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The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium
Led by renowned comic writers Leah and Alan Moore, The Electricomics project launched in May 2014 with funding from The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts. Now, as the project nears the conclusion of its initial research and development stage, we are holding a symposium through which to share our findings and expand discussion and debate around the field of digital comics research.
The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium will be held at The University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 14th October 2015. As part of the symposium participants will present papers across a wide range of topics that relate to comics scholarship and digital media. The symposium is free to attend but space is limited, so those wishing to attend will need to reserve a seat via our Eventbrite page:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-comic-electric-a-digital-comics-symposium-tickets-18684692418
The full schedule for the day is as follows:
9.30 | Arrival, coffee & tea | |
10.00 | Electricomics Keynote | |
11.00 | Break | |
11.15 | Panel 1: Audience & Transmedia | |
Liz Dowthwaite | When Things Go Wrong, When Things Go Right: Meaningful Interactions Between Webcomics Creators and Readers | |
Vitor Blotta & | Breaking the Frame: New Narratives and Formats for Graphic Novels, Journalism and Human Rights through Digital Comics in Brazil | |
Zak Waipara | Otea: Transmission and Transmedia | |
12.35 | Lunch | |
13.20 | Panel 2: Digital Techniques | |
Pablo Defendini | Standards, semantics, and sequential art: towards a digital comics praxis. | |
Dave Crane | Digital Workflows for Rapid Improvisation of Comics, Labour Saving Devices, Time & Motion Studies | |
Marcus Pullen & Dr. Blair Dickinson | Experiments in the use of human behaviour monitoring to develop motion comic content for the Social Media Generation. | |
14.40 | Break | |
14.55 | Panel 3: Author, Reader, Player | |
Miju Yoh | A New Page Layout Strategy for Comic Books on Tablets: Focused on Author-led Time and Space Agency | |
Jayms Nichols | Absorption and Flow: How Active and Passive Readings Allow for Different Forms of Emersion in Digital Comics | |
Matt Finch | Play, Chance, and Comics: Games and self-directed learning | |
16.15 | Break | |
16.30 | Panel 4: Motion | |
Fredrik Rysjedal | Comics >< Film | |
Brad Yarhouse | Comic Media in New Mediums: Dancing on the Head of Closure | |
James Abbott | Motion and sound: Unnecessary adornments of the medium, or essentials for fuller comic book immersion? | |
Craig Smith | Motion Comics and Motion Books: The role of animation and interactivity within digital comic aesthetics and systems | |
6.10 | Evening reception | |
The focus of the Electricomics project has been the creation of a new digital comic anthology app and an open source toolkit for the creation of digital comics. Towards this goal, the project has examined how the language, tropes and production processes of traditional comics are impacted by digital technologies. Our research has also explored how an easy to use and openly available toolset might facilitate content creation both in the comics sector and amongst a wider arts community.
Electricomics is collaborative project between arts, technology and research partners. Arts partner Orphans of The Storm was founded by comic writer Alan Moore and film director and producer Mitch Jenkins. Technology partner Ocasta studios are responsible for the creation of the Electricomics app and comic creation toolset. The research partners on the project are Alison Gazzard from the London Knowledge Lab at the UCL Institute of Education and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey from the University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts.
The Comic Electric is a joint symposium between three of the School of Creative Art’s research groups; TVAD (Theorising Visual Arts and Design), G+VERL (Games and Visual Effects Research Lab) and The Media Research Group. It is held in conjunction with the DARE (Digital Arts Research Education) research centre at the UCL Institute of Education.
- Daniel Goodbrey