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International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling

ICIDS 2016: Interactive Storytelling pp 375–387Cite as

Beyond the Gutter

Interactivity and Closure in Comics

Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNISA,volume 10045)

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the introduction of simple interactions to comic panels on the reader’s process of interpretation and narrative closure, perception of time, and experience of immersion and agency. We conducted two qualitative studies of reader response to interactive comics using semi-structured interviews. Our findings suggest that interactivity creates an additional level of interpretation, which may be seen as a second interpretive gap or ‘gutter’. The studies also identified some preliminary design criteria that allow interactivity to have a meaningful impact on the portrayal of time, story immersion and comprehension, and an increased sense of agency. These findings suggest new areas for research in the field of interactive comics and storytelling.

Keywords

  • Usage scenarios and applications
  • Interactive comics
  • Reader response
  • Agency
  • Immersion
  • Interpretation
  • Narrative closure

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-48279-8_33
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Notes

  1. 1.

    Samples of the comic materials used in the studies can be found at http://narrativeandplay.org/publications/beyondthegutter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Tiffany Neo & Alex Mitchell

Authors
  1. Tiffany Neo
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  2. Alex Mitchell
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tiffany Neo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Frank Nack

  2. The Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Andrew S. Gordon

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Neo, T., Mitchell, A. (2016). Beyond the Gutter. In: Nack, F., Gordon, A. (eds) Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10045. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48279-8_33

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48279-8_33

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48278-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48279-8

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