Motiv’s First Interactive Comic
Motiv is a digital comic collective from the Czech Republic. Their first interactive comic is called Murat, and it features several innovative design tricks that make the reading experience more compelling than a traditional comic. Characters and objects move, for instance, in each panel. The animations are slight and subtle, though, so the comic maintains its dedication to the original medium. There are also pages of the comic that require user interaction, such as one in which the panels are disorganized and must be dragged to the correct location in order to complete the narrative. There are also buttons that need to be clicked on each page in order to make the story progress.
One of the coolest panels is one which is designed to mimic the experience of playing a slot machine, as action occurs around in other panels. It’s difficult to describe everything that occurs throughout the comic, but it definitely makes for a unique, surreal experience. The loading in between pages is the biggest downside of reading Murat, although it doesn’t usually take that long. In terms of design, the comic is beautifully drawn with a black-and-white, noir-esque, sketched theme. The story itself is also an engaging one — as the beginning doesn’t fully make sense until the last scene. The site is definitely worth checking out and clicking through, and I’m excited to see what Motiv comes up with next.