1Several recent webcomics have demonstrated the remarkable capacity of the still-developing medium for creating and presenting vividly realized and immersive post-apocalyptic worlds. While drawing upon strengths of visual representation established in comics, webcomics creators also employ techniques and technologies only possible in a digital format. As such, webcomics are a convergence between traditional comics and other modern forms, and often display influence from other digital media including Internet memes, social media platforms, streaming video series, podcasts, and slideshows. The webcomic medium is highly suited to stories with post-apocalyptic settings: they offer the reader the chance to roam and explore an immersive, seemingly limitless digital environment; by soliciting interaction and participation they encourage readers to feel connected with the intricate worldbuilding of the fantastical story; and, the imperfect, glitch-prone devices on which webcomics are created and presented and the experimental, ad hoc construction of the medium itself from fragments of other forms parallels the fractured landscapes and ramshackle structures of the post-apocalyptic world. This chapter aims to show how post-apocalyptic webcomics make use of the conventions of print comics and the affordances of digital media to build worlds which feel vast and highly detailed as well as capable of visually exploring the subjective responses of their characters to global catastrophe. There are many examples of post-apocalyptic webcomics worthy of scholarly attention1, but this chapter focuses on two in particular which exemplify the capabilities of the webcomics medium in building post-apocalyptic worlds: Jen Lee’s groundbreaking Thunderpaw: In the Ashes of Fire Mountain (2012-2016)2 and Minna Sundberg’s award-winning Stand Still. Stay Silent (2013-present).

2Creative works made in the tradition of print comics have been produced and distributed digitally since the beginnings of the popularization of the World Wide Web. Early experiments began to coalesce into a new medium, the “webcomic”, around the mid-1990s. The past three decades have seen some innovation and attempts to distinguish webcomics from print-based media, though with the difficulties of securing funding to sustain long-form webcomic series, together with their status as a somewhat niche medium, webcomics have received limited scholarly attention. What scholarship does exist tends to be focussed on attempting to draw a firm line between webcomics and print comics, pinning down and classifying various types of digitally produced and distributed comics, or deciding on their place within the broader history of comics.3 With webcomics still a young medium and with constant changes in the functionality of computer technology, attempts at classification are at risk of becoming swiftly outdated. Rather than attempt to outline the parameters of those discussions, this chapter will focus on some of the demonstrated techniques and capabilities (or, in the parlance of digital studies, “affordances”) of webcomics, while acknowledging where such affordances come from a crossover or convergence with print comics or other digital media. For the purposes of defining webcomics, I will use the following straightforward definition proposed by Julien Baudry (2018: 1): “born-digital comics, produced and designed for publication in a digital format, […] that formally ‘look like’ comics.” This definition might include everything from digitally produced and distributed comic strips (short-form comics that might be only three or four panels in length), to digitally produced and distributed comics series (long-form narrative comics that might be released serially over several months or years). It would exclude, however, comics intended primarily for print distribution and produced in order to fit the format of the pages of a print comic issue, but that are also available in digital format (on websites such as, for example, Marvel Unlimited or Comixology). Webcomics, in essence, are comics that are born and live on the web, but rather than simply a means of production and distribution for an existing medium, the digital existence of the webcomic permits unique affordances that establish it as its own medium.

3As Janet H. Murray (1997: 28) writes, “it would be a mistake to compare the first fruits of a new medium too directly with the accustomed yield of older media”, and yet “the traditions of storytelling are continuous and feed into one another both in content and form”. Such is the case with webcomics, for despite their digital production and consumption, webcomics are clearly rooted in the traditions of print comics. Webcomics creators might pencil, ink, and/or colour their webcomics by hand before scanning their work as a digital file. Those who produce their work entirely with digital tools will nonetheless likely use an input device which resembles a traditional tool, such as an electronic stylus, and will utilize “brushes” (textures designed to resemble the strokes of a paint brush) in software packages like Adobe Photoshop. The layout of webcomics generally uses conventions familiar to print comics, featuring “panels” (framed images containing a scene or other visual information), “gutters” (the gaps between individual panels), and “bleeds” (large images that run behind panels and/or up to the edges of the representational space), and are often arranged in page-like collections of such panels.

4Rather than formatting the “pages” of webcomics for a (usually) vertical piece of paper, however, webcomics creators have the ability to use the (usually) horizontal space of the screen and the scrolling function of the computer mouse or trackpad in creative ways. In doing so they exploit the apparently limitless scope of cyberspace, what Scott McCloud (2000: 222) terms the “infinite canvas”: “In a digital environment, comics can take virtually any size and shape as the temporal map – comics’ conceptual DNA – grows in its new dish” (ibid.: 223, emphasis removed). The freedom to explore provided by the infinite canvas sets webcomics apart from print comics, though some scholars note that to date webcomics seldom venture very far in this exploration. The flexibility of the digital canvas can also be a weakness, as, depending on the device used for reading, the webcomic can appear wildly different. Screen sizes differ between various desktop and laptop computers, and Jakob F. Dittmar (2012: 87) points out that “settings like screen-resolution lead to very different frame sizes for the display of digital comics”, as can the reader’s decision to zoom in and out or download the webcomic as a file to view in another program. Even though webcomics are generally offered in a single file format such as a portable document format (PDF) or Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image files, as Lev Manovich (2016: 34) suggests, when accessing such files “we are already dealing with ‘software performances’ – since it is software which defines the options for navigating”, meaning that the “experience is equally shaped by the interface and tools provided by the software”. Readers using a smartphone or tablet might find the webcomic has not been optimized for their device, which can lead to compatibility issues, or they might choose to read a comic intended for viewing in landscape orientation rotated in portrait. All of these variables show the challenge faced by webcomic creators, of determining how best to arrange images and text on the infinite canvas for all readers while taking advantage of the digital environment’s potential for visual communication.

5Whatever their size and shape, webcomics which occupy more than a single webpage usually feature navigation buttons to advance through the sequence of webpages, each webpage containing one or more image and/or piece of text, perhaps framed by panel borders but always framed by the “extra-diegetic panel” of the computer screen (Nabizadeh 2016: 347). We might call these digital pages “lexias”, a term proposed by George Landow and explained by Murray (1997: 55) as follows: “screen-based pages and cards become lexias: they occupy a virtual space that can be preceded by, followed by, and placed next to an infinite number of other lexias,” and “connected to one another by links”. Readers can advance the story by navigating through these lexias, and, depending on the functionality of the website, cycle back through previously read lexias or dip in at any point in the narrative via a contents page.

6The control given to the reader to explore the text in this manner is a strength of the comics format in general. As Will Eisner (2008: 71) puts it, whereas with film the cinemagoer “is imprisoned until the film ends”, the comics reader “is free to roam, to peek at the ending, or dwell on an image and fantasize”. This is as much the case with webcomics as it is for print comics. The freedom to roam is especially encouraged where comics present scenes devoid of sound or motion. Scott McCloud, in his pivotal Understanding Comics (1993), suggests that time is regulated in comics by the addition of sound (dialogue or onomatopoeic text) or motion (implied by the narrative or indicated using motion lines and blurs). The absence of one or both of these results in a “silent panel [which] offers no clues as to its duration”, and whose “unresolved nature” (ibid.: 102) gives an image a “lingering timeless presence” (ibid.: 103, emphasis removed). The ability to dwell on a particular panel or lexia is highly suited to presenting post-apocalyptic landscapes, whose sombre, eerie ruins invite rumination and encourage the reader to imagine the fictional world expanding beyond the image.

7Sundberg’s webcomic Stand Still. Stay Silent (hereafter SSSS) exploits this to powerful effect.4 Set in the Nordic countries in a post-apocalyptic future, SSSS depicts a world divided between scattered safe areas protected by walls and fences, and the dangerous, corrupted expanses of the “Silent World”. The webcomic’s protagonists are a team sent out into the Silent World to explore, eradicate threats, and salvage valuable scientific books. The title refers to what characters are instructed to do should they encounter the series’ monstrous antagonists, the mutated beasts of the silent world known as “trolls”, but the imperative to “stand still” and “stay silent” is also suggestive of a prompt to the reader to dwell thoughtfully on the meticulously painted artwork. This invitation to take an unhurried tour through representations of the post-apocalyptic world appears to suit some readers more than others, as can be seen by glancing through reader reviews on the website Goodreads: one reader writes that Sundberg’s “ability to convey emotions and incorporate intricate details in her flawless panels […] stun me because it’s just so beautiful to look at”, while others find the webcomic progressing at a “very, very, slow pace”, and remarking that “it took awhile [sic] to actually get into the plot” (“Stand Still, Stay Silent: Book 1”). The generally glowing reviews of the webcomic suggest that its measured reveal of the post-apocalyptic Silent World resonates powerfully with many readers, which is further supported by Sundberg’s receipt of a 2015 Reuben Award in the category “Online Comics – Long Form”. The visually arresting imagery of the series does much to encourage a slower pace of reading, but so too do decisions made about the arrangement of this imagery.

8Much of SSSS’s lexias are shaped in the manner of comic book pages, requiring the reader to scroll down the vertical layout of panels. This typical uniformity emphasizes the impact of occasional appearances of large bleeds and what Sundberg has described as “full spread/double page panels”, lexias twice the size of standard lexias in SSSS (“273”). A typical example, which marks the end of chapter 4, shows the protagonists’ exploration vehicle parked in the long grass of a railway embankment, the disused barrels of artillery choked with vines in the foreground, a skyline of silhouetted ruins marking the edges of what was once Copenhagen, the entire scene composed of the muted greens of wild vegetation and the cool blues of the Danish dusk. The haunting beauty of the image is compounded by the absence of sound and motion, pausing the narrative for the scheduled two- to three-week break between chapters with an image that urges the reader’s eye to linger and explore the scene. The absence of characters in the image reduces the distance between the reader and the fictional landscape, suggesting we are seeing this scene first-hand, rather than only through the narrative perspectives of the protagonists. The sound of wind rustling through the grass in the otherwise aptly named Silent World, the chill of the evening, and other details can be imagined by the reader to complete the feeling of being there.

9In this sense the comics reader is not merely a spectator, but is a participant helping to realize the fictional world. As Eisner (2008: 69, emphasis removed) writes, this distinguishes comics from film, as “the reader is expected to participate. Reading the imagery requires experience and allows acquisition at the viewer’s pace. The reader must internally provide sound and action in support of the images”. With a post-apocalyptic world like that of SSSS, the reader’s experience is necessarily augmented by imaginative leaps to visualize a science fiction future, but might also be supported by having seen similar fictional worlds in other media. This is suggested by a brief scene which depicts the characters driving their vehicle across a suspension bridge as it collapses around them. While the art powerfully conveys the force of suspension cables ripping through concrete and the vulnerability of the vehicle as colossal towers topple and crumble into rubble, the scene nonetheless has surprisingly low emotional stakes, as indicated by the character Sigrun joking about the success of the bridge maintenance crew: “Never mind, I take back what I said. Bad job” (“202”). This may be due to the familiarity readers are expected to have with scenes of this kind. Characters deftly navigating rupturing roads and bridges appear frequently in action and disaster fiction, in films such as apocalyptic 2012 (2009) or horror Final Destination 5 (2011), and videogames such as Tomb Raider (2013). The brevity of the bridge collapse scene in SSSS, together with the lightness of tone indicated by the dialogue, suggests this is a minor set piece, included more to suggest intertextual links in subject matter than to contribute meaningfully to the advancement of the plot. It also suggests that the medium itself may be enabling readers to revisit a compelling fear they associate with post-apocalyptic environments, made safe by the distance created by the protective boundary of the computer screen. Murray suggests that participants in theme park rides, such as a ride based on the film Jurassic Park (1993), “are free to give way to terror without worrying about being able to find [their] way back”, and screen-based environments can offer a similarly “immersive visit” with the screen operating as “a reassuring fourth wall” (Murray 1997: 108). As with riders on the Jurassic Park ride, readers of SSSS can safely re-encounter a familiar thrill, in this case imagining infrastructure crumbling around them, and making it out alive.

10Interestingly, a similar scene can be found in another post-apocalyptic webcomic, Lee’s Thunderpaw: In the Ashes of Fire Mountain. Thunderpaw tells the story of two anthropomorphic dogs, Ollie and Bruno, who find themselves abandoned in a car at the onset of an apocalyptic event referred to as “the danger”, and must find their way home. One lexia, which concludes chapter 1, features a long horizontal image that the reader must scroll along to advance the story. The whole image shows a bridge, which meets with the land on the far right, though the reader must scroll the length of the image to understand the scene. The image might therefore be referred to by McCloud’s term “Gradualism”, a technique he cites as a unique affordance of the webcomic medium, and which he defines as “the ability to gradually reveal an image or sequence of images as readers navigate through a story” (“I Can’t Stop Thinking ! #4”). Gradualist lexia might increase tension by revealing a scene incrementally, and enlist the viewer as a participant in uncovering the advancing story with the scroll wheel or track pad, essentially allowing them to interact, roaming at will to set the pace of the unfolding action. On the far left of Thunderpaw’s bridge scene, where the lexia begins, an explosion rips through the bridge, a car in mid-air from the force, and Ollie and Bruno are seen in the process of running to safety. As the reader scrolls right, Ollie and Bruno appear again, helping one another to avoid falling through the crumbling asphalt, and then appear again, sliding down a collapsing piece of rubble, and appear again a further five times captured in various poses mid-action. The repeated appearances of the characters makes this lexia what Neil Cohn (2010: 131) terms a “polymorphic” panel, an image depicting “a single entity repeated in multiple positions of an action while remaining in a single encapsulated frame,” which suggests continuous and fast-paced movement. By combining this traditional comics technique with the scrolling functionality of the infinite canvas, Lee shows the scene as a bustle of activity and frantic motion. This lexia is a powerful example of the capabilities of the webcomic medium, but Lee goes even further in using the technology to mark Thunderpaw as a unique and daring work.

11Throughout the webcomic, Lee includes animated Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) files, a set of images that automatically cycle through in sequence to create the illusion of movement. GIFs are used and shared widely on social media platforms such as Twitter and Reddit, valued for their ability to depict a short sequence of actions for information or entertainment. In Thunderpaw, GIFs allow characters and objects to move around the lexias, provide atmospheric lighting, smoke, or fog, and visually represent the emotions of the nervous protagonists through expressionist symbols. In the bridge scene, the explosion flashes endlessly, the light reflecting off nearby cars and debris; Ollie’s panic is indicated by white lines dancing beside his wide eyes; and the sun’s light glints on the water as the characters reach the safety of the land. Sometimes subtly shimmering, sometimes jarringly strobing, Lee’s GIFs lend the webcomic the ability to seem vivid, alive, and frenetic. A technique still rarely used in webcomics, the animated motion in Thunderpaw was a significant contributor to its initial popularity. Jason Karlson, of news website Bleeding Cool, for example, writes that the comic charmed him despite his aversion to reading comics digitally, as the “panels, if they can still rightly be called that, never stop moving. Constantly glitching and twitching with a frantic energy”, resulting in a “unique beast that could only work in it’s [sic] native online environment”. In contrast to the invitation to “stand still” and “stay silent” in contemplation of the rich imaginative landscapes of SSSS, the wild activity of each lexia of Thunderpaw is expressive of a rather different approach to engaging with the post-apocalyptic world.

12While the bridge scene uses Gradualism to hasten the action and emphasize the danger of the collapsing environment, other examples of Gradualism from Thunderpaw have consequences of their own for the readers’ engagement with the post-apocalyptic world. Almost every lexia in Thunderpaw exceeds the boundaries of the computer screen and requires interaction to scroll from the initial view to the hyperlinked “NEXT” button. Aaron Humphrey, writing about the Australian webcomic At Work Inside Our Detention Centres: A Guard’s Story (2014), suggests that the use of images larger than the area visible on the computer screen can have a “claustrophobic” effect, and can contribute to a sense of “placelessness” (Humphrey 2016: 59). In the third lexia of chapter 2 of Thunderpaw, this effect can be seen in a dream sequence in which Ollie digs a long, narrow tunnel deep underground, trying to find some clue as to what is happening to the world. In contrast to the dark grey backgrounds of most of the lexias from Thunderpaw, this webpage features an endlessly tiled animated GIF of quivering, blinking eyes on a bright orange background, an unsettling and overwhelming backdrop to the simplicity of the narrow black tunnel. By scrolling down the lexia we discover that the tunnel continues, still backed by the blinking eyes, until we find Ollie, scraping with his paws at the bottom of the tunnel. At this point the perspective abruptly shifts, in three panels that depict Ollie’s point of view, his arms glitching and wavering unnaturally, as another staring eye rushes into view. This psychedelic and disconcerting lexia produces a decidedly claustrophobic and placeless effect, as Ollie attempts in his dream to grasp towards some kind of understanding now that his reality has been apocalyptically uprooted.

13Other lexias make liberal use of blank space around panels and images. In the ninth lexia of chapter 3 of Thunderpaw, Ollie and Bruno wait at the bottom of a pit as an unknown and potentially threatening figure circles above, its footfalls evidenced by the occasional snaps of dry twigs. This long, vertical lexia contains only six small images, some floating in place without clear panel boundaries, and is otherwise composed of the dark grey of the background, evocative of the mysterious, threatening coming of nightfall and the lack of light in the pit itself. The use of broad stretches of grey space between images in this lexia utilizes “Distance Pacing”, another narrative technique described by McCloud. In McCloud’s definition, “increasing or decreasing the distance between images can strongly influence the passing of time within a story”, with distant images creating slow pacing (“I Can’t Stop Thinking! #4,” emphasis removed). This slow pacing suits the suspense of the scene from the perspectives of Ollie and Bruno, who crouch quietly in the pit hoping not to be discovered. Writing of the expanses of white background in A Guard’s Story, Golnar Nabizadeh (2016: 347) suggests blank space can have many meanings, such as “not-seeing”, “unresolved meaning”, and the threat of being “overwhelm[ed]”, while an absence of panel borders coupled with blank space emphasizes the “precarious and uncertain status” of a story’s subjects. These interpretations suit the scene in the pit, in which the protagonists fear an unseen and unknown enemy in a world in which they feel out of place and insecure. The use of blank space to affect pacing and facilitate immersion in the story is not new to webcomics, and can be seen in many traditional print comics, but the lack of restrictions to the webcomic creator in a lexia’s size, shape, and colour means these techniques can be utilized to an even greater degree.

14SSSS rarely uses expanses of blank space between panels. Given its intended future publication in book form, the webcomic adheres more closely to the conventions of print comic pages, as seen in a typical comment by Sundberg accompanying an unusually shaped lexia:

If the thought “hm, this page has a slightly odd format” crossed anyone’s mind; you’re right, it is! [sic] I’ve actually designed this and the next page to fit diagonally across a book spread, so forcing them into a non-diagonal display for your web-viewing pleasures has added quite a bit of excess empty colour areas around the edges. (“148”)

15The “excess empty colour areas”, space in the corners of the lexia containing brush strokes in a variety of blue shades, slows the pacing of the narrative, which suits the scene. In this lexia, the character Lalli falls behind his group of Silent World explorers, pausing and focussing his attentions in order to cast a magic spell. The angular version of the lexia featured in the eventual print publication suggests Lalli has temporarily stepped out of his everyday reality to perform the incantation, but the excess of blank space around the panels in the webcomic version offers a similar effect through distance pacing. The webcomic thus gives Sundberg an opportunity to showcase the narrative in ways not possible in the print format, making use of the affordances of the webcomic format, but still allowing the eventual translation of the webcomic into a printed book.

16Uses such as this are uncommon, but blank space regularly appears in another manner in SSSS. Every lexia of the webcomic is surrounded by a uniform frame: across the top of the webpage run hyperlinks to information pages on the SSSS website; below this is the title of the webcomic, navigation buttons, the current lexia number, and the lexia itself, all on a background of black painted over with purple brush strokes; below that are duplicate navigation buttons and lexia number, along with a legend of Nordic flags and links to various related websites; and at the bottom of each webpage are more links, a note written by Sundberg, and a comments section for readers to discuss the lexia with each other. Despite the generally uniform size and shape of the lexia itself, the webpage for each lexia can be of varying size due to the number of comments, but always contains the purple and black background. This surrounding darkness is effectively blank space which serves to provide a dark setting for viewing the lexia, not dissimilar to the dark of a cinema or the frame of a stage’s proscenium arch, the kind of darkness Roland Barthes (1986: 346) describes as “the very substance of reverie (in the pre-hypnoid meaning of the term)”, a “veritable cinematic cocoon”, separating the reader from their everyday surroundings and facilitating immersive engagement with the story. In addition to creating a darkened border and providing navigation buttons, the frame has another affordance that marks it out from its print origins: a social component.

17As with many forms of digital media, webcomics creators have the ability to interact closely with fans, observing and joining fan discussions, encouraging fans to promote the webcomic through social media, offering paratextual extras as reward for regular visits to the website, and fundraising. SSSS maintains an active and lively fan community. To list just three examples: the comments section beneath individual lexia often includes over 100 comments by readers, and sometimes numbers over 1 000; a fan forum dedicated to discussing the series, The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum, has, at the time of writing, over 1 000 members and over 170 000 posts; and fan fiction website Archive of Our Own houses over 1 700 individual fan-made stories based around SSSS. Book publications of the free-to-read webcomic have been crowdfunded by fans, with the first book receiving $124 040 (despite only having an initial goal of $25 000) from 1 863 individual donors, the second receiving $250 665 (with a goal of $35 000) from 3 525 donors, and the third book receiving $315 830 (also with a goal of $35 000) from 4 014 donors. Thunderpaw was also financially supported by fans, using the monthly pledge system Patreon, with regular donors receiving process artwork and messages from Lee. Soliciting financial backing directly from fans, and growing their fanbase through word of mouth, these webcomics are able to receive support from and answer directly to their readers. As Lee notes, by releasing the webcomic incrementally through online serialization and receiving feedback from the fanbase, she was “able to improvise with the monthly updates,” something not possible with her subsequent print publications, a transition she found “challenging” (Akhtar). As Amy Thorne (2010: 210) writes, this is a major advantage over traditional print publication, and something even more attractive than the formal advantages of the webcomics medium: “Most creators chose to take advantage of the creative freedoms of the Web not in the area of exploring the digital environment but rather for liberation from editorial control”. With the availability of creators through their websites’ comments sections, social media platforms such as Twitter, and the contributor-only discussion boards on funding sites Patreon, Indiegogo, and Kickstarter, readers are afforded the chance to interact with the creators during the post-apocalyptic worldbuilding of webcomics like SSSS and Thunderpaw, to receive concept art and short comics that can help add to their understanding of the narratives, settings, and characters, and to contribute to the development of the fiction on their own terms through discussing plot points, predicting future instalments, and writing their own spin-off materials. While fans of serialized fiction had similar opportunities before the popularization of the Internet, the networking potential afforded by webcomics’ existence online means that these fan communities can be far more connected, widespread, productive, and, potentially, influential.

18As this chapter demonstrates, and as is so often the case with new media forms, the webcomics medium draws from many of the techniques of its predecessors and contemporaries. The use of silent panels or bleeds to create contemplative and timeless scenes, use of blank space to regulate pacing through panel or image distance, the repetition of subjects in a single polymorphic panel to suggest active movement, the invitation to readers to participate in the imagining of fictional worlds, and the serialization of narratives to facilitate audience feedback and interaction are all aspects familiar to the medium of print comics, and yet webcomics develop and combine these with other strictly digital affordances. The roaming exploration enabled by the infinite canvas and the use of the screen boundaries to reveal a large image through gradualism, the use of endlessly repeating animated GIFs to show actions and moods, close interaction with fans through social media, and widely crowdfunded pledge drives are enabled by the digital, online venue of webcomics. These elements show webcomics’ convergence with other contemporary digital media such as podcasts, streaming videos, slideshow comics, and memes which often use one or a combination of these things. None of these capabilities was created for the specific purpose of developing webcomics, but webcomics draw these digital affordances together with established print comics techniques to create immersive, engaging, and vast fictional worlds suited to their stories.

19SSSS and Thunderpaw exemplify how post-apocalyptic settings in particular are suited to experimentations in the medium, the fragmentary influences and assemblage of the medium paralleled in the fractured, anarchic landscapes and cobbled-together structures of a world coping with comprehensive catastrophic change. The incremental construction of these narratives, released online serially, update-by-update, also mirrors the rebuilding of the world within the stories, as characters make efforts to enact fractional, cumulative changes to reclaim the post-apocalyptic environment. As the affordances of other media are repurposed in webcomics, so too is the old world repurposed by apocalypse: the safe zones of SSSS include bases built in the ruins of bridges and cruise ships, and in Thunderpaw environments are inverted as forests become lakes, highways become scrapyards, and houses become inhospitable burning ruins. The techniques utilized by Sundberg and Lee encourage the reader to roam through and explore these post-apocalyptic spaces, whether by scrolling across large lexia, clicking to navigate through narratives, watching and re-watching animated actions, or thoughtfully dwelling on detailed silent panels. The results are fictional worlds that feel vividly realized, detailed, and vast, while still able to immerse the reader in the subjective experiences of characters confronting the realities of life after apocalypse.