STRUCTURE! more information

An update about Struktur.

It has come to my attention that the submission guide lines were a little vague. I am going to go about this a little weird, so this may or may not make things more clear.

This is very much a conceptual/experimental project. I got the idea for this a few years ago and tried to get folks interested in it, without too much success. But what originally inspired me was the work of Georges Perec, a brilliantly experimental writer and member of Oulipo.

In W, or The Memory of Childhood, Georges Perec, balances two narratives that may or may not have anything in common. As the reader delves deeper into the novel something happens. A 3rd narrative emerges, one that ties it into a whole. It’s the same kind of magic that happens in a comic, the juxtaposition of text and image. The reader becomes an active participant and fills in the gaps.

My idea for this conceptual anthology is to lay down some basic rules, and, similar to how wikipedia works, perhaps a common thread or in wikipedia’s case- facts, will emerge, while in the case of this anthology, the forming of a between the lines narrative.

In my previous write-up for Struktur I said that the overall theme was escapism. That’s not quite true. What the theme for this project ought to be based on is the machinations of miniature societies, utopia’s or even dystopias (thanks to Tom K for reminding me of this!) Obviously escapism can be a part of this project in addition to the above theme’s, it needn’t be the root.

So, back to the rules:

There is a building or some kind of general housing structure. There are its inhabitants who have never left that place nor seen what physically lay beyond there for X generations. Then there is the WHY and the HOW. Why are they there/why haven’t they left. How are they able to exist in that microcosm (food/breeding/heading/water/religion//clothing/etc)?
Those questions are up to the creator to explain or hint at in 1-25 pages (10 pages preferably- your story can go above or below the 1-25 page limit, but this might make the likely hood of it’s accompaniment in the printed version unlikely).

As to the visuals:

Due to the nature of this first appearing on the internet (and general visual preference that I have) I would ask that your art be of the hand-crafted/drawn/coloured/mixed-media-ed variety. Why? I feel that the showing of nature or handcrafted things brings an organic openness to new(ish) media/art (in this case, being the web) and makes it easier for the mind to step in. In the extra’s section on the dvd of the film Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky, he talks a bit about why this is (this may be on the extra’s in the film Stalker if not Solaris).

An Evolving Project:

This Project currently has 3 phases, but that could change. In phase one, the above rules will have to be adhered to with some seriousness. In phase two, the rules can be loosened. Finally, In phase three, the rules can be broken. The reason for this set-up is that let’s say you are in a strange city. What do you do/where do you go if you could do anything/go anywhere? Obviously, you could go anywhere/do anything just as soon as you could go nowhere/do nothing. I think it is easier to start something if you have a destination. Once phase one is complete and online, this could provide a direction to continue in, or equally to go in the opposite direction. Phase three will continue in opening up the project.

This Anthology will provide a bit of an elevation platform as it will ideally provide both established creators and new creators with an outlet for something new and a bit different for the cynically small small press comic market.

Creative-Commons Initiative:

Collaboration is a large part of this project. As such usage of your art/characters/media by your peers/fellow collaborators is to be granted and advocated. Everyone involved with this project is free to turn their contribution into a mini or evolve it into any sort of large or small scale project without needing permission from anyone. What we do ask from everyone that decides to try is to somewhere on their project to make reference to our project and its web address (which will most likely be an extension of our 2D Cloud website, you know, once that becomes an ACTUAL website...).