Clockwork Game: The illustrious career of a chess playing automan
An illustrated serial by Jane Irwin
http://www.clockwork-comics.com/
Ages 11+

It’s hard to review a piece of work that isn’t complete, but by nature webcomics are serialized and at some point someone has to voice their opinion to try and persuade (or dissuade) readers to discover the gem (or coal) they’ve discovered. I was pointed to Clockwork Game on more than one occasion, but the other day, I finally sat down to read this unfinished comic. And I couldn’t stop reading!

Based on true events, the story is based on the late 18^th century invention of Wolfgang Van Kempelen. Van Kempelen created an automan – a sort of robot – that looked like a Turk and would play unique games of chess with various opponents. The Turk, as the automan was called, was a marvel of its time and today there are many books, documentaries, articles and websites created about this invention that was seemingly ahead of its time.

The story starts out in a shroud of mystery as Mr. Maelzel is found dead aboard a ship and the captain and his young hand find the Turk’s head among Maelzel’s possessions. The story then goes back in time 60 years or so to the Schönbrunn palace where Von Kempelen and the Turk make their first demonstration to the Empress Maria Theresa and her court. We’re left hanging until Thursday, when the next page is up (fortunately Irwin has put up an RSS feed to let me know when the next installment is there) to see what happens after the automan has won its first public match. And I’m left wondering: Is this really a mechanical robot? Could it really somehow think? Sure artificial intelligence is possible, but this is in the day before computers! It must be some sort of ruse.

While by nature, I don’t appreciate reading things piecemeal, the experience of a webcomic, as created by Irwin, is entirely different than reading a finished publication. A finished publication wouldn’t have the author’s notes right below the finished page that explained the history, offered references or shared the author’s reactions to his or her own work.

I have to confess, this page has my favorite layout so far. I’m usually really critical of my own work, so it’s really special when I get a page that feels just right. –Posted 6/12/08 “An illegal move.”

The author’s comments also made me go back and look the artwork to give it a closer look. (By nature, I’m more of a text person than visual.) But upon closer look I noticed the fine detail Irwin has put into her work; like the crowd scene posted on May 29^th. On second look, I saw the faces and reaction of the person in the very last row, something I glanced over on the first read. The fine black and white drawings are so engaging one hardly needs the words to get the gist of the story. And the artwork supersedes the textual telling of the story, because it tells an almost secondary story of its own.

Readers who want to get an idea of what might happen next can go to any one of the number of resources Irwin lists in her bibliography. I imagine hours can be spent learning about this little known topic. (Honestly, I never heard about this before reading Clockwork Games.)

I was also pleased that on my basic DSL connection the pages loaded quickly and the images were crisp and clear. I have no patience to wait for slow-loading pages, which is probably why I have not given webcomics much of a chance. While some readers might choose to wait for the finished publication (Irwin wrote on the website that her intention is to self-publish the finished piece like her other works, Vögelein: Old Ghosts and Vögelein: Clockwork Faerie,) I think they’ll be losing out an interactive experience that books cannot offer.

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