Week 14

I actually discovered web comics back in high school when I was slowly phasing out of manga. Many of the ones I liked reading were actually Korean web comics, and I would either read them in Korean, or find translated versions of them. Web comics are actually very popular in South Korean, probably the same level of popularity manga has in the US, Japan, or any other exposed countries. I got into them because they had a variety of visual styles, and used color, compared to manga that tends to homogenize the facial structure and follow the same general aesthetic in terms of eyes, hair, rendering, etc with few exceptions or slight variations.

For this week, I chose to read Trash Mountain, a GIF web comic. I had seen web comics that utilize GIFs in certain situations, like for instance, there was one that was a standard scrolling horror web comic, but once you scrolled down to a certain part, a GIF takes over and produces a jump scare for the readers. This one however, had moving images in every page. I loved the interactivity of it, and the music in the background. Although I found the imagery a little noisy and hard to read, I appreciated the simplicity and almost low effort, meme-like quality of the comic. Over all it was a very fun experience, I can’t help but be excited for future possibilities with GIF web comics.