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Hobo Lobo

April 15th, 2011

Speaking of experimental comics, Hobo Lobo of Hamelin is a cleverly designed multi-plane side-scroller by Stevan Živadinović that most of you can probably view without any technical hiccups.

I like the multi-plane effect. Full-out 3D could also work for scrollers like this of course. The key is in maintaining the work’s identity as a still life; even though navigating through it might be filled with dynamic motion.

[link suggested both on Twitter and in yesterday’s comments]

Meanwhile, Dylan Horrocks has details on Darkest Day, a benefit book for the victims of the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake which can be purchased here.

That’s it for this week. See you all Monday!

Posted in Cartoonists, Causes, Experimental Comics, Technology, Webcomics

Discussion (6)¬

  1. Foodveyor says:
    April 15, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    Thanks for this one, Scott, it is fantastic.

    I’ve always meant to ask you: Is there any stereographic 3D comics work (anaglyph, crosseye-viewable or otherwise,) that you like or think is particularly effective?

  2. Brian says:
    April 16, 2011 at 10:58 am

    This is fantastic! I have to know how this was done… for science!

    • MrHoatzin says:
      April 16, 2011 at 12:20 pm

      Hey, thanks for the props!

      As for how it’s done, TL;DR: the DOM is split into a master container that keeps the outmost dimensions of the window in check, and five sub containers each of which contains one of the five different depths. The javascript (http://hobolobo.net/js/parallaxer.js) then does a bunch of math to figure out where to plop each of the layers relative to the left scroll offset of the window. All of the logic is relative to the base panel dimension (the one that moves 1:1 with the screen scroll). The javascript is not particularly difficult to follow, if you’re into reverse engineering.

      Also, if anyone else wants to make a comic that uses this technology, they’re free to repurpose the frontend stuff. If they also want the back end I developed to ease the management of all the layers and everything, I will gladly sell and help them set up a copy for a nominal sum.

  3. Mike Leung says:
    April 21, 2011 at 9:42 am

    Holy crap, this is awesome. What would it take to control it all with a vertical scrollbar?

    Ie. set the display fixed & absolute, but space-out the text vertically to trigger the next movement in the display when scrollTop or pageYOffset values correspond with the triggering object’s offsetTop-values? It might quantize the motion (that’s a word according to my broswer spellcheck), but that can be sold as a feature, not a detriment.

  4. Fumetti digitali: applausi per Hobo Lobo « Fumettologicamente says:
    April 26, 2011 at 6:34 am

    […] via Scott McCloud […]