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Hypercomics

A hypercomic can be thought of as a webcomic with a multi-cursal narrative structure. In a hypercomic the choices made by the reader may influence the sequence of events, the outcome of events or the point of view through which events are seen. Animation, sound and flashy transitions are really just the frills – it’s that element of reader choice and interaction that makes a hypercomic a hypercomic.

The Empty Kingdom – 8/12/2014

Your kingdom lies empty before you; all your subjects fled; all their stories told. And yet you take up your sword. And yet you don your crown. Who will you fight when there is no one to fight? Who will you love when there is no one to love? The world ends at midnight. All hail The King.

Icarus Needs – 10/07/2013

At long last it’s the return of everyone’s favourite mentally unhinged cartoonist, Icarus Creeps. This time out Icarus has fallen asleep playing videogames and become trapped inside a surreal dream world that’s part videogame and part comic strip.  Can you get Icarus everything he needs before it’s too late?

A Duck Has An Adventure – 22/02/2012

A Duck Has An Adventure is a hypercomic adventure game that challenges you to explore all the different possible lives one duck could live. 16 unique endings to discover! 12 achievements to unlock! And 7 hats to collect! Yes! Hats! Wooo! Now available as both a browser-based game and the orginal Android app.

Jack’s Abstraction – 23/06/2011

What’s wrong with Jack? That’s what everyone wants to know. Jack’s Abstraction is a hypercomic mystery that invites the reader to slide through the moments of absence in Jack’s life in order to find some answers. It’s also the first comic app I’ve built specifically for Android smartphones and pads.

Cells: War On Weird – 25/11/2010

Created as part of the Cells Symposium held by the Interior & Spatial Design group at The University of Hertfordshire. The symposium was concerned with “confinement, configuration and coding” – I added the C of “comics” to that mix, with this odd little tale of superpowers and political imprisonment.

The Archivist – 11/08/2010

Infamous Glamrock dictator Hieronymus Pop has been dead for more than twenty years. But within the walls of The Pumphouse Archive his memory lives on, spread across a countless wealth of documents, sources and third-hand accounts. The Archivist is the story of the lone individual charged with maintaining and indexing Pop’s legacy. It was originally created for the Hypercomics: The Shape of Comics to Come exhibition at The Pumphouse Gallery in Battersea Park, London.

The Casita Situations – 15/08/2009

A hypercomic installation originally created for the walls of a children’s mental health clinic at the Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny, Paris. This collaboration between myself, David Baillie and architect Valerio Ferrari was to a large extent site dependent, but I’ve tried to provide at least a flavour of the thing in this randomly generated web version.

Four Derangements – 20/07/2009

A man with nine eyes observes the inhabitants of a mysterious, featureless complex of buildings. Endless dreams, premonitions of doom and ghosts of loves long dead become intermingled in this four part derangement of the comics form. Originally created to coincide with an exhibition of my work at SICAF 2009 in South Korea.

Never Shoot The Chronopath – 12/10/2007

My fourth go at a 24 Hour Comic, this time created in conjunction with 24 Hour Comics Day and Comica at the ICA. The story concerns three intersecting tales of a troublesome space-time intersection. The artwork here is also my first attempt at doing an all-vector Tarquin comic.

Merlism: The Book of Merl – 1/11/2005

An improvised hypercomic intended as the basis for a new religious order. The Book of Merl was originally created daily during October 2005 and is now complete and ready to be passed through the ages. I figure if you’re going to have delusions of grandeur, you may as well go all the way.

The Tarquin Engine – 3/6/2005

A tool for the creation of zooming infinite canvas narratives within Flash. The Tarquin Engine provided a unique way to create infinite canvas webcomics and hypercomics via a straightforward drag-and-drop process.

24:Three – 26/2/2005

“The Conundrunomicon holds many secrets. It also holds many lies. If there’s a trick to telling one from the other, then sadly I’ve yet to find it.” My third attempt at a 24 Hour Comic resulted in this snapshot of a sleep-deprived brain.

The Formalist – 1/11/2004

Who is The Formalist? Where did he come from? Where did he go? How did he get there and how will he get out? It seems there are some corners of reality where questions are more important than answers. Perhaps this is one of them.

Externality – 14/10/2003 to 5/5/2004

The Tarquin Engine provides the foundation for a six-and-a-half-month-long improvised exploration into the nature of reality. Ever wonder who’d win in fight between The Ninja With No Arms and Jesus Christ? Well wonder no more…

PoCom-UK-001 – 22/8/2003

A massive collaborative hypercomic that was originally created for the wall of the ICA as part of the Comica festival. This web adaptation marked the debut of my flash-based zooming infinite canvas delivery system, the Tarquin Engine.

Icarus Creeps – 11/4/2003

Meet Icarus Creeps. Icarus writes comics for living. Well, he did. Once. Maybe. Right now he’s sort of unemployed. He’s also sort of having a mental breakdown. Although it could just be that his mind was never that built up in the first place.

Brain Slide – 22/10/2002

This is a hypercomic about… er… well, maybe I’ll leave that one up to you to figure out. I’m sure it will all make sense shortly. Just try not to get distracted by the zombies. Or the evil telekinetic kittens. Or George Bush. Or Jesus.

Doodleflak – 9/4/2002

Just what do roving gangs of urban leeches, amputee ninja and the polite wrath of Jesus Christ have in common? Doodleflak, that’s what. This twisted hypercomic sketch show needs Flash to run and a sick mind to appreciate.

Sixgun: Tales From An Unfolded Earth – 18/10/2001

A surreal anthology of interrelated short stories. This Flash based hypercomic formed the major component of my master’s degree in the Digital Practices of Hyperfiction. It was originally serialised in six parts at Comic Book Resources.

Happyfrictions – 18/10/2000

A conspiracy. A shooting. A change in reality. These three short experiments form my earliest attempt at marrying comics with hyperfiction. JavaScript and html trickery can do strange things to the way a story is supposed to work.