Monday, August 29, 2022

"Draw Two Panels" spinoff: The Deckless Wonder

 Here's an experiment that's been languishing in my files. I've written already of my work with Isaac Cates on his Draw Two Panels game. It inspired me to test an idea for this spinoff:

I drew two cards that pose a simple question: is our heroine dressing or undressing? Where the cards are placed in the four-panel sequence would direct the answer.

After completing the first strip, I toss a coin twice, choosing one of the original cards and one of the new cards. Then I make a new strip, placing the cards wherever they can be made to make sense. 

I'm struggling to recall the exact rules. In each new round, I toss a coin to choose one old and one new card. There should always be four cards available for each new round, from which two are chosen.



Here's an alternate game, placing the first two cards in a different order:

This procedure can go on indefinitely, though I wonder whether the story can ever go anywhere,... 

...small wonder that I stopped after three rounds. On the other hand, a story stuck in time is interesting in its own way.


This general idea of drawing comic panels on index cards and moving them around is something we'll explore in my upcoming online course, Comics Inventions, enrolling now.