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Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art.

Flow, as a mathematical idea, is based in the notion of time. When looking at a discrete-time flow, we are really talking about a sequence of things, moving in time. Since this is a mathematical idea, though, the sequence can be examined “outside of time,” and so we have a directed sequence, laid out for all to see. When multiple sequences share elements, we have a directed graph. There’s another word for his when content is present: flowchart.

Flowcharts are typically thought of as technical devices used for complex decision-making processes (and so are often considered BO-RING, but lately (last 30 years) they’ve offered writers, game designers, and comics creators a nice device in which to construct work.

Is flowcharting a sequential art?

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Michael Carlisle is a mathematics Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York, where he earned a certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy. When not teaching or researching probability or rambling about dystopian films and surrealist animation, he volunteers with the Sequential Art Collective and New York Center for Independent Publishing.

On most Fridays, Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art. Expect mathematics and a dash of pessimistic optimism.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the difference between sequences of things and the “time series” those things make. I’ve been straying somewhat from the standard ideas of “sequential art” in what I talk about on this blog; I’m not about to stop now.

Even though I’ve already stated that music, as a temporally-based art, isn’t a sequential art, I firmly believe that the careful construction of a sequence of pieces of art is an art in itself, regardless of the type of art being sequenced.

As a species, we’ve been recording sound for about 130 years. From the beginnings, the wax cylinder and gramophone record^A1 allowed the rich, then the public, to have recordings of audio in their homes. It also allowed, with radio, the evolution of a societal position – the Master of Ceremonies – to move from the religious meeting or performance hall into ever-shrinking boxes in people’s homes. The MC could also become the DJ, gaining the power to sequence acts from their recordings instead of collecting them into one room to perform live. The little discs could be swapped in a two-turntable setup which allowed a predefined (or on-the-fly) sequence to be constructed. The art of the DJ is not the music; it is the sequence of music.

I got two turntables and a microphone
I got plastic on my mind….^A2

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On alternating Fridays, Michael Carlisle examines the world “outside” sequential art to find… more sequential art. Expect mathematics, a bit of madness, and a dash of pessimistic optimism.

Previously, I discussed infinite sequences; this time I would like to give an application that has changed the way humans interact with the world. And I’d like to play with comics.

One of the most important results from mathematics of the last 300 years is called the Law of Large Numbers.

Taking the sequence of sequences that is a comic strip “series” – the body of work of that strip – I propose a bit of fun.

(If you want to skip the text and go straight to the images, here you go. I’ll understand. Otherwise, read on, Faithful Lurker.)

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