.

Second, I would like to make a couple of Lojban tutorial comics. For that purpose, it would be great to incorporate some kind of media player into a webpage, so that clicking a picture gives a quick sound file without leaving the page. I'll research that.

Comments

[earthenwood.livejournal.com]

love these ideas, Matt. I really enjoy the way you explain things to me, especially in person. I would recommend considering the audience you are writing for with the comics...someone new to the concepts and ideas (like the Lojban) might really need presentation appropriate for beginners, while people who already take an interest in the subject may be more able to readily dive into the heady stuff early. I have learned to balance this while doing my project article writing...it can be a difficult task, especially when one knows the subject thoroughly.

and i think it is fascinating how the religious tracts of your youth will inevitably play an inspiration in one way or another in comics that you do now, very interesting!

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

someone new to the concepts and ideas (like the Lojban) might really need presentation appropriate for beginners, while people who already take an interest in the subject may be more able to readily dive into the heady stuff early.

I intend the comics to make it fun and easy for newcomers to get into the language, the way I did with the Lojban podcast.

Here's another part of my idea. I'd like to include footnotes from each comic to other comics in the collection that explain other pre-requisite concepts. If I can make the mouse-overs work correctly, the footnotes could be right there in the comic image itself. Years from now, if I have made one cartoon for each of the approximately 500 small structure words that make up the grammar, the cartoons could form a semantic web of knowledge to browse at one's own pace.

and i think it is fascinating how the religious tracts of your youth will inevitably play an inspiration in one way or another in comics that you do now, very interesting!"
Heh heh, yes. I'm fascinated too.

[(Anonymous)]

For that purpose, it would be great to incorporate some kind of media player into a webpage, so that clicking a picture gives a quick sound file without leaving the page. I'll research that.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Firefox_31_will_try_native_Ogg_video_and_audio_despite_W3C/1217873456
example page in comments at http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2008/07/firefox_31_will_support_ogg.html

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Sarah Elkins