Directions “Up” – (2003)
“Up” is the final piece in Directions. Trying to get a webpage to scroll up is difficult, so I went the route of having the viewer position themselves on the page. Kind of a cheap trick when you think about it. But back then, I was no html expert! Funnily enough, the original page had plenty of […]
Directions “Right” – (2003)
Probably the most absurdist Directions installment. I’m pretty sure I smashed together a dream and a joke my father in law once told me. And although the joke is great and the dream is unsettling, the narrative wasn’t the point. From a formal perspective, if you access all 3 of the interactive elements in the comic, you […]
Directions “Down” – (2003)
“Down” was the most straightforward installment in Directions. It’s a regular vertical scroller dealing with artistic frustration. I think the real interest lies in the metapanel, an open composition of photo collage that bleeds into the background. I enjoy the palette, the sickly mustard which rolls into warm oranges, and balances out the complimentary blue in the center of […]
Directions “Left” – (2003)
“Left” was the most problematic of the Directions installments. The biggest difficulty was in making a comic that reads from right to left. It’s counter intuitive for sure. Also pretty much all of the internet, from code-writing to browser rendering, is based on top-right orientation. So I employed a few tricks back then to make it work. Unfortunately, […]
Directions – (2003)
So there used to be this thing called Bitpass. When it was originally launched, it focused pretty heavily on monetizing webcomics. I was invited to be a beta tester of their system and create content for sale. This was 2003 and although it seems somewhat silly now, there was very little movement in terms of an easy […]
The Jerk – (2002)
This comic was first published sometime at the end of 2001. It gained some popularity at the time it was published and was the most ambitious hypercomic I had attempted. It’s an Infinite Canvas style scrolling narration with embedded interactive flash files that add depth to the narrative. The horizontal section of the comic features […]
Five Ways to Love A Cockroach (2005)
Neal’s 2005 collaboration with Alexander Danner, “Five Ways to Love a Cockroach” has found a new home. It was one of a handful of comics built with Markus Müller’s Infinite Canvas application and made a decent splash at the time of it’s release, including winning the 2006 WCCA award for best use of Infinite Canvas. It was also featured in MoCCA’s “Infinite […]