TIFF Nexus, possibly the worst-named entity of all time, has been sponsoring or holding or doing something with game jams in Toronto. Even though the guy explains it in the video, I am really confused about the whole thing–but my confusion is beside the point.

Anyway–Comics vs. Games was a game jam that was set up to pair comics creators with video game creators. They made interesting things. Two of my favorite artists, period, were involved: Emily Carroll and Christine Love–so I really think that the artistic productions that came out of the the jam are important.

But honestly, this is just a way for me to segue into a short discussion about the qualities that video games and comics share. They both have indie scenes that are all about taking the means of production into your own hands–video games, in particular, in no small part due to the fact that Anna Anthropy published a whole book that pushed a DIY ethic of games onto the public.

Anyway.

Games and comics. People coming and making things work–literally creating the illusion of time in a comic, pushing real motion into static images. Making them live. Or even completing a game, not by 100%ing it, but by entering into an assemblage with it so that it can function. Both mediums are about the meetings of soulmates, not to create offspring, but to generate the status quo. To retroactively create a world where only fragments were before.

Sometimes you have to go autopoetic.