Looking at those side to side, it's either the greatest coincidence, or a direct rip-off. I lean towards rip-off.
BTW, it might not be Toho that ripped off the design. It's a licensed design - what's to say that the website didn't "come up" with that on their own, and Toho had no clue what they did?
I wanted to write this on the last blog post but was unable due to the LJ trouble. Anyways, as a fan who bought North 40 at the Con this weekend (nice to meet you by the way) I can say "Bring on more!!!" I really hope this kicks off for you.
I'd love it to. I had a lot more planned for the county and it's residents. I especially liked the idea of how big such a "small" place would be when the fuel ran out. :)
Plus I had set up at least two agencies that would be at work in the "real world" to keep new things going awry interesting.
In The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson talks about how he felt really constrained by the Sunday comic format and put in lots of effort to change it. Eventually he succeded and got the structure freed up. He was then able to do lots of different layouts and large images.
What he found was that the new format took him a lot longer to create and he still had to keep a logical flow to the panels in order to convey the story to the reader. So in the end the results may not have been worth the effort to get it and did not end up adding all that much to the strips.
Re: Comic formatps238principalJuly 29 2011, 08:09:17 UTC
In a way, the biggest constraint is probably the whole "left to right, top to bottom" (or whatever is used in a given area) reading method. It's hard to get away from that, and a lot of people have tried. There was an issue of "Promethia" that took a stab at it with an image of events that could be read in different order and still sort of make sense, but a lot of readers were left confused
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Re: Comic formatdave_iiiJuly 29 2011, 15:41:54 UTC
There's making panels (and the flow thereof) more interesting and then there's reinventing the wheel. Scott, I love the guy, but he was reinventing the wheel. A monitor may have more abilities than a piece of paper, but it's still a 2-D page, and there's no getting around that. The whole "Infinite Canvas" thing is great for artsy concepts and mind-woogie presentations, but when someone just wants to tell a simple story it doesn't work. He even tried it himself with new Zot! content on his website; it ended up falling into the same old patterns-- Why? Because they work, and they're the most efficient way of telling the storyDo I mean there's no room for playing? Of course not. A wheel can be made into a gear and thus become more potent in new and exciting ways. But it's still a round thing that turns on an axis. Until someone comes up with a preactical version of William Gibson's Virtual Light goggles* I don't seen things changing anytime soon
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Re: Comic formatcjthomasJuly 29 2011, 15:58:02 UTC
I've usually heard this called "augmented reality"; there have been academic papers about it for a couple of decades now. I'm told it's actually in use now for "scavenger hunt" type games using smart phones with GPS units to look around for virtual quest-objects.
I'm not sure, either. Perhaps the montage of, ah, "athletics" that followed?
The scene also raised a good point about the effects of disease both on Jack and in general after "Miracle Day."
I'm trying to figure out what scene was too violent, though. After some of the other stuff they've aired, I didn't see much that seemed terribly over-the-top.
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BTW, it might not be Toho that ripped off the design. It's a licensed design - what's to say that the website didn't "come up" with that on their own, and Toho had no clue what they did?
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My favorite is the "I [blank] ORGAN DONATION" that I've seen here and there. :)
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Enjoy.
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If (when) I get the game, I may need to see if this can go somewhere in the sound files.
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Plus I had set up at least two agencies that would be at work in the "real world" to keep new things going awry interesting.
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What he found was that the new format took him a lot longer to create and he still had to keep a logical flow to the panels in order to convey the story to the reader. So in the end the results may not have been worth the effort to get it and did not end up adding all that much to the strips.
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The scene also raised a good point about the effects of disease both on Jack and in general after "Miracle Day."
I'm trying to figure out what scene was too violent, though. After some of the other stuff they've aired, I didn't see much that seemed terribly over-the-top.
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