Dr. Jeremy Douglass — Story Structure in Games and Comics: Visualizing Narrative Media

Jeremy Douglass image

Location: Interactive Learning Pavillion (ILP) 1203

Talk Description: 

What are the shapes of stories? This is a longstanding question in narrative arts, from the plot arcs of novels and rhyme schemes of poems to the shot sequences of films. Here we consider two narrative media forms: interactive branching stories (as in games,  gamebooks, and hypertext fiction) represented as networks, and graphic narratives (as in comics, manga, and webtoons) with individual pages represented as grid compositions. Through description, encoding, and data visualization, we will explore the shapes of stories in comics and games.

Speaker Bio:

What are the shapes of stories? This is a longstanding question in narrative arts, from the plot arcs of novels and rhyme schemes of poems to the shot sequences of films. Here we consider two narrative media forms: interactive branching stories (as in games,  gamebooks, and hypertext fiction) represented as networks, and graphic narratives (as in comics, manga, and webtoons) with individual pages represented as grid compositions. Through description, encoding, and data visualization, we will explore the shapes of stories in comics and games.

GRIT Talks:

"Ground-breaking Research/Innovative Technology," or GRIT Talks, is a UC Santa Barbara lecture series featuring a lineup of esteemed faculty. These 28 minute talks, followed by a 30 minute Q&A session, provide an insider look at innovative research happening at the university.