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Comic Books And The Internet, Continued
A number of readers have
written in about the Salon story talking with Gary Groth's recation to Scott McCloud's pieces on the intersection of the comic and the Internet. Groth's feelings are much different then McCloud. I love the comic book format (am currently reading Cerebus, The Dreaming and Bone amongst others) and think is an interesting issue - 'specially considered within the greater question of "art" and digital media.
Marvel's Ultimate titles are worth the cost and all of Image's are worth it from what I've seen so far. Same goes for much of what Viz publishes too. Here in the states I pay on average $2.25-$2.50 per comic, but they're worth it now more than ever. I remember when comics were mostly geared toward more simplistic audiences, had slightly rushed art and were only $1.25. That extra $1-$.25 has added an incredible amount of value to the comics I buy. The art is extremely good and the stories are quite good, especially ones like Spawn (check out Spawn, Spawn: The Undead, HellSpawn and The Dark Ages!!), Witchblade and the Darkness all by Image.
I don't know how your tax code works, but one of the ways that I am able to avoid extra costs is by subscribing. A single Marvel subscription saves 3USD and the more you do the more you save like 2 subs is 8USD and 3 is 15USD off the annual cost which wouldn't be much anyway. Just a thought
But the problem is, for every little strip, you have to wait for at least a day. When you but a book, you get hundreds of strips in one step.
Oh come on now, thats just silly. You only have to wait a day because you're seeing the comic as its being created. If you want to see all the material at once, wait for year and then check the archives out (if the site is still there).
You can wait a day for each comic to come out in the newspaper as well, or you can wait a year or so and see if the whole collection gets bound into a book.
This seems a bit like complaining that with comics in a book I can't give instant feedback to the artist.. Its a completely different medium.
air and light and time and space
Comics are for young children, not for computers or commuters. Computers are serious business. The Internet is serious business. How are we to find a way to increase profits if you are spending all your time reading comic-books. If you were my employees, I'd have you all flogged.
air and light and time and space
Apparently, PNG is the new trendy format for online comics.
;-)
Finally, a trend I can get behind!
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
I really enjoy CRFH. It's one of my favorites. If there were no Internet comics, I would not be able to read it; it would not exist. The Salon article has a direct quote from the author of CRFH saying just that. Mr. Groth can rant tediously all he wishes, but he won't convince me that a world without CRFH is a better world.
Even if you think micropayments will never happen the way McCloud describes them, McCloud still deserves some credit. He cares about comics, and wants to see them survive and prosper. As he wrote in his book, market forces in the printed-comics world can crush new comics: you can't get sales unless stores stock your comic, stores won't stock your comic if it's not just another X-Men ripoff. With the web, anyone can put up a new comic, and the good ones can grow by word-of-mouth.
One last note: if you think Internet comics are all quick gag-a-day strips, you might want to check out the Zot graphic novel. It's very good!
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I read comic books. But good ones are few and far between. Of late, I haven't been finding anything that really intrigues me at the local comic shop. The last great actual comic book I picked up and really enjoyed was the Johnny The Homicidal Maniac series. "Crackers! Crackers! But no squeezy cheese! Look! David hasselhoff can fly! Whoops, I haven no kiwis! Fucking donut, mock me?!!? ONE-EYED CYCLOPS!!"
Then again, there's also the compilation books of online and print comics. But that's probably not the type of thing the poll is talking about.
There should have been another poll choice, "not anymore" (or something to that effect).
--
#nohup cat
The real problem is that there aren't any manuals any more. Half the software you buy these days is downloaded, and the rest come with a dinky lttle manual that's little more that the installation instructions. If the fat, bloated software moguls would start shipping hardcopy with their software again it would be a start.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Via memepool, I've discovered another online comic: Little Gamers. Topics include: Final Fantasy, LAN Parties, and Japanese sake. Give it a look.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Once again, Sluggy Freelance has been passed over in an online article/discussion about comics. It has everything that Salon is bringing up as salient points: long story arcs (not quite as long as the mentioned College Roomies from Hell, but they do intersect and elements from previous arcs come back in later ones), micro-payments, the ability for the artist to make the majority of his money off of it (witness the actual bound books available through Plan 9 Publishing, as well as the assorted "goodies" you can buy), and solid artwork (those who've read Gaiman's Sandman may notice some influence in the often-hauntingly-beautiful The Bug, the Witch, and the Robot story arc may see some similarities)...
Why does it seem that Sluggy has become an online-comics pariah these days? User Friendly gets bashed for being too pro-geek (or whatever), which may or may not be a valid criticism. But Sluggy is just getting forgotten? What gives?
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
- reinventing micropayments
- micro-thoughs on micropayments
- the last word on micropayments and scott mccloud
I had a long and scintillating phone conversation with Scott McCloud last night, where he revealed to me that he's actually a demon from outer space. -- Jon, goats.comGoats is one of many great online comics, but happens to be my favorite.
like this. or the stuff they were doing at lucasfilm. It's a whole new alteration of the technology. And it's pretty cool.
// john athayde
# x@boboroshi.com
# http://www.boboroshi.com/
Gumball? New shoelaces? Can of "pop"?
It means we've evolved into abstracted creatures of pure thought and energy who also happen to be insane.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
But lately, Pete Abrams has taken to wholesale quoting of pop culture with a small dash of funny on the top.
I've actually enjoyed it quite a bit lately, mostly because it's funny. Anyone can write a long, twisted story arc and argue how good it is, what's great about Sluggy is how many daily strips Pete manages to end with a punchline. The current storyline is pretty silly but I've been getting a chuckle from it nearly every day. It is true that humor is subjective, but if you don't find Sluggy funny then you're getting a lot less from it than I am.
maybe i'm biased, but why does there have to be friction between web and paper comics? we can help each other grow, especially if you use web strips to help sell paper books to people who don't go to comic shops. (gee, and that's only 99% of humans in the USA)
http://www.clango.org
Not to mention that a lot of joe sixpack runs on dial-up. Color comix are a biatch in 56k.
Well, as long as we're trolling for hits I might as well see if I can slashdot my server as well. PopeAlien.Comics is a half-assed weakly comic completely unrelated to the Pope, Aliens, or indeed even this discussion topic. I like to get drunk on the weekend and give half-assed advice to strangers.
Please.. visit in an orderly fashion, one at a time. I don't think the server can handle anything more. There. I've promoted the site, done my geek duty. Can I go home now?
air and light and time and space
Whether McCloud is right or wrong, I think the debate is the most interesting thing.
I think this is the coolest thing. People get drawn into the debate. Stories are written, comments made, rebuttals and re-rebuttals, the end result is more people checking out the online comics mentioned in these stories. Thinking, debating, and discovering new comics is never a bad thing.. Unless they're bad comics.
air and light and time and space
Unfortunately, like everything else, they suffer from Sturgeons Law (states that 90% of everything is crap) just like everything else. And, with the prices they go at these days, its not worth keeping up with a series that looks like it has potential, and its a pain to play catch-up with a series that just got good but you don't have the first 9 issues. After realizing how much better I could spend $4 Canadian, I got out of that. Also, anyone else notice that the quality of a comic is inversely proportional to the length of its run?
The internet is a wonderfully various place for comics to be distributed. Comic books ahve a history of taking innovative approaches to complex problems. This is a good thing and i applaud it.
I suppose I was just spoiled because I really, really enjoyed the long, involved story arcs, and this seems like it's lowering itself from `Non Sequitur' to `Garfield'.
And not all long arc are good... GPF had some inklings of that floating around ("... the GAMESTER!"), but the creator just does much better with short, punchline-y strips.
And, of course, THL/SexyLosers has *no* plot, unless you count running gags as plot.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
That just means that online comics are equivalent to newspaper comics, even if some of them are trying to be like book comics. The Internet mindset has no place for a site that's only updated once a month, even if that update is very large.
Well, I *was* in the process of moderating this story, but it merits a post.
The vast majority of online comics (Sluggy, Goats, PVP, Avalon, Absurd Notions, Triangle and Robert) follow a relatively straight-forward three or four panel format (though Sluggy has proven that this isn't an absolute, merely a quick and occasionally preferred method to tell the story), exactly like newspaper comic strips.
Here's the difference: Online, you can say "fuck", deal with important topics (relative to the thrust of the comic) and are completely and totally free of editors and syndicate hacks breathing down your neck. Online comics can experiment with layout and story telling, and many of these feature long-running plots and serious character development. Not only that, but you can easily browse through the previous strips to get yourself up to speed (set aside a full weekend if you want to catch up on sluggy). Compare to newspaper strips, where you're lucky if you can find yesterday's paper in the trashcan.
I've laughed my ass off at Goats- tactical use of Weebles, Johnny Cash and Oompa Loompas prove that Jon has a uniquely twisted mind deserving of comic fans attention. The closest I've come to laughing at a newspaper strip is Dilbert, simply because none of it is fiction- though it may be to the author. Office people really *are* that stupid.
Dilbert is the exception to the rule, and it also suffers from the flaws that plague newspaper comics- shite artwork, no plot or storylines beyond something that may last, say, a week (tops), and generally not even worth reading.
When was the last time you sprained an abdominal muscle laughing at Peanuts, Dilbert, or any of the hundreds of pustulant, vomitous masses of diarrhea that propagate the newspaper?
There's no screening process for online comic artists- all they need is art supplies, a scanner (if that), and a web connection. There's no lowest common denominator- you make the daily comics page out of your bookmarks file and go to town.
And of course, online comics are akin to newspaper comics in that 90% of them are shit (go ahead and mod me down, but I firmly place Superiosity and User Friendly in the majority here) - but there are *so many* of them that you're bound to find something good. Unlike the newspaper, where that 10% of "good" fits in at the bottom of the 90% of crappy online comics.
How long does it take this guy to read the comics in the paper? Doesn't Goth realize the short attention-span comics in the paper created comic art (The Yellow Kid in The New York World started the whole chebang in 1894)?
Maus was, and still is, amazing. The CD-ROM version including audio interviews with Art's grandfather mixed with imagery from Auschwitz is extremely moving. I don't think people will confuse some of the comics that are being published on the net with works like Maus. Art, and others, will still be able to publish in places like The New Yorker where I'm happy to read it.
But writing off new forms of media for your art is always dangerous, because it never works. These guys need to remember comic art that tackles tough social and political issues faced the same criticisms they're making of the web as a comic art distribution method.
Oooo. I like that idea.
Maybe we could get Larry Gonick (of "Cartoon History of the Universe vols' 1 and 2" and "Cartoon Guide to Genetics" and several others) to do a few O'Reilly publications...
(Hey, if you can do "The Cartoon Guide to Physics" and/or "The Cartoon Guide to Statistics", why not "The Cartoon Guide to Perl Compatible Regular Expressions" and whatnot?)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I find it curious that the article was exclusively "comic books vs internet comics", and ignored any comparison to comic STRIPS. Are the newspaper comics strips simply not considered an art form? Or was it simply that they had comic book authors' opinions on file and wanted to show them venting about the new medium?
An important point that doesn't seem to have been addressed in this topic is the ability of the Internet to be used as a training/recruiting ground for new artists and writers.
Regardless of what is the "right answer", the Internet is a valuable tool for comic producers to develop their drawing/character styles and sharpen their ability to tell a story or a joke. At the same time, they can make a few bucks either from banner ads or in the form of micropayments (McCloud's concept).
For the publisher, it gives them a chance to see what the aspiring artist or writer can do along with seeing their ability to create for an extended period of time.
If there are forums for feedback, it gives both parties a chance to see what the ultimate customer thinks of it and where improvements have to be made.
So regardless of how the final product is produced, the Internet has a useful purpose in developing and testing talent.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Perhaps we could get users to read the manual if they were in comic book format ? And it doesn't have to be anything cheezy ... I remember spending hours sitting on the edge of the couch pouring over Classic's Illustrated renderings of this novel or that.
Sure, it'll have it's limitations, just the same way trying to use a Classic's for a book report on Moby Dick is ... but at least the user will have a clue.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Perhaps Sluggy is being ignored because it sucks right now.
No, seriously. The whole `Stormbreaker Saga' was incredibly good. I read three years of the strip in two afternoons. But lately, Pete Abrams has taken to wholesale quoting of pop culture with a small dash of funny on the top.
For Sluggy's sake, Pete, LOBO hasn't been cool for almost ten fscking years!
Plus, Pete's not on Keenspot. Not they didn't mention BBoCS or SexyLosers (formerly THL) either.
I think it's all part of the Anti-McCloud-Keenspot-industrial complex. Yeah.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Here we are, posting comments on a link to commentary on a review of an analysis of the future of a medium for a mode of expression.
Now people are going to moderate these comments, and meta-moderate the moderation, and probably comment on both level of moderation.
Given the typical error factor in each level of analysis, there is a near certainty that there is no meaningful connection between this discussion and physical reality.
So does this mean we've gone insane or that we've evolved into creatures of pure thought and energy?
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
If that aspect of the game was removed and used as a foundation for eComicBooks, along with the ability to get good voice actors to help with voicing, they could really take off, knowing full well that they will be expensive too.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
- Palooka-Ville - by Seth. Published by Drawn & Quarterly. Pick up the collected story arc, It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken. It's a semi-autobiographical account about the author's quest to find an obscure New Yorker artist (drawn in a New Yorker style).
- Ghost World, David Boring, or anything else by Daniel Clowes. This guy is one of the best writers in Indie comics. Sharp, dark humor. Published by Fantagraphics.
- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth - By Chris Ware. This one is available at Barnes & Noble and Borders. Collected from the Acme Novelty Library series. A heart-wrenching story about a pathetic man who meets his father for the first time. The best series I read last year and Ware is the greatest hope for comics being taken as a serious medium. Also published by Fantagraphics.
- Optic Nerve - By Adrian Tomine. Published by Drawn & Quarterly. One of the most promising young talents in indie comics. Pick up Sleepwalk and other stories, which collects issues 1 - 4 of Optic Nerve. Short stories about real people. Brilliant work.
- From Hell - By Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Moore's analysis of Jack the Ripper is frightening, shocking, and enthralling. I've read this series three times and I still haven't absorbed everything. Available in a collected edition at B&N and Borders.
- Maus - By Art Spiegelman. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. One of the most overlooked treasures in comics. This book stands in the shadow of Watchmen when people talk about the best comics produced in the 80's. A masterpiece narrative about the Holocaust. This is the torch-bearer for greatness in the comics medium.
- Anything by Brian Michael Bendis - This guy is reigniting the Marvel line with his work on Elektra and Ultimate Spider-Man but some of his best work was done at Image Comics. Pick up Jink and Torso, both available in TPB.
And a few other quick recommedations: Non by Jordan Crane, Jar of Fools and Berlin by Jason Lutes, the re-issued B&W TPB of Akira and Oh My Goddess! both published by Dark Horse, and Peter Milligan on X-Force. Phew! Any one who says that comics are dead isn't reading any. There are spectacular things going on in the medium at the moment. With sales down, publishers like Marvel and DC are taking more risks. The result? Some of the best comics from these companies in the last ten years. And like I've outlined, Indie comics are still churning out *great* books.For even more recommendations and some damn good thoughts on the comics industry as a whole, read Warren Ellis' series Come In Alone at Comic Book Resources. A collected, dead-tree version is also available (which I have and strongly recommend).
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Interesting day; along with this topic, there is an article on the failure of e-books. All this seems to indicate to me that different types of content is best distributed using different media.
I respect both McCloud and Groth and feel that they are both correct. I read 10-15 comic books a week (and I have been doing it for 30 years now) and I love going back and re-reading the books. I also look at seven or eight strips per day and don't miss not having them on paper. There are also quite a few Flash animations that I have put on CDR.
Before the Internet can be used to reliably present the different types of materials that have been talked about here, there are a number of technical challenges that have to be met.
I find that no matter how good the display is, the subtleties of the work in a panel is lost - this is especially true for hand painted books (Look at Jeff Smith and Charles Vess' "Rose" series to see what I mean). Strips do not have this limitation and many of the most successful strips use the drawings as a framework for the story/joke - Going with this, how successful do you think Scott Adams would be if he was constantly compared to artists like Curt Swan?
Another is the speed of the Internet and PC equipment. I have a cable modem at home, but often I am waiting for a new graphic to come up or to retrieve a previously read one. There is a certain kinematic sense that is part of a comic book that the Internet cannot yet simulate (although for a strip or a Flash file, their nature transcends this problem).
I do not believe that motion can be adequately modelled using simple animation. Most animation that I have seen in comics is really "eye candy" that very rarely is integral to the scene/story/joke. I suspect that substantial animation that works with the story requires more work than is reasonable for a monthly (comic) book or daily strip. But for many Flash media presentations, simple animation adds more than what would be expected for the amount of work that is required.
While I feel that the different forms of visual entertainment are being presented in the appropriate format, this does not mean that things won't change in the future.
It is probably good that McCloud and Groth are having these discussions/arguments, but I would expect that either technology changes to make the choice/answer obvious or new forms of comics will be invented and it will find its own niche, just the way comic books, comic strips and Flash media have.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
But the problem is, for every little strip, you have to wait for at least a day. When you but a book, you get hundreds of strips in one step.
The Polymer-City Chronicles originally appeared on the web in late 94'. The author recently transitioned the strip from a "4-panel funny" format a few weeks ago and has begun a story arc which he expects will take him through the end of the year. It's well worth the read, and the author takes donations as well to help cover the cost of publishing the comic.
Paper is still a beautiful medium.
Got Rhinos?
This reading by choice (instead of the school forced reading) usually leads the young people of today and tomorrow onto the path of higher knowledge and better understanding. So, why not use the 'Net to extend this choice and create a better read society? Is not a well read society better able to make distinctions between FUD and fact? Between the technical and the trash?
Just food for thought...
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I enjoyed TMCM a lot, especially the comic book series .. I also enjoyed Bob the Angry Flower. There are some very good comics online that I'm sure I would never have known about were it not for the Internet (comics are not very big in the country I live, most people here have a direct mental association between "comics" and "young children".)
Preacher. Ugh. I had that series recommended to me by someone who I thought had decent taste in comics. It is the bloody worst piece of infantile tripe I've ever had the misfortune to read. It was like reading a role-playing campaign run by 14 year old boys with ADD. Maybe it was just the series I read ("Gone to Texas"), but I wouldn't get anywhere near another series by these clowns after that experience. I feel dumber for having read it.
Avoid Preacher. But definitely read anything by Frank Miller, especially "Sin City" and "That Yellow Bastard".
Sandman is good too.
/bluesninja
Too Much Coffee Man is good, well known small press comic which can be read online through scanned comic book pages. The site also has quite a few good cartoons as well.
He announced when he started that he'd tell the whole story in 300 monthly episodes, and then that's it - no more Cerebus, and we already know the ending (Cerebus, the eponymous aadvark hero) dies. There's no point me babbling about it any longer, just get some monthlies (you need at least a good half-dozen to get a feel for the story enough for it to make some sort of sense, BTW) and, um, enjoy. Cerebus is really good, and Dave Sim is an Artist of the highest calibre. No question.
To remember this, associate the "F" sound in "different" with the "F" which is the first letter in "from", and the "T" sound in "better" with the "T" which is the first letter in "than".
As for "then" versus "than", the rule is "know which word means what".
Thank you for your attention, we now return you to your regularly scheduled flamefest.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Granted, it's hosted on e-sheep, which was mentioned in the article, but The Guy I Almost Was has to be about the best long form web comic I've read. No stupid gimicks like horizontal scrolling, just good story telling. (God I tried to read that Egyptian comic but gave up because it was too damned annoying.)
Read it. It's good.