Read Scraps Left Behind here. The comic is currently on hiatus.
Scraps Left Behind is an interactive webcomic set in 1983 which follows the journey of WPC Edie Parker, who takes a job with the police in fictional Baneley, West Yorkshire, as townspeople mysteriously disappear. Edie is hired by the police as an increasing number of Baneley’s residents go missing, echoing the still-fresh fear of the Yorkshire Ripper from only two years earlier.
Baneley, like most of the North in this era, is choked by Margaret Thatcher’s austerity, and reveals its dark secrets to Edie the longer she stays in this little town. We follow Edie’s journey through her struggles to define her career and her identity whilst social pressures of womanhood, and economic depression and hopelessness, threaten her goals and livelihood. As Edie tries to solve these disappearances, Baneley descends further into chaos, and an infestation of crows encroaches on the town. Edie, as well as the reader, are forced to confront difficult choices and questions of identity, agency, and personal autonomy in a sociopolitical climate of authoritarianism.
This story-driven comic is presented online where you can click to interact with specific environments throughout the story, as well as multiple endings, offering a ‘gamified’ approach to traditional webcomics.
Scraps Left Behind is my final project for my MA in Information Experience Design at the Royal College of Art. The website and coding was graciously done by Shaun Keegan.
