Let Me Tell You About Webcomics: A New Postmodern Genre
by Paige Gelsimino
In Spiddrelli it allows the reader to be interactive in many ways. For some panels the reader gets to push buttons to start an elevator, or for Martin to buzz in the group to get into the hospital. Many times the reader has to get the story moving by clicking on different actions for the characters to do, like having Topaz go down stairs or getting Ollie and Topaz into an elevator. Near the beginning of Spiddrelli, Ollie and Spiddrelli enter the Swill Times Bar, but there is no one there to seat them. The reader can then move Ollie's hand to press a button to ring for service.
Another time in Spiddrelli when Robin is talking to Richard Spiddrelli, he lets him ask five different questions, which the reader gets to choose from Robin’s clipboard. This way the reader can pick whichever questions most interests them and choose how the conversation ends up going.
In another section the reader is shown the emergency room with three different conversations going on. The reader gets to choose who to read about by clicking on the different silhouetted figures. This allows the reader to do many things with this webcomic that they wouldn’t be able to do in a print comic.
It’s the reader who’s moving the story along and having the characters doing certain things. The reader also makes their own flow for the story by deciding who speaks first or what they should say.