Take a look: KrazyDad.com's Graphic Novel Explorer

Filed by: Darren Turpin on April 16, 2007 at 15:12
Filed under: Comics & GNs

Via When Gravity Fails, a link to a rather fun (but, by the sounds of things incredibly intricate and difficult to write) Flash application by Jim Bumgardner of KrazyDad.com, the graphic novel explorer.

Jim Bumgardner's graphic novel explorer

Cover images are collated from Amazon.com, organized by price and dominant colour and then arranged on-screen in a random field of mini-images, each of which expands into a larger image when you mouse-over, and that you can then click on to get more info on at Amazon.com.

So far, Jim has also put together something similar for the covers of assorted science fiction magazines and the cover history of MAD Magazine.

I reckon it's a great way of making random discoveries and something that could have come in very handy back when I was a bookseller, given the number of "I can't remember the title, but the cover was green..." enquiries I used to get.

I also think it would make be great as the visual equivalent of a Tag Cloud if it was released as a blog widget, although judging by a quick read of Jim's methodology, that might not be do-able. But still, you could load up a database field with ISBNs and have the information pulled from your Amazon of choice into a personalised cover-cloud on your own site. It would be a great way of letting your readers know what sort of books you were most interested in.

Filed on: April 16, 2007
Filed under: Comics & GNs
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Comments

2 Responses to 'Take a look: KrazyDad.com's Graphic Novel Explorer'

  1. Stewart McKie on April 17th, 2007 7:05 am

    This is a cool visualization. Another slightly less colourful way to visualize novels is to generate a contentcloud from the text. My site at Scriptcloud.com does this primarily for screenplays but can work with any kind of content, including novels. Check it out.

  2. Ariel on April 17th, 2007 7:15 am

    Hi Stewart - Thanks for stopping by, and I do like the look of Scriptcloud (http://www.scriptcloud.com). I've dropped you a line by email with a couple of extra questions about the app.

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