The Spiders
I decided to choose the web comic "The Spiders" due to its political and fictional standpoint on the war with the U.S and Afghanistan. My father did a tour for the military for over a year in Afghanistan, and I have heard my share of what really happened over there, so I decided to write about something for the sake of contemplating other perspectives on the matter. This web comic written and illustrated by cartoonist Patrick S. Farley is a serious, yet fantasized version based on the activities that transpire there. The web comic surrounds an alternate history of the U.S invading Afghanistan territory, where the President of the United States is Al Gore.
Another interesting concept of The Spiders web comic is that society can actually watch the events unfold as they occur through web cams attached to mechanical "spiders" set loose by the U.S for surveillance. The comic surrounds an abundance of different characters throughout various chapters, from a soldier who serves the U.S Military, to a group of Afghani women who are considered refugees. The web comic shows just how big of an impact the war has on each characters life, and what war makes of each character.
According to sources on wikipedia.org, "Contrary to most webcomics, the comic is displayed in an "infinite canvas" format, where each page
of the comic has the individual panels lined up in one, continuous strip."(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spiders) The Spiders web comic has a specific feel which will either alienate readers, or draw them in. Aside from the infinite canvas pages, there are a few page layouts which resemble news websites that provide updates on they story's progress. These additional pages give the web comic several different views of the story to provide depth. This layout actually gives the web comic a documentary-type feel.
The text and the images compliment one another. Like any comic or web comic should, each panel elaborates on what is being explained or discussed. There’s more text for the pages involving the websites, but if it were the other way around I believe it wouldn’t have been as affective. What is most important is that the text or dialogue in the sections involving panels do not overshadow the activity within the panels. For any comic or web comic to be work, there has to be a collaboration of image and text that is pleasant to the eye.
The style of writing is that of an elaborate, yet fast-paced comic book type. The political approach reminds me a lot of the Ghost in Shell: Stand Alone Complex mangas that are quite famous in Japan. I think that for those who aren’t politically concerned or involved, there are a lot of terms and discussions that some may not understand or be very interested in. Personally, I enjoyed the writing. There are a lot of issues in the comic that aren’t fiction, like the Afghani customs for husband and wives, and the U.S flying food over to the desert outskirts. Reading The Spiders web comic out of order may cause some confusion with readers, but there is enough reference to previous scenarios throughout the project to where you can find out what you missed if need be.
Overall, I enjoyed The Spiders. The writing reminded me a lot of Masamune Shirow and Hideo Kojima’s work, which is often politically driven. The story had a ton of plot twists and didn’t lose its momentum, despite how in depth and how long the story was.
*The editorial on The Spiders.
My hypertext project, like that which was done with my group project, will be a comedy. The plot for my project will surround a man, a woman and her family. I suppose if you played the scenes out of order, the humor would still be there, but where it all comes together to make sense would create problems.
The protagonist is Joe, named purely for the fact that his character looks like “The Average Joe”. Joe takes a trip to the local coffee joint for a break from work, and bumps into supporting character Hannah. Hannah serves as the love interest of Joe from the second he meets her, and takes a liking to Joe.
*My editorial on "This is Joe".
http://loki.stockton.edu/~stk34812/this_is_joe/
*My Hypertext project. There are some bugs to a one of the pages here, as well.
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