Let Me Tell You About Webcomics: A New Postmodern Genre
by Paige Gelsimino
In Olympus Overdrive when Hades and Max are still being introduced to each other, it has them exchanging dialog in an interactive flash that allows the reader to see Hades and Max’s reactions to each other’s statements.
Cerebus, a computerized dog, eats a flash drive so that it could show Hades and Max something on the screen. The narrative then switches from the interactive flash between Hades and Max, to Cerebus’s computer screen where the reader goes through an awful powerpoint made by Zeus, who doesn’t quite understand the internet yet.
This also brings a continuity between the interactive flash to Zeus’s powerpoint in the narrative.
Another time in Olympus Overdrive it changes from the dialog to Hades checking up on his messaging device. The reader can then see that Hades has a new message from Persephone who has just recently escaped from Eris.
Once the reader clicks on the new message, it changes into the chat room where the reader can watch as the chat happens in real time between Hades and Persephone.
Though it’s switching between different ways to tell the story, it’s still in a unified manner, and makes sense for the narrative to flow as it does.