A Dream of A1t Comics
I had a wacky dream last night that stuck with me even after I woke up. It was an idea I was seeing in printed newspaper form, but could easily carry over into a Firefox plug-in.
In my dream it was called “alt comics”, but that’s a term for modern “alternative comics” such as Life in Hell and This Modern World. So I had to change it slightly to reflect the nuance, so…
A1t Comics.
Imagine a plug-in that would replace comics with alternate comics with different endings, artwork, and/or threads.
In the simplest of terms, instead of seeing Garfield on the webpage, you’d see something from Garfield Minus Garfield. Or instead of your regular Dilbert, you’d see the most popular mash-up instead:
These alternatives are already possible, but in my dream all web-based comics have been taken to the extreme, with multiple spin-offs seen only by people who use the a1t comic plug-in.
I imagined family comics with urban tags covering the background panels instead of clean walls. I saw other comics with magic marker punked-out last panels. I saw entire comics redrawn with the same story, lines, and characters but by an alternate artists with completely different (and often very wrong) styles.
(NSFW after the jump…)
Fossilized long-in-the-tooth comics get special treatment. BC covered in user comments like “OMG Really? WTF is this even supposed to mean???” Or each line spoke by Beetle Bailey is replaced with a McNamara quote from The Fog of War. Ridiculously out of touch comics such as Mary Worth could be replaced with photos of porno actors in “active form”, but the original dialog remains untouched:
(Prince Valiant would have a homoerotic version…)
Webcomics like Penny Arcade and Questionable Content would totally get it and open their arms to a1t sources. All sorts of fan-fiction and slash-fiction comics could be spun off. Or a total-spin off alternate reality where webcomic characters often interact and duke it out for virtual cash prizes and status – webcomic Thunderdome!
On top of all this are user comments and mark-up a la YouTube. Based on your settings you could see what people literally wrote *on* the comic. Then click on the comic to open up an alternate comment system, free from edit of publishers and syndicates, totally in control of the a1t fan community. They’d be as random and rediculous as YouTube or 4Chan comments but definitely independent, spirited and certainly not sanitized for family consumption.
It’ll happen =)
