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The cover votes are in, WW2 in sand and other experiments in real-time storytelling

Tags | cartoonist, comic, cover, Guardian UK, Honduras, Livedraw, Peter Blower, vote

Thank you to those of you who voted for the cover design this week. After tallying up the combined interactive might of facebook comments, comments on my website (always looking for more, polls aside) and the poll I posted a link to, we have a clear winner. Number 3!

Justifying reasons included: it jumps out at you; it’s got more visual impact; it puts you directly in the scene; it’s more dynamic than the other designs. I have to confess, I was all for the first design (sort of a cast of characters lined up), until the votes made me reconsider just how effective (as opposed to informative) it was. So I’m proud to announce that no.3 has already been on my drawing board and is primed for the scanner – the full colour version should be up on Friday, so be sure to check back in and leave your comments then.

Speaking of impacting visuals, I recently came across the amazing talents of Kseniya Simonova, the winner of (dare I say it) Ukraine’s got talent. Her talent? Creating a live animation (that’s in 8 minutes of real-time) about the devastation wrought in the Ukraine during World War 2. Not the first time that the ‘…’s got talent’ franchise has brought millions to tears, but thankfully the first when they’ve actually been genuinely moved and -dare I say it – been intellectually engaged at the same time. But don’t take my word for it – here’s her in action in the final.

It’s an interesting trend that seems to have also caught on over at the Guardian UK, where Patrick Blower has created a niche column called ‘Live Draw’ that uses time-lapse photography coupled with screen capture to show readers how his editorial cartoons are created, line by line. Checkout his recent ‘Alice in Blunderland’ cartoon or the archive. Interesting how he’s referred to as a ‘cartoonist’ and a ‘multimedia artist’ – presumably ‘multimedia cartoonist’ is too much of a mouthful. Comparing the two, I think the real seductive power lies in the sequential narrative that’s being created – Blower includes single panel gags that he builds up over the course of a minute, but these aren’t anything as powerful or entertaining as his tableaux that incorporate different scenes and viewpoints, like this introductory animation on his website’s homepage. The challenge now is to incorporate more of a didactic element into these multimedia creations – to give new readers/members of the audience an introduction to the content or themes that appear in the work, or at least a way of following up if their interested is piqued.You’ll notice that only a handful of the comments in Blower’s Alice animation even acknowledge the piece’s status as a cartoon – it’s more soapboxing back and forth than anything, so obviously it’s appealing to an audience already familiar with the issue. I wonder how the approach could be altered to bring politics to life for someone whose not politically engaged. Suggestions? Stay tuned for my tentative experiments with a similar process in the future.