I developed my own poetic/comic constraint modeled after those of the OuBaPo. I call it “scramble” and employed it to make a comic titled “Chiggers.”
“Scramble” breaks up a comic into several interchangeable parts. These components are set and unchanging but rearranged within the comic and repeated to change the interrelationship of image and text with each successive panel.
For “Chiggers” the words/dialog, the subject of the panel, and the panel backgrounds/settings can be rearranged. The order of the panels can also be changed. Each combination would represent a single page. The work was done on post-its to make the combinations possible (since they weren’t too sticky).
The goal was not to represent every possible combination (that would result in 216 pages), but rather to try to find combinations that inform each other into a larger arch or narrative. The finished product is four pages I felt presented the strongest story.
Repeating backgrounds recombined with characters at different ages can give a sense of time and sometimes suggest a flashback. Having a text appear as internal thought and later expressed in a dialog bubble represents a sort of mulled trajectory of ideas. At least, that is my hope.
“Chiggers” can be read in full in the e-publication Decomposing Summer at super keen but.if.and.that.
the amnesia-naut 