This is my 2024 Doctor of Philosophy, done for the Department of Arts, Macquarie University.
It consists of two parts:
- A written thesis, titled “Gamifying the Digital Comic: Creative Labour and the Future of Digital Comics in a Neoliberal World” — Download here (no link since this hasn’t been marked yet, so it may still need rewrites).
- A comic-game hybrid created in Unity 2020.3.25f1, titled “Capitalism: Parallel Lives” — Download here (.exe file, 56MB).
- NOTE: As part of the comic-game hybrid, the full game source code, art and music is available to be downloaded here for free (177MB). This is being distributed under CC BY 4.0, meaning that it is free to redistribute and remix (see copyright details below).
30-min Audio Summary
I did a 30-min presentation on my thesis topic (from a Comics Studies perspective). The other half is a demo & explanation of the comic-game hybrid as I play through it (bit awkward due to a lack of visuals).
- You can download the Audio File here, and also the Power Point Presentation Slides here.
Copyright Details
Capitalism: Parallel Lives” © 2024 was created by Queenie Chan, with art by Angie Spice, and music by Johnny Yang. It is a non-profit project and licensed under Creative Commons 4.0
Thesis Abstract
Comics Studies may be a comparatively new area of study and digital comics even more so, but how the socio-economic system of neoliberalism influences the creative output of a comics creator is a lesser studied phenomenon.
In this two-part creative thesis, the first half aims to use discourse analysis to consider the effects of neoliberalism on global creative labour through the prism of the South-Korean “Webtoons”—the most popular format for digital comics.
Meanwhile, its second half provides a comic-game hybrid that attempts an intersectional approach to critiquing neoliberalism, while also staking a claim on the future of digital comics through creative commons.