~5 minute readREVIEWS
Pit of a Thousand Screams
Once upon a time, comic books cost only 12 cents. Really.
They were fat — at least two full-length stories — and had lots of ads for things like x-ray glasses, sea monkeys, and gum that made your teeth black. Fantastic Four, G.I. Combat, Batman, Green Lantern, Sgt. Rock, and scores of others piled up in boxes you kept safely hidden away. And when someone new moved into the neighborhood, you swapped comic books, suddenly finding an entire new library. It seemed like things couldn't get any better.
Today's comic books cost 75 cents, minimum. They're thinner, and though the art is better and the stories are more sophisticated, there is something disturbing about a Batman who's strangely insane, who actually enjoys the violence he must use to destroy wise guys and lowlifes. A lot of the fun of comic books has been replaced by more literate story telling — stimulating for adults, but not a source of wonder and joy for kids.
Maybe that's why the idea of computerized comic books is so inviting. Maybe the comic books of yesterday have somehow found their way into the machine on mv desk.
Infocomics, a collaborative effort of Infocom and Tom Snyder Productions, are touted as electronic comic books that will appeal to everyone, not just computer users. Part of that claim comes from the utter simplicity with which they work. Once you put the disk in the drive and turn on the computer, it's no more difficult to read something like Pit of a Thousand Screams than it is to turn the pages of an issue of Silver Surfer.
Although I spent most of my time reading Pit, all the Infocomics work the same way. They're not games — not in the way I use the word, anyway. They're completely passive, just like a paper comic book. You watch things happen; you don't have any way to change the story, talk to the characters, or alter the outcome. There's one ending, and one ending only.
So where's the fun? What's so great about watching a computer screen?
Watching Infocomics is as much fun as reading comic books or any story. You want to get to know the characters, to find out what happens to them, and to be entertained. On all three counts, Infocomics succeed.
Pit of a Thousand Screams has a plot that would make the most hackneyed science-fiction writer blush with shame. Outrageous occurrences at nearly every turn, one-dimensional characters, and outdated and clichéd plot twists are the norm in Pit. The gist of the story is that three beings — a pilot named Ratchet, a beautiful woman named Elena, and an ugly waterbeast named Eskobar — have been brought together after their individual deaths to form the Gamma Force. Each has been given elemental powers — Ratchet, fire: Elena, earth; and Eskobar, water. The Balance (whatever that is) must be restored to the universe, and the only way to do that is to destroy the Nast, a particularly slimy creature who rules a chunk of space because he has the XT-3 market cornered. (XT-3 is a cruelly addictive drug mined on Zuron, the planet where his palace is.)
For all the space-operatic dialog, for all the obvious plot developments, Pit of a Thousand Screams in particular, and Infocomics in general, succeed. No one ever said comic books were supposed to have thought-provoking plots or characters who are more than stereotypes. Comic books are, after all, the ultimate in escapist reading. Infocomics have bravely brought that escapism to the screen.
And the screen is surprisingly active in Pit of a Thousand Screams. Infocomics use graphics in each panel, though sometimes those graphics are simple line drawings that evoke the scene. The graphics take on a filled-in look only when the camera zooms in.
Not everything in Pit and the other Infocomics is a comic-book clone. Infocomics use several techniques that take advantage of their electronic nature. The most interesting is the jump, a place in the story where you can leave one character's point of view or present frame of reference and take up another's. In Pit, for instance, as you're watching what happens to Eskobar the waterbeast, you come across a frame with a dogeared corner at the upper right. Hitting the Return or Enter key at this point sends you off on another path, perhaps toward the Nast, the evil one. In this fashion, Infocomics stories have the depth that printed comic books can't match. Pit of a Thousand Screams and its companions are hyper text comic books.
It's this multiple viewpoint that makes Infocomics especially worth while. Even though the story has only one ending, there are so many branches to explore that only one reading is simply not enough. After 20 minutes with Elena, I got to the ending. But I knew only bits and pieces of the total story. Who were Swelch and Ziff, and where did they come from? Was it just chance that Eskobar and Ratchet were in the palace when Elena cried for help? To get the answers, I had to take plot paths I'd passed by before. I spent more time, and had more fun putting the entire story together than I did simply getting through to the ending.
Other enhancements of the printed comic book take the form of primitive cameralike movements of the graphics. They move as if your monitor screen were panning, zooming in, or pulling back. It's a touch that adds to the enjoyment of the story, though it's not distracting or even vital. Key commands are laughably simple: Two keys move the story forward and backward at fast speed; another key advances the story to the next frame. Or you can do nothing and let the story unfold automatically at one of three speeds. Infocomics are even priced at comic-book rates, at least relative to other computer software entertainment.
I hope Pit ofa Thousand Screams is only the first issue of a series of Gamma Force comic books on computer. I want to follow the Gamma Force adventurers as they continue to seek evil and restore the Balance to all our lives. And I want to sit down with Pit of a Thousand Screams months from now and read it again with the same enjoyment I had the first time through, just as I read and reread those 12-cent comic books some 20 years ago.
I don't think it'll be hard.
This article appeared in
COMPUTE!
Oct 1988
These historical, out-of-print articles and literary works have been GNUSTOed onto InvisiClues.org for academic and research purposes.
