Boskone 47, Saturday Afternoon

Important News Bulletin.
We interrupt this blog to give you an important news bulletin. Steven Popkes goes live on the Book View Cafe today. Here is BVC. Here's his bookshelf.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

Saturday 4pm Graphic Novels, Film Audio, Web Comics, +!? - Different Ways to Tell the Story
Bruce Coville, Moderator
Steven Popkes
Everett Soares
Rene Walling
Jane Yolen

I was the least qualified person on this panel and didn't have a lot to contribute. But I got to sit next to Jane. That was enough.

Notes:

1) Visual medium vs. read medium vs. aural medium
(films/comics vs. prose vs. podcast)

2) Linear medium vs. non-linear medium.
(prose stories vs. hypertext vs. firesign theater)

3) Medium of narrative discovery vs. Medium of reader experience.
(The story is told to the reader vs. the reader discovers the story through his choices. story vs. gaming)


4) Some things just work better visually: comic book material works best visually, in comics and film. Doesn't work so well in print. Some comics, imho, don't work as film.

5) Theater of Images, The Theater and Its Double, Antonin Artaud. Does primal material work best visually vs. intellectual material work best in prose?
Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman
Logicomix, Apostolos Doxiadis
Masterpiece Comics,
Berlin, Jason Lutes
Maus, Art Spiegelman

5) Plot conservatism of material versus cost of production. Cheap production means radical thought. Which is why we should be looking to cheap print production (or internet produced reading materials) for radical departures. Why haven't we seen it in prose? We HAVE seen it in webcomics.

6) Scott McCloud's books.

7) Rule 34.1: If it exists, there is a webcomic containing it:

Steampunk: Girl Genius
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf: Something Positive
Zombies: Dead Winter, Raising Hell
What happened to the Midwich Cuckoos: Freakangels
What happened when Vesuvius blew up: SPQR Blues
Witches vs. 1984: Heart Shaped Skull
Absurd, self involved characters: Nerf This, among others
Absurd Advice to the lovelorn vampire: Ask Dr. Eldritch
Absurd nastiness: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Absurd science fiction: Life on Forbez
Absurd mathematics and physics: XKCD
Absurd mathematics, physics and art: Dresden Codak
Absurd Japanese gaming: Megatokyo
Absurd Wartime medieval Japan: No Need for Bushido
Absurd pre-history: Dawn of Time
Absurd Highlander: Platinum Grit

8) www.stevenpopkes.com-- webcomics section under interest. About 100. However, I have many more that I have glanced at but not investigated.