Catching magnons!

When deciding how to present our comic, we thought about how people consume information nowadays. With this in mind, the comic is optimized to be read on mobile devices. It will be very easy to access it: go to the website and the adventure will just start. Moreover, this will not affect the desktop reading eyperience, which is presented on a horizontal format.

This also takes into consideration the reading behavior of younger audiences, who are natives to the scrolling of information on a screen. The fact that the comic is a website and not an app also makes its access easier, eliminating the step of downloading an application to experience the comic.

Our objective is for everyone to catch magnons everywhere!

Traditionally, comics have been created through images and text. What makes the art form unique is the possibility of endlessly combining those in a narration. Although panels dote the medium of movement, this is reflected through standstills. The production of a comic for a digital medium opens the door to an even bigger hybridization of an already hybrid-born art.

As a digital-first comic, we conceptualized “Catching magnons!” as a sandbox to experiment with the possibilities of this medium. Some of our ideas came from consolidated practices in digital comics, such as the one vertical panel reading experience used in many e-comic platforms. Others tried to add features that are not possible on paper, such as animations, games, or sounds.

Animations are used to help readers understand important concepts, like the visualization of a spin wave you can see on your right. Another use of animations is to highlight movement or add an unexpected element to the narration. Moving images help both the narrative and the overall aesthetic of the comic.

Games were conceived with the idea of helping readers understand some basic concepts mentioned in the comic. The first game is meant to show two basic characteristics of waves: their frequency and amplitude. Another approach was taken with the game about inverse design, in which we oversimplified the idea behind this method to discuss the concept “black box”. In the laser game, readers can participate in the calibration of the laser running on an optical table, which puts the focus on the process of building an experiment.

Sounds give richness to the reading experience. They help mark changes in topic and narrative technique, or highlight a critical moment. We aimed to offer a completely immersive reading experience, and without a soundtrack, that would have not been possible.