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Eric: It is worth noting I often hear Oompa music when I read XKCD. I have no idea why.

(From Sarah Zero! Click on the update for full sized riddlin'!)

The thing about Sarah Zero is the soundtrack.

I can't describe it -- not really. There's only one language to articulate the music in your head, and while I can read music and I can imagine music, I can't write music. I don't have the theory, the understanding of the relationships. I can't take the music in my head and put it down on paper.

But reading Sarah Zero, I can hear it. So very, very clearly. I can hear the angry base, the distortion on the guitars. I can hear Randy Bachman fighting it out with Flea. Every panel, every page of Sarah Zero gets louder and angrier and sometimes quieter and sadder. Music evokes. Music entices. Music enflames. And music destroys.

What is it about Sarah Zero?

One of the things that happens in webcomics is graphic design. To be a webcartoonist you must create imagery, but to present imagery on a page you have to design that page. It may be web design or page design or print design but at its core it is graphic design, and a good number of fantastic artists make for terrible graphic designers. Despite everything, they are two different skillsets, and while some of that is language -- sometimes, the artist can see the web site in their head but they lack the XHTML and CSS to put it on the page -- a lot of it is a different sense of understanding. An understanding of whitespace, of navigation, of leading the eye. It's not just panel arrangement, it's comprehension.

In the old days, essays were called compositions. It's why we still take "English Composition" in college. And in the end, graphic design is to sequential art as composition is to writing. It is the framework, that presents the thesis. It is the structure that tells the story. It is the gateway into the brain.

We compose.

Just like the composer penning notes in 3/4 time, arranging measures and considering individual instruments. Each musician in the piece will be playing music, but if they all come together -- if they all play at exactly the right moments -- the whole weaves together into a tapestry vastly greater than any one piccolo player can produce.

One of the things about the artist? (The artist who identifies as both Stef and Ace Plughead, so takes your choice.) The artist is a graphic designer. This site is entirely devoted to the presentation of content. It doesn't use Flash or any weird barriers. It slams the visuals full size right into your brain, getting out of the way while remaining accessible.

So too there are the panels themselves. Each panel is self contained -- a statement that stands alone. The juxtaposition of text, image and concept. There aren't word balloons here. You're never sure if the voice you hear is literally or internally speaking. And there is no detail that seems to small not to work in. Have a look at page 264 -- two panel spread, but within the two panel spread you have a secondary layout; a grid format working in whitespace easily recognizable to a desktop publisher in 1992 and just as recognizable to a web developer today. Every word works into the grid, and at the same time every link and icon is its own angry satire. Panel 2 becomes almost Russian Realism as done for the MTV generation. Less defined, more defiant.

I burned through the whole archives. They lend themselves to that. And through it all, I heard the music.

I'll be honest -- part of me wonders if I should put Sarah Zero aside until it's finished. It's got such a strong sense of connection -- such a strong sense of one page building from the last, that reading a new page in near isolation doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I'd forget too much of what I'd seen. I'd have to start anew every time. Possibly it's better to wait until the whole is done, and experience the composition in its entirety.

Either way, this is a Hell of a way to start a morning.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at August 27, 2008 10:39 AM

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