Five Ways to Love a Cockroach, a new short comic written by Alexander Danner (The Discovery of Spoons, Picture Story Theatre) and illustrated by Neal Von Flue (The Jerk, 10:30 to 12) is now online at TwentySevenLetters.com. This experiment in cynicism and infinite canvas takes a dispassionate look at love gone wrong, through the eyes of the world’s most unlovable critter.
Five Ways to Love a Cockroach makes use of the latest version of Markus Müller’s Infinite Canvas application, which provides a simple “click to advance” interface for exploring infinite canvas comics.
That is fantastic work. I love the non-narrative approach to the comic and the very subtle use of the Infinite Canvas application (the looping back to the next number motion, although showy, was nice and worked well as to delineate the different “ways” as chapters). Really the story could almost stand on it own but I think von Flue’s artwork and the flash panel movement make the comic version of it greater than it otherwise would be.
I am sure others could (and will) write more eloquent comments, but I just wanted to put my 2 cents down, that this has been one of the best webcomics I’ve read this year.
It really was quite good. Like some sort of fusion between comics and dance. I think we’re going to see more cool stuff coming from the infinite canvas cartoonists as they move beyond the experimental, boundary-testing stuff and into straight-up storytelling.
Thanks, Xerexes!
As for the story standing on its own, its worth mentioning that this piece started life as a poem, and was even published in that form in the online literary magazine “Stirring.” I’ve added the poem to the extras page on twentysevenletters.com. The challenge in adapting this piece was in finding a visual concept that didn’t just illustrate what was already there, but really brought a new layer of meaning. I give Neal a lot of credit for accomplishing that.