Browsing by Author "Oubret, Pavla"

This thesis examines how readers interact with stories across transmedia adaptations. By comparing three different works, an original comic Legends in Exile, a video game inspired by the comic called The Wolf Among Us, and the game’s adaptation back into a comic of the same name, I provide an insight into how medium affects the way a story is told. In contrasting the two comics and the video game, I demonstrate the impact of the inclusion of direct interaction with the narrative. The two comics are both detective fiction; Legends in Exile is a clue-puzzle and The Wolf Among Us a hard-boiled detective story. I use the concept of schemas in showing how the different generic properties come across in the different works, and how the medium affordances aid or impede the realization of the genre. Kai Mikkonen’s approach to narration in comics, which favors focusing on the relationship between what is shown and how it is shown, and who perceives and where the center of focalization is, reveals that the narration in The Wolf Among Us comic discourages engagement with readers, direct opposite of Legends in Exile. Using Marco Caracciolo’s character-centered illusion I show the different ways the comics succeed or fail in modelling Bigby as a character that readers can engage with. By adapting Caracciolo’s interpretative reading strategies, I propose a way of analyzing the connection between players and characters in video games.