Great Idea!!! On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 10:10 PM soloman s <[email protected]> wrote:
> 'We see with the brain': creating a comic book for blind people > Chad Allen explains how losing access to comics after becoming blind > inspired Unseen, the first audio comic aimed at readers who see with > their mind > David Barnett > We don’t see those pictures with our eyes’ … Chad Allen’s Unseen. > > > C > omic books were not at the top of the list of the things that Chad > Allen would desperately miss when he went blind, but they were > certainly on there. Growing up in Rhode Island, a friend’s older > brother had a huge collection of Marvel and DC comics, which the two > younger boys would carefully remove from their protective sleeves to > immerse themselves in the four-colour world of superheroes – > especially Allen’s favourites, the Hulk and the Punisher. > From a young age, Allen was dealing with some of the effects of what > would develop into full-blown sight-loss: “It started off as night > blindness, and if I came out of a movie theatre into the sunlight I > wouldn’t be able to see for a while.” > In 1988, when he was 15, he was diagnosed with Retinitis pigmentosa, > and by the age of 28 he was completely blind. In those 13 intervening > years, he had been determined to get as much out of life as possible: > taking up competitive tap dancing, spending time in a fine art studio > in Providence, Rhode Island, and even studying magic. (He has been a > member of the Academy of Magical Arts in Los Angeles, where he now > lives with his wife and son, for the past 17 years.) > The last comics Allen remembers reading are Garth Ennis and Steve > Dillon’s Punisher series, which ran from 2001 to 2004. Those comics > exemplify for him “the loss I felt of no longer having access to > comics”. When he went blind, he turned to audiobooks and learned to > read Braille, and returned to the prose literature he had loved, from > Mary Shelley to Ray Bradbury. But he still missed comics. Then, he > wondered: if you could listen to prose, then why not comics, too? > The rebuttal to that is obvious: comic books are a visual medium, a > marriage of text and graphic art. But the idea wouldn’t go away. “The > root of every comic is highly visual. But we don’t see those pictures > with our eyes, we see them with our brain,” he says. “It’s the whole > story that matters. It’s how we describe to our brains what that story > is.” > The result is Unseen, an audio comic book. It is the first comic book > aimed at blind people, featuring a blind character and made by a blind > creator. The experience is akin to audio-described cinema: each panel > is described in a matter-of-fact way, dialogue is spoken, and a > “whoosh” sound indicates when the next page is starting. Set in the > near future, the first issue opens on the US-Mexican border, where a > tyrannical American regime is allowing immigrants to be experimented > on for nefarious purposes. Into this scenario come Afsana, an > Afghanistan-born assassin who also happens to be blind. She can also > turn invisible – not unalike how blind and disabled people can be made > to feel by the rest of society, who often choose not to notice them at > all. > “I see the narrator as kind of fulfilling the role of the caddy in > golf,” says Allen. “She is filling in the gaps, carrying the story > along, allowing you to experience it all. Say an alien landed on Earth > and you had to describe to them what a comic book was. You’d be doing > that with speech. You’d be describing the action in a panel, and the > dialogue. That’s exactly what I’m doing.” > The first issue, which is around 20 minutes long, was completed this > year and featured in an exhibition at San Francisco’s Exploratorium > museum of science, art and human perception. It proved immensely > popular, prompting Allen to release it for a limited time as an audio > stream. It ends on a cliffhanger; so listeners’ most frequent question > is: “What happens next?” > “I’ve got 12 issues laid out,” he says. “Now we’re just planning out > how to release them all.” And he has his audience: “I got a message > from a man in China who said he had been listening to Afsana while > walking down the street in Beijing. I find that incredible. Afsana is > for everyone.” > • Unseen issue one is available on unseencomic.com > > > -- > With warm regards > Solomon S > [email protected] > > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of > the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails > sent through this mailing list.. > > Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
