And Halfway Back Again: Article Analysis

The article I chose from FlowTV was written by Drew Morton of UCLA and is titled, Comics to Film (And Halfway Back Again): A DVD ESSAY. Morton’s main argument was that there had not been much exposure or even a gateway for visual essays and that they should be a part of education in media and film. His evidence is shown through a project he did on both convergence as well as the use of “trans-media” storytelling (meaning telling the same story through different forms of media) used by the Comic Book industry. Morton came up with his own “working theory” of comic books role in media. His way of showing this was through the convergence of this type of media itself. He created a visual essay. Morton felt that by creating these types of essays rather than the typical “conference paper” it would grant scholars, who were in the media and film fields, an outlet to actually get to experience what they “think and write about so much”. An interesting part in Morton’s article was his mention of the fact that many media studies publications “pride themselves of being ahead of the curve”, when in fact amateurs on YouTube are regularly posting these types of “media essays,” while the publications have not. These publications

People who feel as though only people who are technologically “gifted” would be able to create such essays. To that he says, there are other ways to “cut & paste” these essays together rather than using these super high-tech programs. There are ways to learn to use them. Creating an essay such as this is beneficial not only to the viewer who is learning something new in a stimulating, more understandable way; but also the creator of this essay who is actually performing the processes to make the essay. They are able to develop a deeper understanding of their topic by not only researching and writing but also by application of these