Absorb What's Useful

Newspapers taught me how to read and cartoons taught me about consistent storytelling.  With just a small strip of drawings and text, cartoons can speak a thousand words without the complex explanations.  Graphic novels are proving that through great storytelling audiences are willing to absorb stories outside the normal world.

I think that more content will continue to be produced in digital format with animated characters, mythology comparisons and heroic insertions.  As online streaming becomes popular amongst young users between the ages 12-17 years old we will see a new platform of graphic novels and comic stories.  With amateur videos, photoshop, Adobe flash and various graphic software content producers can create compelling stories at low cost and a wider distribution capability than before.  We are seeing more short videos that are not your normal 30 second commercials or your 30 minute infomercials that have dominated television and cable networks since the marriage between prime time and advertising.  In 2006 Virgin Comics, author Deepak Chopra and Gotham Entertainment joined a partnership to release Indian mythology stories in a series of graphic novels targeted to a international audience.  The company wanted to capitalize off the growing south asian readers market who were interested in comics based on ancient Indian myths that are in tough comparison to modern comic heroes like X- Men, Punisher and Batman.  Another interesting addition to Richard Branson’s comic book company is the Virgin Animations division which plans to produce and release webisodes from the comic stories they publish.

With hundreds of writers compiling stories for a international market that has been largely ignored by the western publishing houses, Virgin Comics can now go the extra step by providing short videos to support their comic books and merchandise. With so many social media websites available we will continue to see more centrally catered digital stories that will make a stronger appeal and connection to a narrow audience rather than focusing on a broader narrative.  With digital media the stories do not have to stay on paper they can transcend to a new medium that allows a different visual presentation of the same story.  For many years international comic readers could only read about characters that they could not relate to culturally or socially which is explains the need for more diverse stories that can reach all genres and cultures.

In the age of YouTube favorites and viral videos users can produce their own stories using photographs, drawings and flash animations avoiding large media demands.  I think that we can expect to see more folktale animation videos like Kirikou and the Sorceress developed providing content that is often shelved or overlooked by distributors.  Young teenagers will continue to watch online videos at a growing rate and revolutionizing the way content is viewed on various mobile devices like ipods, laptops and dvd players.  Without the censorship of television advertisements we can see a new market emerge that includes adults who enjoy violent graphic novel movies allowing them to watch something creative and mature at the same time.

Storytelling requires the same principles in either format it is presented and produced simply because the main objective is to have the reader or viewer believe the material is thoughtful and a great imagination.  I think that the users experience will change due to new technology and capabilities of creativity.  A traditional comic book may not be the same as a video podcast but they both are focusing on telling a story that can provoke emotions, judgement and relevance.