Rhizcomics: What I'm reading
Okay, tell me if you were preparing something on Helms' Rhizcomics. Quick! If you were, I'll nuke this post.
While I worked on the editorial team who worked with Jason and reviewed the meta-commentary of Rhizcomics, punchily titled Making Rhizcomics, I was careful not to read much of the original Rhizcomics precisely because I was playing the role on the review team of the person who wasn't familiar with text. I read some then, and read a bit hear and there, but I am really using this opportunity of my own making to immerse myself in reading Rhizcomics. And it won the Kairos best webtext award!
If you aren't familiar with Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus... (What? Wait. Huh? Anyhoo—take PoMo with me and we'll read it. It's fun. Really.)
Ahem. If you aren't familiar with Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, they introduce into high theory what has become a clear bridge to technology work in the form of the rhizome. It has been/will be such a useful articulation that so many in technology studies have latched on to the book. I also find many concepts useful: smooth & striated, one or several wolves, the body without organs, etcetera etcetera etcetera. And here is Helms using D&G to articulate comics as rhizomatic ... in an open access, hypertext ebook. So, so happy.
My first perusal of the text is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a foray into my own reading history. So many things that Helms is able to do—mostly, excitingly—is embedded within HTML5. Text appears and disappears, images appear as the text is scrolling, the right-hand "column" becomes a space for meta-analysis and commentary, drawing out discussion and reference to the author's intentions or U-turns and self-corrections. All the many things I dreamed of doing more seamlessly and less painfully than we were able to in the mid-90s, early aughts, and into the teens. (Gawds! It's 2019!)
These elements make the etext authorly and give the creator/editor/maker/team, broadcast source better able to realize their intentions for the reader/viewer.
Hold the phone! Breaking news! I can hear Mason cheering already: California did exactly what Mason asked about in class! I linked to a clearinghouse site supported by the UC Office of Scholarly Communication.
I'll end there because I was going to address the readerly aspects of Rhizcomics but its failure to become wreaderly (in Barthes' formulation), and its inability to support the kind of intense scholarly reading practices we have been dancing around all semester. But the issue of basic access addressed by UC's decision supersedes micro- use issues. So I table my interest in scholar-centered electronic texts ... for now.
While I worked on the editorial team who worked with Jason and reviewed the meta-commentary of Rhizcomics, punchily titled Making Rhizcomics, I was careful not to read much of the original Rhizcomics precisely because I was playing the role on the review team of the person who wasn't familiar with text. I read some then, and read a bit hear and there, but I am really using this opportunity of my own making to immerse myself in reading Rhizcomics. And it won the Kairos best webtext award!
If you aren't familiar with Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus... (What? Wait. Huh? Anyhoo—take PoMo with me and we'll read it. It's fun. Really.)
Ahem. If you aren't familiar with Deleuze & Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus, they introduce into high theory what has become a clear bridge to technology work in the form of the rhizome. It has been/will be such a useful articulation that so many in technology studies have latched on to the book. I also find many concepts useful: smooth & striated, one or several wolves, the body without organs, etcetera etcetera etcetera. And here is Helms using D&G to articulate comics as rhizomatic ... in an open access, hypertext ebook. So, so happy.
My first perusal of the text is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a foray into my own reading history. So many things that Helms is able to do—mostly, excitingly—is embedded within HTML5. Text appears and disappears, images appear as the text is scrolling, the right-hand "column" becomes a space for meta-analysis and commentary, drawing out discussion and reference to the author's intentions or U-turns and self-corrections. All the many things I dreamed of doing more seamlessly and less painfully than we were able to in the mid-90s, early aughts, and into the teens. (Gawds! It's 2019!)
These elements make the etext authorly and give the creator/editor/maker/team, broadcast source better able to realize their intentions for the reader/viewer.
Hold the phone! Breaking news! I can hear Mason cheering already: California did exactly what Mason asked about in class! I linked to a clearinghouse site supported by the UC Office of Scholarly Communication.
I'll end there because I was going to address the readerly aspects of Rhizcomics but its failure to become wreaderly (in Barthes' formulation), and its inability to support the kind of intense scholarly reading practices we have been dancing around all semester. But the issue of basic access addressed by UC's decision supersedes micro- use issues. So I table my interest in scholar-centered electronic texts ... for now.
Okay, something went wonky with the font....
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