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Eric Rutgrink 2535153

Connie Veugen, J.I.L
Transmedia Storytelling
December 3rd 2013

Why are comic strips ideal for use in Transmedia Storytelling?

As we scan the current field of Transmedia storytelling1, there is one medium that seems to

have become something of a staple storytelling ingredient. The Walking Dead, Start Wars, Assassins

Creed, Clockwork Watch, The Niantic Project to name a few, all have pivotal story elements

developed or extended through the use of comic strips. It seems these story-worlds thrive in the

comic strip environment. But is this phenomenon simply due to the current audience demographic for

Transmedia storytelling (TMS) namely younger people with whom comic strips have always held

an appeal2, or is the comic medium uniquely suited to the very concept of TMS?

By looking into the methodology and production of comic strips, and the cognitive processes

required of the reader, this essay aims to show how these aspects allow for, and even encourage;

world-building, fan participation and story extensions characteristics of TMS as defined by media

theorists Henry Jenkins and Christy Dena.

The Comic Medium

Today comics, although still undervalued by much of conventional academia, have been

accepted as a unique medium of communication within popular culture. Tyler Weaver, author of

Comics For Film, Games, And Animation says; comics merges the tried and true of drama: books are

about what people think, plays are about what people say, movies are about what people do. If you

can make it work, you can have people doing, saying and thinking in one comic panel (Weaver

2012) Although arguably overstating their potential, Weaver does bring to light a reality; comics can

do what no other individual media does. It is a multi-expressive and textually layered conduit a

1
A transmedia story is a story that unfolds across multiple media platforms with each new text making a distinctive and valuable
contribution to the whole. In the ideal form of transmedia storytelling, each medium does what it does bestso that a story might be
introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as an
amusement park attraction. (Jenkins 2006: 9596)
2
Scott McCloud notes the instant popularity of the comic medium in the 1930s with the younger reader for a number of reasons; the texts
were not demanding, the images were iconic and the stories dynamic. Henry Jenkins describes TMS as a type of storytelling that is told
across various media platforms and interfaces the native domain of the digital generation. Not surprisingly todays digital generation is
still attracted to the same qualities that the early comics provided undemanding texts, iconic imagery and dynamic stories but now have a
new native environment in which to access them. This does mean that at this stage in its development, TMS is best suited to the habits and
lifestyles of the younger generation.
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 Transmedia Storytelling 2/10

complex medium mixing iconography, received and perceived information with illusions of sound in

an unrestricted spatiotemporal mode.

This potential is not lost on Darren

Aronofsky, director of the upcoming large

budget production Noah, who teamed up with

artist Nico Henrichon to create a graphic novel

of the story to aid his pitches.3 By using a comic

strip, Aronofsky gave the investors an

opportunity to set the pace of the narrative and

engage with his ideas as they filled out the

story themselves. As comic theorist Scott

McCloud states, comic creators rely on and

must trust audiences to fill in the blanks in their

stories (67). For Aronofsky, the blanks

Henrichon, Nico. Noe, for Darren Aronofskys movie Noah
between the comic panels provided fertile space

for imagination imagination that could be financed and manifest into film adaptation. Christy Dena

explains that through this very process to adaptation, a fictional story-world is being developed across

media. She would argue that this is in essence the beginning of TMS4. But how does this process

take place and why is this type of sequential imagery5 ideal for media migration?

3
LeBlanc, Will. First Look At Darren Aronofskys Graphic Novel Noah www.cinemablend.com, published: October 21, 2011
4
Dena uses the example of The Red Shoes: The Novel; the novelization of the film, The Red Shoes, where the writers were given the
opportunity to add new narrative threads and expand upon the films original themes and characters (Jeremy Irons, in Powell and
Pressburger 1999 [1948]). For Dena, Adaption is taking the essence of a single story, game or event that is expressed and accessed through
different media, and different artforms. This resonates with the spirit of transmedia, in which each medium is seen as an equally viable
expression of a fictional world (Dena 158).
5
For McCloud, comics are Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence (15). However, as weve understood from
Weavers earlier claim, there must also be recognition that comics are inherently heterogeneous that they are a qualified media. In Lars
Ellestrms specification, qualified media may involve other conventional media in a culturally accepted way just as the comic combines
various conventional arts in its form of storytelling.
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The Reductional Methodolgy of Comics

Noe, Comic Strip Example Comic Strip Elements

Comic strips create stories through reduction. According to McCloud, in a successful comic

the conventional arts involved (narrative art, literature, drama) need to be simplified for the sake of

cohesion and readability. Narrative artwork that is traditionally realistic becomes more iconographic.

Literature in turn pulls away from its high art status becoming less dense and more instantly

received like images. When integrating sound and motion, comic creators use techniques developed

by modern artists such as Marcel Duchamp who being more concerned with the idea of motion than

the sensation, would eventually reduce such concepts [...] to single lines (109). Managing this

process of reduction is the true craft of the comic strip artist.

Cartoons the vocabulary of Comics

J. Maggio explains in Comics and Cartoons: A Democratic Art-Form that cartoons act

similarly to diagrams or Iconic Legisigns6 in that they are based on empirical appearances but are

essentially abstracted from empirical sense data (237). According to McCloud, this is why cartoons

6
C.S. Pierce (1940, 116) defines this group, writing: An Iconic Legisign e.g., a diagram apart from its factual individuality is any general
law or type, in so far as it requires each instance of it to embody a definite quality which renders fit to call up in the mind the idea of a like
object.
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 Transmedia Storytelling 4/10

come closer to the perceptual nature of written text nearer to what we imagine than what we see.

This reduction in realism allows us to read cartoons as free from our physical laws, so that a flying

man or talking clock do not seem absurd but entirely possible.

Panels, Gutters and Bleed images

When telling a story, comic panels act as a general indicator that time and space is being

divided (McCloud 99). The space between the panels is known as the gutter. This negative space

is where the reader is explicitly needed to create closure by linking instances together7. When

bleed images are used, time is no longer contained by the familiar icon of the closed panel but

instead haemorrhages and escapes timeless space (103).

Tycho. Comic for The Niantic Labs The Niantic Project Abraham, Daniel, drawn by Tommy Patterson. A page
from HBOs The Game of Thrones Comic series

When flipping through the Niantic Projects comic, we see this to be the case with most fixed

actions and dialogue existing within panels while bleed images show more contextual detail. The

comic strip produced for HBOs the Game of Thrones however uses minimal bleed imagery and its

gutters are filled in black. This produces the feeling of restriction as if the artist needed to block out

7
Nothing is seen between the two panels but experience tells you something must be there (McCloud 66-67).
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 Transmedia Storytelling 5/10

the opportunity for the reader to fill in an already completed story. Unsurprisingly, reception to these

comics was mixed with a Broken Frontier reviewer asking for "a more serious take on the art" (Yell).

The Economics and Scalability of Comics

From the earliest days of serial fiction, Charles Dickens would release his novels as short

episodes in popular periodicals. The cheapness of mechanical reproduction allowed the stories to be

extended almost endlessly while the speed at which an episode could be produced and distributed

meant Dickens was able to adjust his narrative based on the reactions of his readers (Graham 13).

This ability to produce work quickly, cheaply and in serial format was perfected by the comic strip

with serial television following afterwards.8

Clockwork Watch is an example of a TMS that exploits the economic rationalism and

scalability of comics. This complex and highly interactive story is almost entirely crowd-funded

and is planned to run for five years. This is possible in part because it uses comics as its primary

storytelling medium. As fan communities began to form around the story, participants produced

clothing and artefacts to sell or exhibit at Clockwork Watch live events. Through producing episodic

graphic novels, Yomi Ayeni was able to include these objects and events into upcoming storylines,

with financial contributors featuring as background characters. By being iconified through the comic

medium, objects, performers and events are integrated into the very canon of Clockwork Watch while

at the same time imbued with the potential for expansion. Here we see in practice how the dynamic

comic medium can function within TMS.

8
In TV and the Neo-Baroque, Angela Ndalianis explains how serial television learned a valuable formal lesson from the
comic book industry. The episodic format had been proved by serial comics to maintain sustained interest from readers and
allowed for the idea to be applied to television programming.
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The Expanding Opportunity of Comics

Reduced Comic Strip Elements Transmedia Storytelling Potential

When discussing TMS, Henry Jenkins states, more and more, storytelling has become the art

of world building, as artists create compelling environments that cannot be fully explored or

exhausted within a single work or even a single medium (2006, 114). This process of world-building

encourages an encyclopaedic impulse in both readers and writers9. Due to the reductional

methodology of comics, a wide range of opportunities for this impulse are inherently present.

For example, simplified texts can be expanded into novels, while sequenced imagery expand

almost naturally into film or television10. Objects in comics that take on an iconic status can be easily

reproduced as merchandising which allows for fans to act out story extensions. As McCloud

explains, because cartoons link closer to our conceptual sight, we dont just observe a cartoon we

become it.

9
Jenkins, Henry. Transmedia Storytelling 101. published: March 22, 2007
10
Christian Rivers who created complete storyboards (a form of sequenced imagery similar to comics) for Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings
trilogy points out that storyboarding gives everyone, including the movie director, a good feel as to the flavour of the film. For Peter
Jackson, storyboarding effectively puts him through the process of making the film and is vital to communicate with all the technical
departments.
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As inexhaustible imagination is linked to ideas, cartoon imagery is particularly enticing for

use in building and exploring fictional worlds. Being free from empirical sense data, comics require

readers not just to follow a narrative but actively engage in the formation of a new reality or Lore

although often an implicated rather than a highly formal one11.

Yomi Ayenis The Arrival. Graphic Novel for

Clockwork Watch

In comics, bleed imagery can be used by the artist to better establish these story-world

realities. By filling a page (including the gutters) bleed imagery can subtly influence the readers

process of closure and intermittently make them aware of a reality beyond the narrative itself. For

example, every inch of the Clockwork Watch comic pages have been considered as a surface revealing

glimpses into a story-world. The panels are drawn on what looks like aged paper as if made in

Victorian times regularly pulling the viewer out of the specific plot to consider the world beyond.

Bleed images are used to define an otherwise intuitive lore and encourage the reader to explore

beyond the specific story and even to migrate to other storytelling components12. In this way, the

11
Intermezzo: The meaning of Lore in the context of Gaming Communities, Lore is a body of (fictional) history, (fictional) background,
(fictional) traditions and (fictional knowledge connected to a fictional universe, often applied as binding preconditions for any expansion of
the fictional universe. In Gaming communities, lore is a construction by a co-creation between a producing institution and an interpreting
community, and is intrinsically subjective. (3).
12
Author Matt Hanson actually uses the term screen bleed in his description of the modern narrative condition where fictive worlds extend
into multiple media and moving image formats (174). In this way, bleed images can be made to act as migratory cues, allowing for the
world to bleed into other media.
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 Transmedia Storytelling 8/10

gutters between panels can expand to allow not simply closure but interaction in the story-world

like negative capability. Negative Capability, as described by Geoffrey Long, is the art of

building strategic gaps into a narrative to evoke a delicious sense of 'uncertainty, mystery, or doubt' in

the audience, persuading them to explore (Long 137).

In Conclusion

There are two ways in which comics are currently used in TMS firstly in the development

of a story-world, and secondly in the expansion of an already existing one. In both instances, the

expanding potential and economic rationality of the comic makes it an ideal medium to use.

Because the comic reduces imagery to visual iconography and literature to selected texts, I

propose that its expanding potential is greater than for any other single storytelling medium. Through

reducing detail and including space between the story panels, comics are a cool media (using

Marshall Mcluhans definition) a media that demands participation to make them work. But this

demand on comics provides opportunities for TMS as artists and readers need to develop a story-

world lore, and can engage with negative capability while finding closure in a story. Even the comic

strip reader is ideal for TMS. Ronald Schmitt writes: The effects of comic books on youngsters are

quite subversive [] in their effects on traditional, hierarchical modes of reading and on the entire

notion of literacy (153). Such unconventional readers are required for TMS as its stories are

dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels (Jenkins 2007).

Added to this are the economic advantages of comics providing the ideal means for vast

story-worlds to expand. When the Wachowski brothers, creators of The Matrix needed something

to sustain the hard-core fan's hunger for more information [...] they offering up a few Web comics

(Jenkins 95). In relation to other forms of media, the economic benefits of comics and its ability to

implicate story-worlds make it ideal for use in unfolding13 transmedia stories.

13
A transmedia story according to Dena is A story world unfolding across media platforms(Dena) Jenkins description of TMS also uses
the word unfold to specify the fluidity and dynamism of this type of storytelling.
Eric Rutgrink 2535153 Transmedia Storytelling 9/10

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