Fourth Panel Estate #1: The future’s bright, take these sunglasses.
Written By: Will Davies
I have a saying that goes “Pamcakes first, waffles later.”. I like it because it’s a comics reference wrapped up in a pun encased in sage wisdom. Everyone else is entirely mystified by it as I rarely use it in context or with the right sort of people. Partly because over here a waffle is a grid of processed potato matter and under no circumstances what so ever does sweet go before savoury at the dinner table. Basically what it’s supposed to mean is that you should sort out the basics before you get fancy. In terms of writing this column it means that I should be explaining what I’m supposed to be doing instead of waffling on about puddings. I’m amazingly good at following my own advice.
This is the Fourth Panel Estate, a column about web comics. Good web comics. Solely because I don’t have the vocal agility to rag on sub par junk. Also I lack a fetching hat and you can’t rag without the proper attire. I do however have galoshes which are the leg wear of choice for in depth review and bothering legitimate artists with inane and often pointless questions. I’ll be doing this weekly from now until one of two things happens. Either the column will bomb and Septagon will beat me up and leave me in a ditch or it’ll go really well, I’ll end up going too far and the secret web comic illuminati (read Dayfree Press) will come for me in the night with bolt cutters.
Anyway. To business.
The first comic to be molested is Dresden Codak. It is a difficult thing to describe this comic. I would dub it science fiction but science fantasy seems wholly more appropriate. Fiction is merely untrue while fantasy takes flight. Dresden Codak soars and never in my years have I seen the like.
The comic places a lot of emphasis on science but does not reside in the mundane territories of mundane realism. Instead it delves into the fantastic taking what science promises to be, what it could and should be, and then turns all the knobs up to ten. The issue that the comic seems most often concerned with is trans-humanism also known as post-humanism. In short that basically means improving the human body with artificial means be they mechanical, chemical or biological. A good example of this is the Ghost in the Shell franchise of which there are occasional hints of throughout Dresden Codak. So far Aaron Diaz, the creator, has only lightly brushed upon such topics and any message there is to be derived has yet to form fully.
The artwork is Dresden Codak’s high point. Diaz employs a distinctive style which not only looks pretty damn good but also allows him to create highly expressive characters and unashamedly impressive visual spectacle. That is not to say that other elements of the comic are sub par but rather that the art is the brightest of the candles in the lantern. So much so that Diaz often achieves moments of humour and even tugs on a few heart strings without the need for dialogue. This is perhaps in no small way helped by the comic’s unconventional layouts which help create an organic sense of pace in tandem with the artist’s ability to effectively render movement into a still medium. One could quite easily envisage Dresden Codak translating well into animation. Where the content is more mundane this practice serves as an effective means of making exposition far more interesting to read. Unfortunately these layouts are occasionally confusing requiring that the reader do more than merely skim the material which is hardly a bad thing.
One of the other almost equally bright lights that compose DC is the humour and when it’s not seeping out of the art Diaz extracts it from his characters and the comic’s science theme. The latter occurs particularly during the early the early material in the archives wherein some fairly obscure references are made. Fortunately in the instances when these references are particularly prominent Diaz still manages to generate humour even if the reader does not fully comprehend the subject matter and even then it’s nothing a quick wiki wouldn’t solve. More recently Diaz has embarked on a long form story entitled “Hob” and the characters have come to the fore, taking precedence over the scientific flavour of the week (or month given the relaxed update schedule).
The cast of Hob is comparatively small featuring four characters who featured with increasing frequency in the early pre-Hob material. There’s Tiny Carl Jung. He’s like Carl Jung, only considerably smaller and he takes a similarly sized role in proceedings. Then comes Alina and Dmitri Tokamak, purportedly nuclear powered siblings who take on the ass-kicking duties as well as serving as a foil to the star of the show: Kimiko Ross. It is around Kimiko that much of the comic centres, particularly during the Hob arc and over the short space of time between the current state of affairs Diaz has successfully developed the character through her relationships and actions. Normally this process might take a considerable amount of time but Diaz has fewer characters to worry about in a shorter plot as well as the dexterity as a writer to find the balance between plot and character progression.
Of course it can be quite hard to go wrong with a sexy, somewhat insecure genius girl. Guaranteed to make nerds all gushy at sixty paces. There a smattering of light fan service for which we are to excuse Diaz. He is after all a warm blooded human male specimen but given his fascination with cyberisation we cannot be sure. We had a little talk about the comic and he seemed human enough.
If you see him throw magnets at him to be safe.
Will: Boo
Dresden Codak: hello
Will: I’m the pretend internet journalist person.
Dresden Codak: ah hello
Dresden Codak: I’m the pretend comic person
Will: heh
Will: Got time for a chat? shouldn’t take too long.
Dresden Codak: no problem
Will: excellent
Will: Well lets start off simple. How would you define the comic?
Dresden Codak: That’s a tough one. I would say it’s more or less a means through which I’m able to explore ideas that I think are interesting, though to be fair I barely understand what my comic is about, so I could be wrong.
Will: Like this whole trans/post-humanism thing?
Dresden Codak: Yeah, that’s a big example. It’s a body of ideas that have dominated my brain for a while.
Will: I see.
Will: Lets talk about Hob. Because it seems to be a step up from just brain vomiting and the one shots you were doing before.
Will: In a good way.
Dresden Codak: Haha, lets.
Will: Well first off the characters.
Will: You’ve done an excellent job fleshing them all out and even putting arc’s in there. Has that been a difficult process in such a comparatively short span?
Dresden Codak: It’s been at times a little frustrating. Given the format of the comic, I have to be really economical with what I show on each page. Also I’ve had exactly how these characters (particularly Kimiko) should be in my head for more than a year, so waiting months upon months to get to key turning points for the audience can be a pain.
Dresden Codak: On the plus side the dialog usually comes easily for some reason.
Will: Good to hear.
Will: I imagine its been of benefit having a small cast of characters. Some titles with larger casts such as Freakangels or Templar can spend a donkey’s age just getting around all the introductions.
Dresden Codak: Yeah, I could never handle that. I’d rather spend more time on a handful of characters and made them interesting than go for quantity. It mirrors the page format.
Will: Ah now the pages themselves are certainly interesting.
Will: Given all the fun you seem to have with panel layouts. Do you have a distinct plan going into each of these or do you work them around the art as you go?
Dresden Codak: The layouts are the least planned portion of the comics, and incidentally take a ridiculous amount of time to work out. For me layout is a very intuitive process and a lot of fun. Pretty much everything else (dialog, art, etc.) gets re-edited and modified to fit panel layouts that I decide are solid.
Will: Occasionally I’ve found it somewhat confusing. But i think possibly that it adds a little flavour to what can sometimes be a rather pedestrian element of the medium.
Dresden Codak: Yeah, I don’t think they always succeed, but I figure I should always try my best to experiment and make the comic as interesting as I can.
Will: Okey dokey.
Will: Now art. That’s probably important. I should ask questions about that.
Will: You seem to imbue science, especially from a visual standpoint, with almost mystical qaulities. Artistic license or visions of the future?
Dresden Codak: Probably a little of both. I don’t have many strong views about the future, but I will say I’m often frustrated by how conventional sci fi visually presents it. The future, to me, is always going to be stranger than we can suppose, so I usually go for broke in making it as bizarre as I can. Sufficiently advanced technology should always be a little spooky, because we really don’t know what it is.
Will: Little tinge of Arthur C. Clarke there.
Dresden Codak: Haha, more than a little. The next page of Hob is called “Childhood’s End.”
Will: heh. sweet.
Will: Right well I know its your lunch break so two final, very brief questions. First. When are we going to see DC in print? Second. What aren’t people reading that you think they should?
Dresden Codak: The Hob series will be in an oversize book format whenever it gets around to wrapping up (which is, incidentally, pretty soon). I’ve talked to a couple of publishers who have expressed interest, but no official word just yet.
Dresden Codak: As for reading recommendations, I’d say my readers should pick up Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near,” mainly because it’s the most comprehensive explanation of the sciency backdrop of Hob.
Will: Ok then. That pretty much wraps it up i should think.
Dresden Codak can be found at www.dresdencodak.com
Discussion Prod
Each week I am to pose to you a question so that you will all talk to each other and feel less lonely as a result. I’m a humanitarian. This week:
Science in fiction. How much of a place does it have? Should realism take precedent over artistic licence given the apparent age of intellect, discovery enlightenment in which we live. Apparently.
Five Items or Less
Quick newsy bits from the intarworbs:
Chairman of the Internation Commission for Internet Based Malcontents Yahtzee Croshaw has turned his great and baleful eye upon webcomics. His special gaming comic edition of Zero Punctuation can be found here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/108-Webcomics
Templar, Arizona’s second book goes to print. www.templaraz.com
In other news ailing internet columnist struggles to find at least three items of news. More on this story as it fails to develop.
hi, is my first time to visiting here, introduce me. im oyz, im glad to be read in here, wow ...
comic books was my favorite past time when i am still kid. i was really attracted by the artworks...and now, ...
Article very interesting, I will necessarily add it in the selected works and I will visit this site 
I met Mr. Moreno in Long Beach last week at the booth. There is so much breadth in comic book ...
A very interesting piece. In the beginning, the video made me feel uncomfortable as I was imagining the ink drops ...
Comment by phill english on 3 July 2008:
I find it amazing that between our conversations about MECHANICAL DUKOVNY and murderous Planeteers you forgot to mention the fact that you had chatted to the guy that writes motherfucking Dresden Codak–only one of my favourite webcomics ever.
As for your question, well, I\’m not one of those literature buffs that thinks that any and all genre fiction should be banished from the world in a tidal wave of slow-paced character pieces and chunks of illuminating metaphor. It has a long-standing place and tradition in fiction, but like all genres there’s limits to what it can achieve.
Realism in science fiction is not an easy thing to do. The way I see it, there’s two main problems with writing realistic science into fiction:
1) It needs to be explained. Providing you don’t use the ’suspension of belief’ excuse, if you are involving a bit of science in your book most people won’t have the background necessary to comprehend it without an explanation. And these explanations jolt us away from the story that is unfolding, and interrupt our involvement.
2) Most science isn\’t compelling fiction material. If I ever tried to include what I do on a day to day basis as a foundation for a story, I would lose people on the first page. Regular characters, plots, and ideas need to be sexy, exciting, or inherently interesting to be good fodder for a story, and science doesn’t escape this rule. The science you usually see in fiction is the expansion of current ideas, extrapolating them to a point where they are interesting enough to hook readers in.
As far as I can tell, the only place that real-world science has in fiction is where it gets nods in crime novels for forensics, or when a nuclear reactor goes critical, or when a physics professor gets stoned and reveals the secrets of the universe to a budding student. If you want more than that, start reading journal articles (and shudder at the horrible-but-necessary passive voice).
I say grab a bit of science and run with it all the way to the bank. Do what Dresden Codak does and mix it with fantasy and imagination, and you’ll end up with something rewarding and entertaining and downright cool. Not to mention more intelligent than the majority of novels that get written. If people want easily digested examples of this, hit up 365tomorrows–a flash fiction website that publishes one speculative science fiction short story per day (at last count they’d topped 1,000 and no end in sight).
Good first article Will, looking forward to the rest!
Comment by Will on 3 July 2008:
If I had told you then it wouldn’t have been a surprise. Also Mechanical Duchovny said that Clockwork Gillian Anderson would beat me up if I informed anyone of what was going on.
You raise a number of interesting points. All of which I would now rebuke out of spite but I mostly agree with everything you say.
I think occasionally it is good to spend a little time explaining how things work. It takes skill to make that enjoyable, even when you’re dealing with an audience that eats that stuff up. You need to find the balance between Star Trek bullshitery and technical manual goobledy gook. Warren Ellis is quite good at this sort of thing.
365 tommorows is very good. I need to get back into reading that at some point. Possibly when I finish scouring the archives of the next few comics I’m supposed to cover.
Good comment. Good but not great. Possibly might have scared off everyone else with Mechanical Duchovny. I give it three and a half stars.
Comment by Aaron on 6 July 2008:
I\’m glad you are getting your writing out there Will for more to read. As all good articles should encourage I\’ve went away and read up on a few of the people, ideas and websites featured, it all makes for an interesting read.
I think as to fiction there has to be balance or equilibrium (as my chemistry classes would have me say) with future visions. I mean if you go to far with the terrible future idea, it\’s far too depressing and unrealistic. On the other hand the rose tinted \"Tomorrow\’s World\" vision is a little too silly and unrealistic. Both are much too one dimensional, somewhere in the middle is the best for a rich varied setting.
As for explaining future technologies, at worst it won\’t make any sense and at best it\’s pseudo-science anyway, an attempt at a rational explanation is appreciated but not always necessary, for instance it detracts from the sense of wonder and marvel which is what much of classic sci-fi like Niven\’s Ringworld was based on.
Congratulations and the best of luck.
Aaron, in his hover-shoes courtesy of Tomorrows World.