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."

Comments

It's Still Rock N' Roll To Me

[gbulmash]

To me, comics will always be a few pages of pulp between a glossy cover, read in the back of my dad's car to make bearable the 2-hour drive to visit my grandparents. The drive back was spent listening to Dr. Demento (also becoming a relic of the past, sadly).

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

Well...

[FireballX301]

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.

Re:Well...

[dal20402]

To be honest, there's really no real difference between having [newspaper-style comics] in print on the newspaper or having them online

There are big differences here. The print format has the giant advantage that you tend to see comics other than your "favorites," because you can't help but read those nearby; you may get exposed to lots of artists including a great one or two. I would never have known a damn thing about newspaper comics if I had started reading them online.

But for each individual artist the online format is much more liberating. All of a sudden restrictions on size are completely gone; much more detail can be stuffed into each frame without it being reduced into illegibility. Color can be used every day, not just Sunday, and even the format can be changed in whatever way the artist likes (assuming he is willing to do separate versions of the comic for print and online).

Of course, the online "liberation" requires a new level of discipline from the artist. The truly great newspaper cartoonists were/are great because they can convey either jokes, an entire world, or both through a necessarily very simple and limited medium. Great online cartoonists will have a different set of skills, more akin to those of comic-book creators or even visual artists.

All this leaves aside the question of how much computer assistance is valuable in the daily-comic medium. Most artists use computers extensively these days; to my eye, the most successful are those such as Tom Tomorrow and Aaron McGruder whose styles deliberately showcase electronic techniques and are unafraid to admit it.

You've got a point

[conJunk]

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.

Re:You've got a point

[bmeteor]

I agree with you, she didn't think about this too much. The box v. animation paradigm, is a huge distinction to make. Part of the beauty of the comic book box is that it's compartmentalized. while the author can choose what the viewer looks at, the viewer can go at their own pace. My twin brother and I grew up on comic books, it'd usually take me 15 minutes to get through a book, while it'd take him 45 minutes because he'd really look at all the pictures.

The editing in animation doesn't allow that, it makes time the necessary component in determining pace. the box, on the other hand, determines the pace by just how much you are giving the reader to look at. smaller boxes can mean faster pace, and larger boxes can mean slower pace, but it really depends on how the author is using them and laying them out.

Personally for comics to succeed in the digital age, I think that the medium should be balanced between both the internet syndication, and the intensely private and personal act of sitting down with a book in your hand.

Incidentally, my brother graduated with an animation degree, but he hasn't had a job in production, because they were leaning him into flash rather than 2d traditional. i thought that sucked because the message behind watching handdrawn animation is "wow, some one drew all those frames"

I'm not surprised this made it to /.

[aussie_a]

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.

A counter-view in comic form

[Rogerborg]

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.

Paper or Electrons? What's the difference?

[CleverNickedName]

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?'

Activating the Simplificator...

[kahei]

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!

Re:no need for any further discussion

[pfafrich]

For a more interesting look at what a comic really is, I highly recomend Understanding Commics, by Scott Mc Cloud. It really is worth the read and makes you think. Theres about a chapter exploring what commics really mean, with many different definitions, he finally comes up with "sequential art", refelecting the intergration of time into the commic experience, this is its main distinction from other forms of art which don't have the time element.

Theres also lots to read about the creative process, which has relavance to us hackers, hew shows it as a multly level thing. Where you can focus on details, form, structure etc.

Overall one of the best books I've read.

Bill Waterson

[jonadab]

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.