This is the preface page for the webcomic “Interferences”. If you are in a hurry, you can immediately jump to the first page here:

I started working on this comic on 2010-11-17. There are currently 79 pages; the last one was added on 2011-03-21 and can be found here: Skip to the last page. Or you can look up the Ginormous List of All Pages.

One of the annoying pitfalls of constructing a webpage is the fact that the target screen resolution is unknown in advance. Fortunately, it is possible to develop a fluid design that fills the available space. Traditionally, such designs have been based on tables and images, but pixel images don’t scale well. An obvious alternative approach is to use a vector graphics format instead. If we want to use open web standards, that means using SVG. Another frustrating pitfall of constructing webpages until recently was the deficient support of SVG in one major browser, which meant that only Flash pages were the only serious method to deliver scalable content to most visitors, but fortunately, the times have changed, and we look forward to a web in which lacking support for SVG becomes less and less of a problem.

One of the things I find annoying about most current webcomics is that they are usually small, and usually surrounded by a lot of visual clutter. There is the strip in the middle, then a bunch of navigation links, then a bunch of other links, then a lot of advertising banners, blinking and scrolling like mad. So I tried the opposite approach: the image itself scales to maximal size. There are just two buttons: one linking to the next page, and one all-purpose button that pops up a navigation menu. And that’s all.

If you want to leave a comment, I suggest you go over to my Sketches Blog. You can also subscripe to the RSS feed of said blog to be informed whenever this comic here updates, since I plan to announce any updates on my blog. And you’ll also find a link to the appropriate b log entry within the naviagtion menu of a comic page.

When I say that the image scales to its maximal size, that’s not completely true: I considered designing the pages in such a way that the image fills the whole available screen space, with the two navigation buttons as overlays. In the end, I decided against this approach: unfortunately, animating stuff in SVG can be quite computational intensive, and doubling or tripling the amount of animated screen space can make the difference between a smooth and a jerky animation (by the way, if you notice that an animation looks jumpy, you might want to try to reduce the size of your browser window), so instead the image scales to the maximal size while retaining its square format. Nevertheless, here is an example of what could have been: An Alternative Take on Page 9.

The content of “Interferences” started kind of as a proof of concept, which is why the first chapter starts with different kinds of animations (even a SMIL animation, which is made workable for non-SMIL-enabled browsers with the help of a bit of Javascript magic). Given my minimal attention span, I can’t predict where subsequent chapters will lead me to, or when the next update will be. Anyway, I hope someone finds these pages useful, funny or entertaining.

And now I recommend you start with Page One.

Or you jump to one of the following pages:

Part 0 · The Heroic Past
Chapter 0 · The Creation
Chapter 1 · Thor ½
Chapter 2 · Gerda & Iris
Chapter 3 · Exile
Chapter 4 · Sir John and the Valkyrie

---

Jan Thor · www.janthor.com · jan@janthor.de