Hypercomic

So,basically, a "hypercomic" is a comic based around the idea that using computers and the internet, one can have a panel layout that is constricted by pages. This means you can do all sorts of fun things, like have the entire comic be on one continuous line, or have multiple offshoots from one panel. For the class, we were asked to read and give our impression of this hypercomic:

http://e-merl.com/pocom.htm

At first, I thought it was really cool. The general message I took from it was that any time you do something that seems little and uninteresting, in reality, there are all sorts of things happening around you that are fantastic in nature. What seems like something as small as giving a beggar a coin can have drastic consequences. In fact, I'm normally all for things that stretch the rules of a media, or format, which this does constantly. However, this time, I feel like the execution could have been better. Many of the side stories occurring seemed uninteresting, and poorly drawn, compared to the others. Furthermore, the many off the side stories that were well done, almost seemed incomplete, and could likely have been more fully developed without detracting from the rest of the comic. My final complaint, which is easily my biggest, is that the comic was too long. The comic could have been half the length and expressed the same message. The side stories were not interesting enough to keep my attention, especially because almost all of them involved 30 seconds to a minute of hunting to find where to start reading if you wanted to go chronologically.

Overall, interesting to look at, and fun to check out a few of the side stories, but it's not worth it to read it all.