More on Stick Doc

Innovators in the stick form (narrative/humorous)- www.xkcd.com

XKCD was started when Randall Munroe began to scan his nervous notebook doodles, and has now evolved into somewhat of an internet sensation. A master of the stick form, Munroe is able to articulate complex comic ideas, using uncluttered but wholly recognizable line forms.

The difficult transition of stick from a childish form of fantasy, to a means of documentary takes a leap of faith. It isn't a new leap. When anthropologists view cave paintings that utilize the stick form, they are willing to read these forms as true documentary of pre-history. Now that there are so many truer techniques available to the documenter, why choose stick? My short list includes: its instantness, its expressiveness, its recognizability, and it's simplicity. The best part about not including, some of the distracting points of light that are included in the photograph, is that you distill an image down to its journalistic truths. Who was there? What were they doing? Why were they there? When did it happen? How did it happen?

Stick documentary is my attempt to subvert a new media fallacy: Higher fidelity creates truer documentary. The truth about high-fi is that it creates a potentially dangerous verisimilitude. Digital media's ability to be manipulated while still remaining life-like (and the rise of multi-sensoral media) delutes the sense of frame to the media conusmer.

The stick-figure form

Stick figure documentary isn't a new idea. Stick figures have been used online for over a decade on sights such as "Stick Figure Death Theatre." New programs (such as pivot stick animator) for drawing and animation have been developed to make stick figure storytelling easier. The idea of using such disposable (both to make and to read) single panel simplifications of events one was at opens up worlds where cameras are forbidden or unavailable. I believe stick figure commics also help supplement photos or video, to help give viewers more perspective on the documentors world (like journaling).

Election Continued

Election Documentary

Here is a stick-figure documentary of my election. This will also serve as an example of the stick-figure documentary form and it's practices.