by Mike Meginnis
Self consciousness is not the same thing as self awareness, but the
former can lead to the latter.
Usually, calling somebody self conscious is not a compliment.
As a character trait, it usually creates awkward situations. Self
conscious people tend to be overly self referential. They tend to be hard to
talk to. They tend to just plain stress you out.
But they're also frequently the most intelligent person in a room. If
you're willing to put up with them, they may have something really
insightful to say -- even if it's self referential. Years of self
consciousness can lead to a transcendent self awareness.
All of this is the case with Framed!!!, a webcomic without a
fourth wall. Removal of the fourth wall usually leads to wacky
hijinks; this was the case even for the early episodes of 1/0 (see earlier review.) But the
difference between Framed!!! and other self referential gag
strips is its total commitment to the concept. From day one, this is a comic
about being in a comic. It is so about being in a comic
that the idea of being in a comic occasionally gets worn out, only to be
revitalized again by Damonk's frighteningly thorough attentions.
The constant gags can get annoying, especially when you read through the
daily strip's bountiful archives in one sitting. As
Framed!!! aptly demonstrates, you can only take so many potato related puns
in a day. You can only take so many silly film noir pastiches featuring
a cutesy yet gritty hero. You can only handle so many jokes about the
fact that since the comic is G-rated, nobody has genitals or nipples and
they can't get their clothes off without discovering a new layer
beneath them, anyway.
But for every groaner, there's at least one sharp, witty gag. It's
nice to see a strip artist not depending on shock value. The puns are an acquired taste, but the effort behind them is admirable and the results frequently hysterical.
The best part of the early
Framed!!! strips, though, is the constant formal play. Damonk uses the basic
four panel gag strip grid as the basis for all sorts of experiments in
layout and infinite canvas, creating a broad range of effects.
Probably the most radical strip in the archives is one where a
sign instructs you to wait for the whole thing to load, then scroll
down and click as instructed.
When the loading finishes, you scroll down to a bit of
dialogue. Clicking this panel as instructed will scroll you waaaay down the
page to another panel. The second panel is very similar to the first, except
with slight changes to account for what's happened between them,
creating an animation-like effect. Succeeding panels continue the effect, until finally the comic loops back upon
itself.
But! That's not all. Scroll aaaall the way back up to the top
and see what you find between the panels Damonk showed you. There are a
number of great visual gags that play off of the main, "real" strip.
Amazingly, the resulting narrative even manages to coherently advance the
story.
Damonk's clean, simple lines work beautifully in the
endless white of the infinite canvas, allowing him to twist, skew,
shake, rotate, explode, and send panels flying in an utterly convincing
fashion. In this spirit, anything can be -- and sometimes is -- a panel.
Each of Damonk's forays into the unknown of the infinite canvas is
literally historical; that is to say, he is one of a historical group of early
pioneers that got the infinite canvas ball rolling. Much of the
excitement in reading his archives came from their historical significance.
The storylines have been insanely convoluted and
over the top, until Damonk's recent reinvention of Framed!!!.
This new iteration emphasizes more the
storytelling aspect, and emphasizes less the silly gags and formal
play. The primary characters of the
original strip have been transported by their creator to a new fantasy
world where Halflings and straw men make war, and a mysterious god
(apparently Damonk himself) has lately been getting violent.
The initial pages are rendered in lush, dark inks. They're a little
confusing, but Damonk soon finds his stride, and begins putting out some
very attractive black and white web art. The strip is still funny (really, really funny), but the gags are
contained in the framework of a pastiche of the adventure comic genre. The
story, drifting somewhere
between serious drama and silly humor, only makes the funny parts
funnier, the dramatic parts more genuine.
In the end, those with only a passing interest in
webcomics history may want to skip the early Framed!!! and
stick with the current iteration. Damonk has very deliberately separated
it from the previous version so that you need not even read the old
strips to understand the new ones. In the rare case that information from
the old strips is tangentially useful to understanding the new ones, he
annotates the comic with a link to the useful information. While the
old Framed!!! was a curiosity as often as a truly resounding success, the
new one is a uniformly exciting read.
[Editor's note: Framed! creator Damonk has kindly provided links for a number of the episodes referred to above:
My first play... a long walk
Running around in circles
Dick dropping in uninvited
Criss-crossing paths
Playing with time
Film Noir I
"flickering" Film Noir Reel
Choose your own Film Reel
It's curtains for you! (you need to read from here to get full point)
Small story twist
Eisner-esque page stretching
Getting the point... literally]
