Lore Olympus (Smythe, 2018-present) is an awarding winning (Financial Post, 2022; Beat Staff, 2023) and highly popular (Arrant, 2023), digital comic available on the Webtoon platform. Although ongoing, this review considers episodes 1-25 that were collected in the first printed volume.

Lore Olympus (LO) is a playful exploration and modernisation of Greek myths. For teachers, the mild swearing, depiction of alcohol consumption, and coercive and predatory sexual behaviours may give pause and suggest older cohorts. Having said that, educators would surely take the violence and transgressive acts in the source material as a guide, since, arguably, this retelling is no worse.

Regarding the presentation, the majority of the text appears as dialogue or internal monologue, as we would expect in a comic and, of course, classical drama. However, the true language of comics occurs in the interaction between the verbal and visual (Kachorsky, 2022). As a source of visual literacy study, LO is a rich and accessible text. Smythe employs an emotive neon palette, a range of panels that suggest meaning, and perspectives that use characters’ literal and figurative points of view. There are also visual metaphors that highlight themes or foreshadow events and graphic motifs such as the smoke that dissolves between scenes or the ‘tendrils’ of influence that emanate from Apollo.

Arguably webcomics are defined by scrolling, with the text read vertically and new panels appearing underneath as we interact. Smythe fully embraces this aspect: text is broken between panels, dramatic moments are represented with multiple screen ‘splash’ images, panels have broken or clouded edges suggesting incompletion and speech bubbles are separated from the image, all of which draw the eye downwards and require scrolling to appreciate.

Some may look at this linear scrolling as a weakness compared to print comics which combine both sequential and simultaneous whole page reading modes in “electric tension” (Sousanis, 2015, p. 63). However, we should resist “the temptation of reading the screen as a page” (Hayles, 2008, p. 23) and consider the unique character of online reading. Indeed, the way LO leverages scrolling both aesthetically and for narrative drama is a model for how authors “turn scrolling into a strength rather than a weakness” (Jabr, 2013).

In comparison, reading LO in print (Smythe, 2021) can feel disjointed because the direction of reading is less controlled.  This isn’t always the case, Heartstopper’s reduced style arguably looks more impressive blown up in print (Oseman, 2019) than on a screen (Oseman, 2019-present). Similarly, The Tea Dragon Society’s multiple-panel page style is identical online and in print (O’Neill, 2016) and print (O’Neill, 2017), suggesting attachment to the aesthetics of the page. LO is more similar to works like Windbreaker (Jo, 2014-present) and Omniscient Reader (singNsong, 2020-present) which embrace the dramatic downward scroll. Moreover, LO appears designed for experience on a phone since, on a laptop screen, it lacks the physical borders of the device and feels less focused. As such, we could make a case that LO exemplifies the mobile webcomic and demonstrates the character of this form.

Although early access to new chapters is paid for, this lock is removed and all content becomes free, making it attractive to schools. Most webtoons work on a weekly release cycle. As a result, the chapters are short and digestible, making them perfect for students struggling to concentrate on reading. Conversely, the weekly cycle, with chapters often ending on a cliff hanger, makes the experience addictive, potentially a positive aspect for encouraging reading. Generally, Borras (2015) pointed out mobile texts create avid readers, suggesting a way to engage resistant readers.

However, we should resist solely suggesting LO and comics in general as ways to engage the so-called ‘aliterate’. Nam and Jung (2022) found webtoons readers were globally engaged and academically successful. Indeed, Cho et al. (2022) found webtoons provided many of the emotional, personal, artistic, and habit-forming benefits associated with print. The wider, social and community engagement aspects of digital literature generally have been acknowledged as a motivator for reading (Serafini & Youngs, 2013; Kachorsky, 2022) with the international appeal of webtoons leveraging cross-cultural discussions (Jeon, 2021). LO encourages social involvement by ending each episode with fan comments and links to social media. We might also note how Smythe provides episodes that feature fan questions, furthering the sense of community.

LO is a popular and highly regarded webcomic that embraces its digital and mobile nature. With its feet in the classics and its heart in modernity, LO represents a perfect starting point for exploring this form of digital literature and one that is likely to be rich for both study and entertainment.

References

Arrant. C. (2023). 2023 in webtoons: The most popular webtoons of 2023 on tapas and webtoons (so far). Popverse. https://www.thepopverse.com/webtoons-webtoon-comics-webcomics-2023

Beat Staff. (2023). SDCC ’23: The 2023 Eisner awards winners. The Beat. https://www.comicsbeat.com/sdcc-23-2023-eisner-awards-winners/

Borràs, L. (2015). The reader (in) digital. Forms of reading on screens. In Manresa, M., & Real Mercadal, N. (Eds.). Digital literature for children : texts, readers and educational practices (pp. 27-35). P.I.E. Peter Lang.

Cho, H., Adkins, D., & Pham, N. M. (2022). “I only wish that I had had that growing up”: Understanding Webtoon’s Appeals and Characteristics as an Emerging Reading Platform. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(1), 44-54.

Financial Post. (2022). Rachel Smythe’s global WEBTOON sensation lore Olympus wins 2022 Eisner award for best webcomic. https://financialpost.com/pmn/press-releases-pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/rachel-smythes-global-webtoon-sensation-lore-olympus-wins-2022-eisner-award-for-best-webcomic

Hayles, N. K. (2008). Electronic literature: New horizons for the literary. University of Notre Dame Press.

Jabr, F. (2013).The reading brain in the digital age: The science of paper versus screens. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/

Jeon, A. (2021). Care as a Border‐Crossing Language: The Webtoon Reader Discussion Forum as Mediascape. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(6), 657-664.

Jo, Y. (2014-present). Wind breaker. Webtoon. https://www.webtoons.com/en/sports/wind-breaker/list?title_no=372

Kachorsky, D.  (2022). 21 Digital children’s literature: Current understandings and future directions. In K. Coats, D. Stevenson, & V. Yenika-Agbaw (Eds.), A companion to children’s literature (pp. 258-270). John Wiley & Sons.

Nam, J., & Jung, Y. (2022). Exploring fans’ participation in digital media: Transcreation of webtoons. Telecommunications Policy, 46(10), 102407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2022.102407

O’Neill, K. (2016). The tea dragon society. https://teadragonsociety.com/

O’Neill, K. (2017). The tea dragon society. Oni Press.

Oseman, A. (2019-present). Heartstopper. Webtoon. https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/heartstopper/list?title_no=329660&title_no=329660

Oseman, A. (2019). Heartstopper volume 1. Hachette Children’s Group.

Serafini, F., & Youngs, S. (2013). Reading Workshop 2.0: Children’s Literature in the Digital Age. The Reading Teacher, 66(5), 401–404. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01141

singNsong. (2020-present). Omniscient reader. Webtoon. https://www.webtoons.com/en/action/omniscient-reader/list?title_no=2154

Smythe. (2020-present). Lore Olympus. Webtoon. https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/lore-olympus/list?title_no=1320&page=1

Smythe. (2021). Lore Olympus volume 1. Random House.

Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Harvard University Press.

With Those We Love Alive (Charity Heartscape, 2014) is a work of interactive fiction (IF) by Porpentine Charity Heartscape. The work invites us to make choices that affect the story but also to mark our own bodies, turning ourselves into text. This review highlights how the power of With Those We Love Alive (WTWLA) accrues from its simultaneous simplicity and ambition.

At the start, we are told nothing we can do is wrong, but this consolation is quickly undermined by what follows. You are in service to a monstrous Empress. Your days involve creating horrifying objects and passively observing nightmarish scenes. Relief comes with the arrival of a friend and the possibility of escape. So far, so simple, but the experience of WTWLA could not be reproduced in print, a defining feature of IF (Rettberg, 2020, p.5).

Firstly, music creates multimodality and directs our emotional response. Although built from simple loops, the music, in concert with the colour-shifting backgrounds, often signifies a modulation of mood and deepens moments of drama and relief. These modalities are reminiscent of film and create an immersive experience.

The world of WTWLA initially appears ‘open’ as we select options for our character, freely visit different places, and choose to sleep or meditate. Indeed IF tests are often partly constructed by the reader (Allan, 2017). However, this agency is illusory. Ensslin (2014, pp. 79-83) analysed how The Path (Harvey & Samyn, 2009) deceives readers whilst also drawing attention to the conventions of authorial control. It feels similar here. At points, we are forced in a particular direction. At others, the choices are false, all being equally unwelcome. We may feel WTWLA deploys a “top down” (Hayles, 2008, p17) model of interactivity, where choices are constrained by the author. Yet this also supports themes of control and coercion. Additionally, by organising the text with compulsory scenes, the author creates a sense of narrative structure, raising WTWLA’s literary value.

Porpentine deploys a range of techniques with clickable links. Text either takes us to a new “lexia” (Pressman, 2008) or can be customised from a set of options. Sometimes clicking removes words, used powerfully in one sequence where this effectively ‘heals’ the friend. There are also “stretchtexts” (Rettberg, 2020, p. 108) where interaction reveals a new passage on the current screen. The pace of reading is further controlled with differing text lengths or managed by timing delays and blank screens. Again, we can see Porpentine managing the narrative but strengthening the literary experience.

Literary merit is also present in the descriptive language. Porpentine creates surprising and poetic adjective and noun combinations. Several objects and places in WTWLA such as a disappearing knife and the dream distillery, appear designed as symbols or metaphors. The narrative voice is unstable in interesting ways that suggest themes. The text uses the second person voice conventional in interactive fiction (Rettberg, 2020, p. 90) but also adopts an imperative tone telling us what to think or feel and alternating between seeming approval and distaste of Empress, even, at times appearing to comment from ‘outside’ the narrative. More than being great games, Rettberg (2020, p. 100) suggests that IF works succeed when they are well-written. Porpentine’s “dark existential poetry” (Rettberg, 2020, p. 108) may not be to everyone’s taste but is ripe for analysis.

Readers could ‘complete’ WTWLA in under two hours, especially if they don’t explore, which could be a criticism. Certainly, WTWLA lacks the multilinear aspect of varying endings Rettberg (2020, p. 99) praises in Galatea (Short, 2012): the only options are isolating escape or morally compromised submission. However, this digestibility makes the work an ideal introduction to IF.  Similarly, it does not require text input, thereby avoiding the frustrations of such interfaces noted by Rettberg (2020, p.98).

Regarding accessibility, WTWLA is playable for free, without a download and has a version for colourblind users. Built on Twine, a platform credited with reigniting interest in IF by adding a modern gaming sensibility (Rettberg, 2020, p109), WTWLA arguably leverages the status of games as the dominant form of narrative in contemporary culture (Rettberg, 2020, p. 87) and appealing to those that dislike books.

WTWLA’s themes of ethics and love have cross-subject appeal. Within literature, the text could be read as fantasy or dystopia.  A political or philosophical reading could be supported by other digital texts such as Papers, Please (Pope, 2013) which also explores complicity and suggests links to real totalitarian regimes. The imaginative step into marking our physical bodies takes the work into the realm of art.

In conclusion, the rich simplicity of WTWLA makes it a perfect introduction to IF for older teens. Teachers should also find the literary, artistic, and ludic appeal factors provide multiple points of interest for a wide range of readers.

References

Allan, C. (2017). Digital fiction: ‘Unruly object’ or literary artefact? English in Australia, 52(2), 21-27.

Charity Heartscape, P. (2014) With those we love alive. https://xrafstar.monster/games/twine/wtwla/

Ensslin, A. (2014). Chapter 5: Playing with rather than by the rules: Metaludicity, allusive fallacy, and illusory agency in The Path. In A. Bell, A. Ensslin & H. K. Rustad (Eds), Analyzing digital fiction (pp. 75–93). Routledge.

Hayles, N. K. (2008). Electronic literature: New horizons for the literary. University of Notre Dame Press.

Harvey, A., & Samyn, M. (2009). The path. Tale of tales. https://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/

Pope, L. (2013). Papers, please [Game]. 3909 LLC

Pressman, J. (2008). Navigating electronic literature. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary. https://newhorizons.eliterature.org/essay.php@id=14.html

Rettberg, S. (2020). Electronic literature. Polity Press.

Short, E. (2012). Galatea. The interactive fiction database. https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=urxrv27t7qtu52lb

Year 8 English students at my school complete a creative writing task, using Book Creator and taking inspiration from By The River (Herrick, 2004). Learners are instructed to create three pieces of prose or poetry that explore their relationship to their neighbourhood. This has been the case for three years and could be refreshed.

Using a mapping tool would also shift the project from being a written response with some bells and whistles into the field of ‘locative narratives’ which use a performative creator to embody setting (Rettberg, 2020, p. 185). The new task would be unique in our curriculum and, by recognising the ubiquity of mobile devices and location services, potentially more appealing.

I propose to use the map template in Padlet. This is a familiar platform to English students although they have not used maps. The flexibility in posts, including audio, video, photography, and text is attractive and intuitive. Padlet’s mobile app also makes it suitable for ‘on-site’ recording and would encourage experimentation. All students at the school have a laptop with a camera, should they not be able to use the phone app. The example map for this proposal will be freely viewable without an account or download.

It should also be noted that the current Book Creator projects are not visible to all students, and it is not suggested that students all contribute to one map but rather create their own, which should forestall any embarrassment or comparison. In addition, for privacy reasons, students would be directed to not include the location of their home.

References

Herrick, S. (2004). By the river. A&U Children’s

Methodist Ladies College. (2023). Summative assessment writing folio – by the river [Subject Outline]. Canvas.

Rettberg, S. (2020). Electronic literature. Polity Press.

In CHARLIE CHAN AND THE YELLOW PERIL (Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, 2020),  the artistic partnership collectively known as Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries (YHCHI), edit an Italian-dubbed version of the film Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1939), adding text and music to tell a story of migration to Canada that challenges racist and xenophobic stereotypes with acidic mockery and table-turning irony.

Experiencing CCAYP is entertaining and demanding. Although viewers may be unfamiliar with the source material, the text foregrounds its questionable orientalist origins (Karmen Lee, 2021) by surfacing anti-immigrant tropes and presenting them in bold characters that invite ridicule. Erasing the standard investigation drama of the original, the imposed migration narrative attacks the fetishisation and fear of the sexual and economic ‘other’. The irony of taking seriously such ideas as the irresistible attraction of ‘hairless’ Chinese males with superior maths and economic abilities, lethal martial arts skills, and a longing to raise a brood of ‘mixed race’ kids whilst living off unemployment, produces, in the spirit of Bakhtin (1968), a carnivalesque upended world that exposes still-extant stereotypes and inequality.

By fixing text in one place, controlling our reading speed, and combining image, text, and sound, CCAYP is an example of how YHCHI’s work “performs its difference from a codex book” (Hayles, 2008, p. 30).  The rapid presentation means jokes and allusions may be frustratingly missed, but also makes CCAYP ripe for repeated viewing. Arguably, the exuberant and taboo-smashing entertainment value alone makes rewatching enjoyable. In addition, at just 22 and a half minutes long and freely available via the artist’s website, it is highly accessible. 

YHCHI’s use of text can be situated both within the history of avant-garde poetry including symbolism and modernism, and electronic literature as kinetic poetry, especially the dominance of works in Shockwave and Flash that emerged in the 2000s (Rettberg, 2020, p. 139). Whilst these tools have faded from use (Rettberg, 2020, p. 145), YHCHI still employ Flash aesthetics. But rather than being outmoded, it should be noted this 2020 work was commissioned by the University of British Columbia, partly in response to anti-Asian sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic (Wong, 2021), attesting to continuing interest from the art and academic worlds.

Those familiar with YHCHI may feel CCAYP is less impactful than their other work. Compared to, for instance, NIPPON (YHCHI, 2003), the music in CCAYP is not tightly synchronised to the text and only subtly shifts with the narrative, arguably reducing the soundtrack to atmosphere. This is addressed in the epilogue, where the visuals freeze into still images, and the text lands on the beat of the new musical accompaniment, adding a welcome twist in style. Still, the role of music is undeniably reduced. Similarly, CCAYP is less formally inventive than other YHCHI works. Besides an ironic use of an ‘oriental’ typeface for the opening and end title, the text is uniform and not animated in the interesting ways noted in NIPPON (Hayles, 2008, pp. 126-129).

However, this reduces YHCHI’s work to a box of tricks and ignores the character of CCAYP. Constructing a new and layered narrative at a third of the original 67-minute running time is an achievement. Moreover, NIPPON is produced in an essay mode, whereas CCAYP is narrative requiring a dual reading of the images and the text, any more visual or auditory effects would likely prove distracting.

Those looking for digital literature to be more ‘interactive’ may also be disappointed. However, Rettberg explains that while many interactive works occupy the user with configuring the interface, YHCHI focus viewers on interpreting the text and its relationship to ourselves and the medium (Rettberg, 2020, p.146).  Placing CCAYP within a context of poetic digital texts, we might consider Rettberg’s (2020, p. 146) comment that interactivity is “absent in many of the most celebrated works of digital poetry”. Lastly, as well as the multimodal content, the many sociological and cultural levels of signification at play already require considerable mental ‘interaction’ from the viewer.

The use of meta-textual counter-narrative, pointed humour, and layered modalities, make CCAYP a rich text for analysis and enjoyment by senior students. But the question of where it ‘fits’ is telling. Karmen Lee refers to CCAYP as a “short story” and a “film” (Karmen Lee, 2021) in the same sentence. The work also exists within the modern art world, characterised as “digital installation” (M Plus, n.d.). This instability is characteristic of electronic literature works, which have been described as “hopeful monsters” (Hayles, 2008, p. 4) or chimeras.  Therein lies their value. CCAYP is a work that could be used for linguistic study, visual literacy, media studies, and sociological analyses. But it would be almost impossible to explore these aspects in isolation. CCAYP evades these disciplinary ‘borders’, with a form that refuses to settle and a narrative that dissolves the constraints of racist caricature.

References

Bakhtin, M. (1968). Rabelais and his world. M.I.T. Press.

Hayles, N. K. (2008). Electronic literature: New horizons for the literary. University of Notre Dame Press.

Karmen Lee, M. (2021). The minor key in Young-Hae Chan Heavy Industries: Charlie Chan and the yellow peril. Canadian Literature. https://canlit.ca/article/the-minor-key-in-young-hae-chang-heavy-industries-charlie-chan-and-the-yellow-peril/

M Plus. (n.d.). Charlie Chan and the yellow peril. https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/collection/objects/charlie-chan-and-the-yellow-peril-2016755-91/

Rettberg, S. (2020). Electronic literature. Polity Press.

Wong, D. (2021). COVID-19 vulnerabilities – Asian racialization, coalition and creativity. The University of British Columbia. https://pwias.ubc.ca/ideas/wall-stories/covid-19-vulnerabilities-asian-racialization-coalition-and-creativity/

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. (2020). Charlie Chan and the yellow peril [Video]. https://www.yhchang.com/CHARLIE_CHAN_AND_THE_YELLOW_PERIL.html

Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. (2003). Nippon [Video]. https://www.yhchang.com/NIPPON_V.html