What if your favorite comic character wasn't killed off, or what if the relationship between the characters you were rooting for came to fruition?
Most mediums aren't interactive, but I'd argue that interactivity is an important, and an especially underdeveloped component of narrative writing.
Videogames are the best example of interactivity coming into play with a narrative, but there are also "choose your own ending" books and occasionally there is an interactive film or two, but these are few and far between.
Most rare however is a choose your own ending comic, I've personally never even seen or read one, at least definitely not a mainstream comic. Comics are a visual medium and I believe would be very well suited to engaging in this type of narrative formatting.
(For instance, a choose your own ending novel might get confusing to read through, especially a longer length one but a comic could work better with the format.)
I believe that there should be a genuine effort in trying to distribute more media that takes into consideration the viewer/reader as a participant and maybe even character in of themselves in the context of the narrative.
I've observed for the past few years, the steady incorporation of more and more choices into the stories of (single player) games, to the point that player choices are becoming selling points, especially in newer or indie IP's.
So it's not like the idea that making an interactive comic would be that much of a risk, if ever there was a time to create an "interactive" comic I'd say it'd be now.
There are a lot of good reasons to make multiple branching paths, a story can have more chances to be popular, since the reader can read whatever branch suits their tastes and isn't constrained to a central story they may or may not enjoy.
Further, such choices can often add impact to their narrative experiences. For example: how much more impacting would a happy or tragic or romantic sequence be if they reader their-self caused it, through the branching pathways of their choices instead of it being an inevitable part of the story.
For this format to work, It would start with a base comic, to set up the backstory and the characters, maybe around 30 pages or so. This base would be universal and can fit in regardless of the story branch.
Then around about three main story branches, a good/happy, a neutral and a bad/tragic storyline. Each branch can reveal more about the world and characters and even be able to cross over details with eachother to split into more "sub" branches.
Undeniably this would be a LOT of work, but it could be a unique, popular and very creatively satisfying project to do.
Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about this as a concept and I just thought I'd share the idea with you guys. I genuinely believe an interactive comic or webcomic as an idea deserves to be explored.
Maybe you have a better way of going about writing this kind of project, or maybe you think it's a terrible idea. I'd love to hear what you guys think about it.