odyssee

It’s been a while since we dug into the world of “future comics” that use a combination of animation, sound, scrolling, and other, more imaginative, effects to present comics in a new way. The gold standard remains the work of Emily Carroll and Boulet for integrating  storytelling with technology…but more are coming.

The Fauves at Angouleme nominate several comics in the “digital exploration” category each year, and I had a quick look all the way back in January (so long ago already) but put them off for future exploration. All looked intriguing. And so here we go.

Odyssée 2.0 is by the duo of Camille Prieur and Vincent Malgras. It uses a score written especially for the comic by Antoine Teixeira and god animations by Maxime Marois to tell the story of an indigenous American and his grueling journey through thunder, blizzards, floods, sandstorms and more.

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The comic uses scrolling to tell the story…as you scroll down individual panels have gif animations and the score changes. Is there a name for this particular kind of comic? Animated gif panel comics? Feel free to make suggestions in the comments.

Prieur and Malgras are also the authors of El Magnifico, published in English by Onslaught Press in the UK. Like dyes 2.0, it’s set in the American West, a topic of great interest to many French cartoonists (think Lt. Blueberry and Lucky Luke.) As such their work is subject to the many distortions and tropes of America’s own mythology about the West, but that is a topic for some other time.

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P&M’s work has a thick line, robust energy to it, well suited to this kind of animation, and the story is almost entirely wordless so it can be enjoyed world wide. The animation and music work very well with the comic, especially for the “trippy” part of the story.

The ending isn’t what I was expecting and I’m not sure it works at all…but you will have to scroll down to judge for yourself, and I”m pretty sure you’ll find that a pleasurable and satisfying experience.

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A page of conventional comics by Prieur and Malgras