Nawlz.com: a computer graphic novel for the web
Various forms of art lend themselves to interesting adaptation and subsequent mutation via their practice on the web. The graphic novel is obviously an excellent candidate. A computer screen is great for presenting the sorts of images we see in graphic novels. Often the images are developed, at least in part, with programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and so on. And, via animation, interactivity, other programming, and audio, clearly there's great room for interesting mutation.
Whereas some other art forms aren't going to change much via being practiced to the net. They will be less significant as net art as simply distributed on the net, rather than adapted to the net in more artistically significant ways. They won't mutate and grow much via their incarnation on the net, whereas art forms such as the 'graphic novel
9; for the computer screen and the net will eventually often be dramatically different from print or film versions of the graphic novel. As different as the horse and carriage from the “horseless carriage,” which is what cars were first called.
Nawlz.com is an interesting graphic novel for the web in its visuals, its occasional animations, and the way it unfolds via clicking on stuff. This site won the webby for net art in 2010. Experiencing it visually and interactively and even sonically is more rewarding than the text itself, I find; the text is somewhat generic or non-descript in voice and character; I find it hard to meditate on the text. But the visuals, on the other hand, and the way they look and move and are arranged on the screen, are very successful.
The granddaddy of this interactive, online approach to comics, as far as I know, is Argon Zark. You can see that Nawlz.com is similar to Argon Zark as a computer graphic novel–but also that Nawlz.com has taken it further.
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2 Responses to “Nawlz.com: a computer graphic novel for the web”.
As you say, Jim, interesting layout and general design, and the navigation is very clever. Somebody’s going to make one of these that goes huge on the iPad some time soon – if it wasn’t for Apple’s aversion to Flash, we’d probably be there already. It’s much less of an effort for readers of graphic novels to make the transition to multi-media literature – they’re already halfway there, being used to a combination of text and images – than it is for lovers of traditional printed literature. But to say this is an oversimplification, of course: it’s not as if lovers of printed literature never read the comics, and it’s not as if comic-lovers never read traditional printed literature; there’s considerable overlap between the two.
- Edward
I read somewhere a description of the iPad as a device made to consume media, not produce media.
Have you seen/heard The Gorillaz? Quite a popular band. But they’re a virtual band, mainly. If you have a look at http://youtube.com/results?search_query=gorillaz you see lots of animated music videos. I think they’ve won or been nominated for a grammy. The band exists primarily through its music videos. They’re in a graphic novel style.
Sort of like The Monkees or The Partridge Family, in that they’re primarily media creations and the music is more or less equal with the visual media manifestation. But The Gorillaz are cartoon characters.
Though they appeared on the Grammies on TV.