Timeframing: The Art of Comics on Screens

A comic on a screen is a curious and confounding thing, but after years of experimentation, tropes and techniques are beginning to emerge that embrace the medium for what it is. The video by Erik Loyer is great, but dig into Loyer’s written analysis as it is a compelling examination of the interactive (and representational) possibilities of comics that are ‘born digital’.

Beyond producing a stellar 20-minute overview video, Erik has also launched a robust online publication authored with Scalar. Erik, er, frames his venture as follows:

We’re living in the age not just of screens, but of divided screens; boxes of time are all around us. We find them in split-screen sequences in movies and TV, multiplayer video games, videoconferencing, and more—wherever we turn, it seems, boxes of time have become a major part of the way we communicate visually. As it happens, one medium has long proven adept at choreographing boxes of time for storytelling purposes: comics. This site is dedicated to exploring what comics have to teach us about communicating creatively in the age of divided screens.