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Comics Escape a Paper Box and Evolve to the Web
securitas writes "The New York Times' Sarah Boxer takes a look at the evolution of comics from paper to the Internet and asks: 'It's drawn and it's written, but is it still comics?' She cites Scott McCloud's Reinventing Comics '...in which he argued that the future of comics is on the Web.' Also cited in the article are Copper by Kazu Kibuishi, found on boltcity.com and The Discovery of Spoons by Alexander Danner and John Barber, found at twentysevenletters.com, as well as several others. The article links to an angry attack by Gary Groth of Fantagraphics against McCloud and his views in Reinventing Comics."
But addressing the point... Whether it's the funnies available on many newspaper sites or indie stuff like pennyarcade.com, I believe that a comic is defined by the narrative format, both in terms of length, and in terms of having "shots" enclosed in panels. The long ones you can call "graphic novels" if you want, but they're still comics in my mind. And whether they're delivered digitally or in print, they're comics.
Where the border blurs, IMO, is when the panels are animated: still being laid out as a comic, but each panel having more action/content than a printed panel could (possibly with sound as well). I think that's the way digital media is breaking down many old formats and (uggghhh, about to use corporate-speak) creating a new paradigm. It's allowing older mediums to evolve and incorporate new elements that, if not breaking them out of old boxes, allow them to push the envelope of what the status-quo would consider their format to be.
Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
2 entries found for comic strip.
comic strip
n.
1. A usually humorous narrative sequence of cartoon panels: taped a comic strip to her office door.
2. A series or serialization of such narrative sequences, usually featuring a regular cast of characters: a comic strip that has been syndicated for over 40 years.
Comics are in the intarweb now?
sheesh... what next? Places where you can buy stuff?
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
First, lets take newspaper comics, in terms of format - typical 3-panel blurb except for Sundays. To be honest, there's really no real difference between having them in print on the newspaper or having them online - neither method of distribution makes a difference in this implicitly limited format. Though it would be nice to see Penny Arcade in the Union Tribune.
On the other hand, I believe having real comic books published online would be a boon for the industry. I have a good friend that runs a comic shop, and I frequent it regularly - I'm quite possibly the youngest customer (16) that my friend has. Everyone who shops there is either a 'Comic-Book-Guy'esque collector or some old dude reminiscing about his kid days. Paper comics are great things, but their manner of distribution towards the audience (teenagers, younger kids) is out of touch with this generation.
The future of the narrative comic with real storylines and interesting people has to be online - that's where you'll find your waiting audience. Webcomics for the most part don't have stale and old plots, nor do they have coughed up variants of the same characters. If DC/Marvel had a decent online presence and started making original comics again, Keenspot and the rest of the webcomic industry would be hard-pressed.
If you can change the media from print to web and still call it a comic, why not from print to big screen? Personally, if i can't feel the shitty paper, and smell that shitty ink, it aint no comic. Don't get me wrong, I'm no luddite; I read more ebooks than printed, for the last several years. I'd just prefer a new moniker for the online comics. Hey, here's a catchy one that the kids'll love -- E comic!
I am not left-handed, either!
Sounds like good fodder for a PhD thesis... I see grant potential.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The article gets this funny perspective where is hails McCloud for his "vision", and then comes down on him for that vision not being fulfilled.
That "vision" is identifying the need of comics to "go digital", but then argues that those comics that have done so are fruitless, because they either resemble animation, or are still trapped in little boxes.
That seems a little odd to me. For as cool as computers are, they are limited by human perception, and if you are going to accuse any moving animation of being "really more like animated cartoons", and accuse any still comic of being trapped in a box, an limmit your horizons of criticism to that, well, I think you're stuck.
Nowhere does the article mention homestar runner. I'm not a fanboi at all, I haven't seen it in almost 2 years now, but let's be fair: Homestar runner's a "comic" that has really used what technology offers quite well.
I reckon that those comics that embrace the "digital revolution" (not my language, that's from the article, thank you) are those that use the user as part of the comic experience. While the user's input isn't much of Homsestar runner, there certainly is an element of that, and I imagine future online comics that really can offer something new are those that will make the user's experience an increasingly integral part of exposition.
Maybe something like choose your own adventures, maybe something blog-ish where user submissions/comments are included as a vital part of the comic, I dunno. Hell, maybe something where the die-hard users become characters themselves.
*Anyway*, I think the author of the article wasn't thinking too hard about this one. She seemed to have a destination in mind when she started, and didn't make too much of an effort to see where the box v. animation paradigm might be starting to break down.
I'm not surprised to see this article here, but if you click here you'll find a good disection of the piece. Here's a small snippet that summarises the post:
Boxer's research would barely qualify for a Freshman Comp essay, much less a piece of journalism in a newspaper of record. She seems to have drawn her information off of several Comics Journal articles, read Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, and looked at the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards.
Well, at least she dipped her toe into webcomics before declaring it a failed experiment.
I found that blog post (yes! It's a blog post! Oh noes!) much more interesting (and informative as well as correct) then the actual news paper article itself.
Nuff said.
Doesn't sound particularly strong. Of course they escaped!
You'll get modded down, of course, but that's unfortunate because you're 100% correct. People can debate the validity of a new medium all they want, but every seems to ignor the total suck factor - which is basically the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about.
An easier PhD is to "prove" some historical or fictional person is gay.
As an ex-panelologist I must say I do enjoy a few comics on the web, but they tend to be the shorter daylies, such as Penny Arcade.
However, balancing a laptop on your lap whilst reading the latest comic on the loo is not such a rewarding experience as flicking through the pulp of printed comics.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
There is a new genre of comics appearing that are both digital and portable like this outstanding one that's specifically aims at the Sony PSP. Some of them (like this one) are also have a Creative Commons license so readers are positively encouraged to remix it.
most of the webcomics i've read aren't remotely funny, interesting or worth the webspace
You're right. this is so derivative unlike those original paper comics. And yet, you read them. They must be doing something right.
how many fucking comics do we need about, some loser with some stupid talking furry animal. along with all those stupid chars that you couldn't care less about?
Oh I agree I don't know how anyone could care about these characters
of course don't forget the utter lack of good artwork for most of them Agreed. These hacks should be shot for the good of man-kind.
From Penny Arcade, one of those comics that actually, you know, pays a living wage to its creators.
If you want to do webcomics as art, then sure, do it the Scott McCloud way, and suffer for your art. If you want to actually make a living at it, i.e. a full time job that allows you the time to do it professionally, then sticking to formats that actually lend themselves to serialisation, syndication or page-by-page paying adverts is probably a better idea than relying on the cloud of fairies to pay your rent.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Mod me down -5 Offtopic Idiot, but it took me 3 or 4 readings of that sentence to figure out what the hell he's is talking about, an I'm still not sure.
It's so annoying. I know that achewood is the best comic on the web (or anywhere), but no one else seems to know.
See
http://www.jerkcity.com/
http://www.sexylosers.com/
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Short of Marvel's dotComics, which are usually 6 month old storylines set into flash. There are not alot of comic books online. DC has some cheesy lame-ass scroll all over to read comic thing on their site and there's always torrents and the CBR program but I find it miserable reading comics on a screen. The article seems to be more about web comic strips which are in no way new or news. Moving to E - comics or whatever is NOT a good idea financially for comic book companies because already they are free and I think that's the ONLY way anybody would be willing to be subjected to that experience.
To define a comic, as I believe the article is suggesting, as a sequence of drawings, constrained by length/other matters, is the same thing as saying a poem is only a poem if it is iambic pentameter. Really, I think Mrs. Boxor (writer) has her head on backwards if she's trying to define a comic and say that web comics arn't so much comics, and I hope somebody slaps sense into her, if at all possible.
Enjoy.
What else do you expect from Gary Groth, professional-grade comics asshole and all-around hypocrite? The guy's philosophy is that anything he isn't associated with sucks, because if it didn't suck, he'd be associated with it.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Yes.
Where are the media getting their reporters these days? Rejects from beauty school?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Possibly one of the greatest webcomics since the inception of webcomics is Dinosaur Comics.
Strictly speaking, it's not a comic, because the art never changes. It's identical day in, day out, and that's completely intentional. Read a few, and you'll agree with me that it is quite a comic regardless of how it is not a stereotypical comic.
Everyone should read Leisure Town ( http://www.leisuretown.com/ ). I am saying this because I totally love that comic. It's one of those things that manages to be amazingly stupid and mindboggling intelligent at the same time. It's fantasticly cheezy and infinitely stylish. It tackles both serious and lightweight issues. I does contain both good and great artwork. For an example of the latter, read "The Dog Mess" (Wasn't this called "The Dog Messiah" previously? Is my mind playing tricks on me?)
The story "What do people do all day" contains a joke so potent that I've pretty much been telling it two times a month since I first read it. It single handedly got me beaten up in the bathroom of the bar "99 bottles" in Santa Cruz. Or perhaps it had a little help from some of those 99 bottles, but I don't think I could have done it without the help from the joke.
If I'm not mistaken, the creator of Leisure Town is also the original author of "the Dilbert Hole", which I found amazingly funny. The strips can be found in the fantastic "A Comedy Crisis" on the Leisure Town site, although the script is played out by bunnies instead of Dilberts.
Leisure Town caters to all audiences, both wankers and techheads. You owe it to yourself to check it out, because chances are you are in fact both.
And while I'm at it, fanboying and meat puppeting, I need to shamelessly plug my own creation, the GladHeads. You can find it here: http://www.pacheads.com/
and I was disappointed.
Sometimes an angry rant means someone has put some real thought into their position and is willing to go out on a limb to defend it. Not always, and this definitely was not one of those cases.
Aside from being long, which is a plus in my opinion, and having a nicely narrated build-up, the conclusion was a total disappointment.
The gist of his argument is that there are commercial interest on the web and so that means that it's really no different from any other media. That's such an incredible oversimplification I was disappointed I had read it.
I host a dozen web sites on my home DSL connection that can be accessed by thousands of readers a month all over the world at very low costs to either myself as the publisher or my the users of those cites. That fact alone stands in direct contradiction to his claims that there is no real distinction between conventional media like broadcast or print and internet media. There's no way you can support thousands of users in dozens of countries as a hobby in the print world. No freakin' way. There is, indeed a huge difference and as upstream bandwidth gets inevitably cheaper at the consumer level this fact will only become more and more glaring.
...isn't paper still better for comics? I pick up Dilbert in my mail box every morning, but thats because its a 3 pane comic that takes less than 20 secs to read. I couldn't imagine sitting down to read a graphic novel in front of my PC anymore than I could imagine sitting down in front of a PC to read a book. I know some die hards can do it, but I'm not one of them.
The paper interface rocks. Zero eye strain, intuitive, future proof, pretty cheap and very portable. Its rubbish at animation and sound, and the searching facility can only be described as rudimentry (even with a good index). Its also renewable and recyclable.
The only reason I can see artists moving from print to html to because of startup cost and creative control. All power to them - thats what the digital revolution is all about! But with that come piracy and constant struggle to figure out a way to make people pay for something which is percieved as free. I'd probably be more inclined to subscribe to a comic site than a news site, but I'm also more tollerant of advertising surrounding information as opposed art.
Can you imagine reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance only to be forced to click through an advert for OCC after every page?
Comics should be affordable to young, imaginative minds, and should be accessible as such. The web sucks for that as, however much you try, you can't just stick your pocket money in your PC and get a comic out. Even if we give children credit cards thats still a bad deal for artists, as cards are rubbish for micropayments. We shall see...
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Next week:
Transmetropolitan's Spider Jerusalem takes a look at the evolution of newspapers from paper to the Internet and asks: 'It's investigated and it's written, but is it still newspapers?'
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
Argon Zark
You can't have any discussion of web-comics without including the father of all Internet comics.
Paper comics have nothing to fear from me!
Do these count as comics?
Some of the characters repeat, and the stuff goes over multiple panels. They were some of the funniest anti-war comics I saw; they captured the spirit of the time, and the cowboy-Americanness of Bush and the neo-Cons.
These were made possible by clip art. After they spread like crazy on the web, the book came out.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
... i can freely say that the guy is seriously behind; webcomics have been around since '96 (the trophy for oldest webcomic that is still updated goes to http://www.sabrina-online.com/, closely followed by sluggy and user friendly).
So why does he notice only now?
You know, here in germany we have this term called "saure-gurken-zeit" (roughly translates as "pickled cucumbers period"), meaning this stretch during the summer where there are NO news at all, and the papers start publishing cooking recipes on their frontpages for lack of anything better to print...
is there a term for this in english?
'Nuff said: http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-06- 01
Link pimping day!! My dailies are sinfest and suburbantribe
Okay, guys, it's time to test our company's newest product..
Let's turn the Simplificator to level 1!
Everyone knows that when a new area of business opens up, lots of exaggerated claims are made -- and then later it's easy to see that those claims were just propaganda and have nothing to do with what actually happened.
Hmm, good -- but not simple enough! Let's crank up the power a bit and turn to level TEN!
Whenever a new world opens up, some pompous twits will sound off about it, but the clamor dies down and is forgotten in time.
Short and to the point! Now, let's put on our goggles and lead coats, and turn it UP TO ELEVEN!
Scott McCloud is a pretentious idiot, but the comics business will carry on regardless. Duh.
Hooray for the Simplificator! It cut to the very heart of the discourse -- and the only damage was some trivial radiation leaking!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
That sentence struck me as fairly amusing.
We started drawing our comic (link below) over a year ago, put it exclusively on the internet, and (oddly enough) grew such a devoted and wonderful audience, that we're printing a "best-of" collection this fall. We went from internet to paper.
So in a way, I guess we're the opposite of what Sarah Boxer calls "evolution" And I'd wager we're not the only ones.
StupidChildren...the reason jesus is crying
An interesting one is Girl Genius Online. This was a traditional printed comic. Recently, the authors put up the website. New pages are put online on MWF, and when a volume willl be complete it'll get published in paper format. At the same time, they're rehashing their old issues (GG101), again one page every other workday.
Talk about the best of both worlds :)
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Groth starts with the premise that any new frontier is heralded with propaganda and that the eventual reality is very different than what we are led to expect. That's true as far as it goes.
He then goes on to say that the internet will be just the same old thing we've always seen, a cultural wasteland controlled by the corporations.
The guy has obviously not read/understood Marshall McLuhan. The nature of the medium determines its effects. The internet is not television. Its effects are vastly different. I admit that it is a challenge for a small cartoonist to get traffic to his/her site. On the other hand, it is a greater challenge to get published by someone with shelf space and distribution.
My kids keep coming up with artists/musicians that they would never have heard of if they had to rely on print/radio/television. The game is different and Groth misses that point. Although he makes a lot of good points, missing that one fundamental thing compromises everything he says.
To my jijnd, ocne you start adding too much animation to the comic you are creating a cartoon/animation. I would expect a digital comic to be more interesting by allowing user interaction - maybe picking your own plot or ending... soemthing like the following perhaps?
http://micomicsnet.rzero.com/cyop/
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Check out Tapestry for all your favorite comics.
Tapestry is a directory of RSS feeds for online comics. They help you to keep up to date from within your favourite news aggregator, especially if you happen to miss a few days.
Why wouldn't it be? Most of the syndicated paper comics have moved to an online format. Are Garfield and Dilbert no longer considered comics because their creators have chosen to post their strips online?
Much as I enjoy reading a good online comic, there are more reasons for them not being in print than some establishment conspiracy to censor them and generally keep them down.
E.g., since you've mentioned Sexy Losers, he's had how many strips in the last year? 1? Maybe 2?
There are plenty of porn comic books (e.g., hentai), and comic strips in adult magazines (e.g., when I last read a Playboy magazine, a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I seem to remember a comic strip in there too.) So there is no real reason to assume that _the_ reason Sexy Losers isn't in print is the sex-related content. There _are_ places that publish just that kind of thing.
On the other hand, a magazine might want to see a comic from you every day or week. It doesn't matter if today you have a hangover, or you've been lan-partying all night and slept all day, or you're at a comic convention and can't be arsed to draw yours.
Look at Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes or, better yet, at the one that got attacked by both PvP Online and Penny Arcade: Non Sequitur. I'm not saying the individual comics are better, but I'm saying that they've produced one comic a day for years straight. No "shirt-guy stick-figures" filler strips, no "today (or this month) I don't have time to draw one", no "I forgot I was supposed to draw one in colour for today", no other excuses.
_Some_ online comics (i.e., ignoring the ones which are just crap) are better if you take the individual strips, but can't seem to keep any predictable schedule. Much as I like them, if I had a newspaper, even _I_ wouldn't print them.
That's just one of the problems. I could go on with others (e.g., the fine difference between appealing to a niche, and the kind of appeal needed in a major newspaper), but methinks you've got the idea by now. Sometimes the reason you aren't in print has _nothing_ to do with censorship and being oppressed by the establishment,
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And while I like Kevin and Kell, User Friendly, Penny Arcade, Player versus Player, and Piled Higher and Deeper, there is one comic I've found on-line which is my favorite.
It has black humour, confronting topics, and it's furry, but it's not warm and cuddly furry by any stretch of the imagination.
Jack
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Comics are like blogs - anyone can now create them thanks to the web, but most are crap. I follow links to comics sometimes and read them wondering how people find them entertaining. They usually involve poor artwork, poor writing, zero humour, humour for twelve year olds, or a combination of all of these.
web comics have been around for years. Comics like PennyArcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del are pretty successful and have strong followings. I would have to say that the New York Times is running this is story several years to late.
I check it daily and have several of the books in print. It's a great example of how well comic strips can work online; in fact the books actually feel like they are lacking in comparison to the web site.
What I'm really waiting for is the digital comic as invented by Tom Hank in Big, all those years ago. I don't know about the rest of you, but it made me drool at the time. So, my powerbook is a bit bigger, but I can pretend.
IMO, the number one force in changing the world of comics in the last twenty years has been the influence of Bill Waterson. Other comic strip artists (well, the ones who were paying attention) have picked up two things as a result of his strip.
The first is that the strip needs to engage the reader every single day; I think other comic strip artists had known that in the past, but they had forgotten it, and the comic strips of the 1980s were a bland world wherein out of an entire page of comics, with eight or ten strips, the reader hoped to get a chuckle out of one of them. That trend has reversed now, thanks in large part to Waterson.
The second thing, however, is in the long term probably the more important influence of Waterson's work -- not because it's not important to engage the reader every day, but because the other strips would have figured that out anyway. But Waterson was the one who rebelled against the constrained panel layout that the newspapers and syndicates had been enforcing on everyone and experimented with more interesting layouts. This has inspired other strips, and will presumably continue to do so. Most strips still fit in the standard panel layouts, but the door has been opened for other possibilities.
And that's where we come back to topic, because publishing on the web gives comic strip artists the opportunity to do, layout-wise, whatever they want. Some of them are taking advantage of that. This is the beginning of a whole new *kind*, IMO, of comic strip.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Here's some diverse webcomics for your browsing..
Apokalupsis Webcomics
Nth Dimension
w00t
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
A comic strip about AD&D world
I'll take George Perez, Jose-Luis Garcia Lopez, Chris Claremont, Phil Jimenez, Ed Benes, Jim Lee, and many others over what I am likely to see on the Web anytime soon.
The lack of a cohesive universe also hurts a lot of webcomics. That doesn't matter to a lot of people, but I like the fact that I can open a copy of Batgirl and it can tie-in to something completely unrelated, like Adventures of Superman.
Seriously, not that this is a fair comparison, but when webcomics can offer a chance of something like this, I'm there.
http://www.questionablecontent.net/
e =1
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/
http://www.catandgirl.com/
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php
http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=631
http://www.bobandgeorge.com/Archive/Apr04.php?dat
There must be a way to just "slip" these into the discussion, but why bother? What's the good of an article ranting about webcomics without finding new, good web comics?
The ______ Agenda
I think one of the most innovative things to happen to comics was Ang Lee's use of panels in some of the cut sequences in The Hulk. Those sequences, moreso than the rest of the movie, really brought out the feel of the story's comic book origin. In a certain sense, its the maturation of the process that started with the visually graphic sound effects from the Batman TV show.
What was most interesting about Ang Lee's work was the way that those cut sequences framed the sequences as individual "shots" and made the total movement of the scene larger than merely the sum of the parts. IMO, this is the real innovation that the web has to offer comics, the ability to frame motion and sound. The web also offers one additional capability: the ability of the user to interact with the frames.
Unfortunately, it seems that most web comics ignore these innovations. The vast majority of comics on the web are simply digital reproduction of comics as they appeared on paper. This isn't any more innovative than transferring any other image or text from print to electrons. It's more like the transition from pulp to glossies during the heyday of the graphic novel. It's the same format, only presented in a slightly more sophisticated medium.
Someone figured out how to scan an image and put it on the web? WTF?!!! You know what would be really cool? A comic about gaming. I really hope someone comes out with one. And maybe one about geeks who spam satan while wearing clothes 10 years out of date.
I drank what? -- Socrates
given the loveliness of these drawings and the concomitant interest the reader could have in these drawings qua drawings, they are entirely superrogatory. He has mastered a curiously unique rhetorical strategy - or visual sleight-of-hand - that combines a phlebitic and platitudinous sound bite with easy-to-swallow symbols and a good-natured, visual persona who prances and zips around the page like a professorial Candide, wide-eyed, curious, that simultaneously oozes sincerity and gullibility. Angry fantagraphics guy needs to read "understanding prose."
ever since I learned that the funny dull gray squiggles represented sounds.
I was reading "Tintin" "Spirou" "Modeste & PonPon" both the books and the magazine form. The European "Bande Illustre" has always been much more than the English saturday morning "comix for the kids". (Though the first strip was "Mutt & Jeff" and that was basically 'coded' race results. How far from never-never-land can you get.)
Then I discovered English. Marvel and DC comics weer a staple but I missed the sheer breadth of subjects in European comics (so I read them too.)
I think that the Web's biggest contribution to the graphic style of writing is the sheer number of artists that can be presented.
Its not like Marvel and DC comics which have a given standard and a given 'Stan Lee' art style and everything you draw has to be at that level.
With web comics, you find a huge variety of art styles (and they artist is free to experiment and change incrementally or drastically) subjects and 'media' going from scanned 'flat art' to animation to full 3D rendering (though I have yet to find a fully rendered strip that can carry the day. You meed to have a story that demands to be fully rendered.)
Yes there is a lot of jejeune crap out there but there is a lot more stuff that is actually very good and would not be reachable otherwise because it doesn't fit some publisher's pre-existing formulaic mould.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"Look at Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes or, better yet, at the one that got attacked by both PvP Online and Penny Arcade: Non Sequitur. I'm not saying the individual comics are better, but I'm saying that they've produced one comic a day for years straight. No "shirt-guy stick-figures" filler strips, no "today (or this month) I don't have time to draw one", no "I forgot I was supposed to draw one in colour for today", no other excuses."
Dont be so sure that they never had there days where they couldnt get a strip out.. the difference between the paper published ones and the web ones are the web ones have the option of doing a filler.. while the published ones will just reprint an older comic.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Your toilets have comics printed on them? Damn, the cool stuff never makes it to America.
Well, now it's done.
tell you that it really doesn't matter to the strip whether I read it on paper or online.
It matters to me, sometimes I also like to read the sunday New York Times and get a 'sunlit moment of "Pottery Barn"/"Martha Stewart" suburban living', but it matters not to the strip.
Sometimes I reread a strip in two differing light environments because I am curious as to the effect that has on my appreaciation. When I read "Maus" the second time, I made it a point to sit on the throne in a 'dimmed' bathroom. It was even more depressing. The first time was on those 'Martha Stewart Living' brightly lit days.
Much of what I read comes from the web and exclusively because the artists couldn't get space on a dead tree to put up a "Wanted" poster.
In some cases, I can see the wisdom of that, the 'artsts' have nothing to say and can't draw worth a dan. But in other cases, it just that the 'product' just doesn't fit into existing marketing categories.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yes, I remember times when artists would go on vacation and print re-runs. Webcomics have archives and give away the reruns for free, so that wouldn't work for them.
I think we can answer this question pretty easily:
The New York Times' Sarah Boxer takes a look at the evolution of comics from paper to the Internet and asks: 'It's drawn and it's written, but is it still comics?
Umm... hello?? Earth to NY Times, yes that is still a fucking comic. How hard of a question is that?
Your own newspaper has gone from paper to web, and it's still a fucking newspaper. Wake the hell up morons!
As much as people would like to think that eventually printed mediums will disapear, its just not so. The one thing that you can never get from a digital representation of written works is the fun & randomness of being able to flip through a book held in hand (encyclopedias & dictionaries would be my first examples). That being said, I have discovered many new comic strips & graphic novels online that dont even appear in a printed version. They are incredibly funny, exciting & entertaining and I never would have seen these talented people art otherwise. The digital world allows nobodys the chance to be published and seen.
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
Really, reinventing comics, is that what's going on here? Or is it just putting a comic up on the interweb?
Let's ask Penny Arcade what they think about this.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Typically a newspaper comic has many strips prepared in advance, unlike a webcomic where the latest strip was likely to have been drawn just the previous night. That is one major reason newspaper comics don't have filler often.
Read the Nostalgia Zine About Comics
An analysis of circulation figures, the state of mind of collectors and the Defacing of Comic Cover Art. Written by people with decades of experience in the business.
http://pandaxpress.com/
This is a web comic that I have been reading lately. Amazing story and amazing art.
The creators make no bones about the fact that they still wish to publish in paper, but they want a fan-base first. I, for one, would certainly buy a copy as it would be completly worth it to me.
To me, the idea of publishing on the web first, and then in paper form makes sense as a business model. Has any webcomic aside from http://userfriendly.org/ done this with any success?
I've been more interested in the development of photobased comics, like Fluff in Brooklyn, http://www.asofterworld.com/ http://www.alienlovespredator.com/ and http://sinisterbedfellows.com./ Some of these have published print collections and Sinister Bedfellows appears in The Blotter, a NC monthly magazine.
Anyone remember that one? Guy scanned in Family Circus cartoons every couple days or so, people would submit new captions for them, guy and his friends would review them and put up the best (and the funniest of the worst) ones. Very perverse, very, very funny. He had to shut it down when Bill Keene complained. Well, at first he wasn't going to, but then he talked to Bill, who said, "Basically, this comic is me and my family. You and your contributers aren't just breaking copyright law, you are making me out to be a homosexual child molester, and I'm kind of uncomfortable with that." You can still find archives of it, although they have been getting harder and harder to find. Here's one. Bonus points to anyone who can find one of my captions (they're in the later ones.)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That was a very odd article. It seemed like our intrepid reporter did some major skimming of the subject material and the information flow seemed a bit disjointed to me. I mean, the Gary Groth - McCloud bits were ancient history. I didn't care for her treatment of McCloud. Granted, micropayments aren't looking to be the savior people were hoping for, but Scott is far from a vilified figure, and that was a sour portrayal of him. The vaguely sarcastic comments about subscriptions were also strange to read. If you're going to write about the economics of web comics, write about that (or just read this - it seems to cover things reasonably well). If you're going to review web comics, review web comics. This was a poorly constructed argument against pay-per-view content and an amateurish gloss-over on the comics themselves. Phooey.
On a brighter note, is it just me, or is the New York Times running a lot of comics-related material lately?
Whenever there's an article about webcomics I can't help but think about this Checkerboard Nightmare strip. http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20050620.ht ml
-FL
Well, that's good and insightful, but I can't see what's preventing online comics from doing stuff in advance too.
Still, all I'm saying is that Sexy Losers has produced a total of 2 strips or so this year. They're high quality and all, but I think it's a fairly safe bet that it's just not enough for a magazine. Now I'm not whining about it or anything, just saying that at a wild guess that seems a more likely explanation than censorship.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
over inflated Ego.
His points are:
When something goes online, it changes... well duh. When anything is put an a different medium it changes to some extent.
People are doing it wrong, because that's not how he thinks it should be.
People who put there comic on the web should have to pay him.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Coreopsis
Last Kiss
Walking Mage
Look kids! Comics!
Better late than never. There was an article in the French newspaper "Le Figaro" on web comics recently. I'm quoted a couple times. It's in French (but I was interviewed in English.) The original article is gone from Le Figaro's website, but a copy of the series (it was part 3 of a 3 part on comics) is here.
http://bdtresor.free.fr/index.php?page=actu
It's the 11/08/2005 entry.
Alexander Watkins and Ruby Watkins both say Bwargg! to comics.