Comixed

By | Wednesday, May 12, 2010 Leave a Comment
From the folks who brought you the likes of I Can Has Cheezburger and Engrish Funny comes their first (so far as I know) fumetti-based site: Comixed.

The basic idea is simple. Take a few photos, add captions and/or word balloons, and create your own mini story. Let me throw out a few examples from the site; it's probably easier to see it in action...

As you can see in the above examples, the photos may or may not directly relate to one another. In the first example above, all of the shots are taken from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and three of the panels are screen grabs from within a few seconds of one another. The dialogue, of course, is generic enough that any two figures could be dropped in with the same effect.

The second example mixes the 1960's Batman TV show with 2008's The Dark Knight. It places Cesar Romero's portrayal of the Joker in direct contrast with Heath Ledger's. It goes beyond the simple gag shown in the first example, and provides a social commentary by way of contrasting the same character as he was realized several decades apart.

The comics posted on the site take other forms as well. Sometimes, two similar but noticeably different images are juxtaposed with "reaction guys" -- two images of the same group but showing vastly different emotional states. The reader is then forced to piece together how the creator thinks something might be improved or changed...
All of this, like their other sites, is user-submitted. People are tracking down their own images, finding ways they might relate to one another, and writing a script to tie the whole thing into a cohesive (if short) narrative. That process, it seems to me, is pretty advanced as far as developing sequential art goes. At least, to do it well enough that readers are able to decipher the message.

Obviously, some creators are better than others. But I think it's brilliant in that the site is actively encouraging people to create their own comics. They even have their own Flash-based creation tool to let users upload individual photos and add their own text right online. These are people who may have read newspaper strips once upon a time, but might not have picked up a pamphlet comic in years, if at all! Although, given a fairly high propensity for geek-style images (lots of Star Trek and Star Wars images -- there's even an Admiral Akbar "It's a trap!" meme that pops up not infrequently) I wonder how many users are actually comic fans already.

But, hey! Anything on the interwebs that promotes actual comics AND comics creation is aces with me!

Thanks to the S.O. for bringing it to my attention, and now I'm passing its wonderfulness along to you!
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