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.
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
Being a Student/Parenting in the 21st Century
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 1
I feel badly for Patrick because this question has really put him in the spotlight as a parent. And its a really tough time to be a parent.
For our own two teenage boys, we have a weekly recitation on what not to bring to school (alcohol, drugs, weapons (guns, knives, laser pointers), large amounts of cash (over $20) and pornography), what not to say at school (threats of any kind, racist comments anywhere, dirty jokes in open areas and backtalk) and what to do if you are bullied (go straight to the office, demand that an Incident Report be written up, use terms like "I felt uncomfortable with the way he looked at me", "I didn't like the way he touched me/grabbed me" and during the incident look the bullies straight in the eyes - do not turn away and do not say anything).
I've heard of a number of cases like Sean's and if the kid has said anything threatening, suddenly he will find that he scared five other kids that are all a foot taller than him which ends up with him talking to youth worker/police officer with a tape recorder running (and maybe being videotaped at the same time).
The only defense a kid who's being bullied has is to stay calm and in control during these situations and afterward demand that the incident is documented.
I was horrified by original "joke". Maybe humor can be defined as when somebody else falls, but I don't believe that it is funny to parody providing the tools to destroy somebody else's life.
And with this is where I think MasterCard should have approached RHF. Instead of lawyers initially quoting registered marks and stating copyright law, wouldn't it have been more effective if a MasterCard executive wrote the email saying that they were upset at the suggestion that MC is a necessary element to a massacre?
I was shocked by the virtually unanimous support for RHF in this case (little web guy against multinational lawyers). How many people would be still be against MC if they had emphasized they did not want their product associated with tragedies like Columbine instead of initially quoting copyright law?
Maybe this is a case where the human element could generate more sympathy for the company.
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but one of the things that both Kubrick and Clarke were most proud of was the special Oscar(tm) that went to Planet of the Apes for makeup.
The "proto-humans" at the start of 2001 were never considered because the Academy could not be convinced that they were not actually trained apes.
I've got over 100 hours in a Cessna as Pilot In Command, an engineering degree and I read "Aviation Week & Space Technology" cover to cover every week. I could swing $20K (as well as the cost of flying a fighter for an hour) to learn how to safely eject and I'm a quick study and should be able to remember what buttons not to push.
By Tito's and the Russian's arguments, I would be "Practically a Fighter Pilot". Yet, if I were to seriously suggest this I would get chucked out on my ass.
I feel badly for Dennis Tito, he paid for a shot and the world changed on him. I would hope that once the station has been built and guidelines for tourists have been established that he be given the first seat going up. But until then, he should just look up like the rest of us.
If what I wrote above isn't true, maybe somebody could give me the URL where I can sign up to fly a Tomcat. Off the Reagan would be preferred.
I think the big question, that Jon nosed around with that nobody has commented on, is quite simply what is a 'Bad Monopoly'? I've tried to articulate it several times in this reply and the best I can do is a company in a leadership position that stifles competition.
This is not a very crisp definition and one that would have to be interpreted by company officials, judges, justice departments, etc. Despite this, I have to point out that there are a lot of companies that would be in violation of this definition.
I shudder at the amount of power Michael Eisner's Disney has in the media and over our everyday lives. The same goes for AOL/Time-Warner, Boeing, Intel and Walmart. None of these companies are innovative and yet they hold commanding positions in their markets and do everything they can to maintain the status quo. These positions seem to be based on forceful management, vast sums of money, political saavy and public inertia.
I really feel that if Microsoft is guilty of anything, it is the stupidity and arrogance of Gates et al resulting in the refusal to give lawmakers the lip service that would have let them walk out of the court with a slapped wrist.
This isn't "right", but explain to me why it is okay for another Washington based company that produced over 70% of all the airliners in the United States to buy up its closest competitor to increase its volume to essentially 100% by burying many of the company's products.
In this (Boeing) case, apparently it is the continuation of a 'Good Monopoly' for it to buy McDonnell-Douglas and to shut down all but one of MD's airliner assembly lines.
So what is a 'Bad Monopoly' and why is Microsoft guilty of being one?
I have just completed the second edition of my "Programming and Customizing the PICmicro(R) Microcontroller" and I am in a similar boat - two large appendices ("Introduction to Programming" and "Introduction to Electronics" - totalling about 300 pages) are being pdf'd and put on the CD-ROM. These appendices were submitted with the rest of the manuscript and do have the same copyright warnings as the software that comes on the CD-ROM.
The decision was made to put this text on the CD-ROM to reduce the overall price of the book and make it less "telephone directory" like (as it is, it will tip the scales at 1,200+ pages). These appendices were requested by people who felt that the first edition of the book assumed that the reader was able to program and understood Ohm's law. These appendices are not central to the theme of the book and are superfluous for many readers.
I feel that in this case, putting the appendices on CD-ROM was a good compromise. The information on them is not part of the overall book, but is important information for some readers. The same amount of work (and cost) was put into making the pdfs as if they were going to be pages.
The reason for going with the software copyright statement for the pdf appendices was due to feeling from the McGraw-Hill (who publishes my books) corporate lawyers that this was the most appropriate method of protecting the electronic text/files/format.
I've written eight books so far and in none of these cases, sending a partially completed manuscript is acceptable. I doubt McGraw-Hill is any different in this regard than any other publisher. Even with seasoned writers, not many publishers are willing to start the copyedit/layout process without a completed manuscript, there is just too much danger or later chapters requiring substantial changes in early chapters.
I suspect that the last 100 pages of Inside AutoCAD Map 2000 are appendices and site links that are actually very appropriate in pdf format. Anything else will get the book/author/publisher hammered on Amazon.com and other Internet resources (like/.).
The pdf of the last 100 pages was probably done for cost reasons, but before you judge the situation, let's get some facts on what is contained in the pdfs. If it is straight text, then the complaints are justified. If it is appendices with vendor/site links, then maybe consideration should be given as to whether or not this is an appropriate way for providing this information.
I was actually disappointed by the article because it doesn't look forward. If IP law is stuck in the 1800s, how did people become billionaires in the twentieth century? And, based on this past history, who's to say that new forms of separating people from their money won't be found by the recording industry greedheads?
I wouldn't be surprised to see Napster and every other site offering entertainment content get so wrapped up in litigation that their great-grandchildren are indentured workers. I can see sites avoiding any possibility of being wrapped up in this controversy resulting in MP3 dying except for personal use on personally owned CDs.
Personally, I would like to see the levelling of the playing field that the article mentions - I think it would be a real change in society and one for the better, but I wouldn't count on it.
I read CFL for the first time a few months ago and I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with it. I found the changes between the three different eras to be quite jarring and difficult to get into. There are other outstanding books which took magazine novellas about different eras and combined them into a full novel without being confusing or ("The Listeners" by James Gunn is an outstanding example of this).
The book itself is very tedious to read and anybody that finished it should be proud of themselves. This is not to say that its badly written, just that every sixty pages or you had to learn a new "world" (while trying to tie back to the previous one). I can believe that people would start this book and give up about halfway through it.
As well, I found that the book didn't sit well with me for a variety of reasons.
Even though I am catholic, I didn't know a lot of prerequisite information regarding the beatification process and had to go to my wife (who is a religeon teacher) and ask exactly what was happening. To be fair, as you read through each novelette, you do get all the information that you require to understand what is happening - it just takes a while to figure out what the characters are discussing.
I also didn't like the theme of the book that human civilization is doomed to destroy itself in nuclear fire once it reaches a certain point. I found this view to be simplistic in its portrayal as an inevitible outcome of imperialistic asperations of which all humans have.
Not that this should be a prerequisite, but this book does not offer any hope (actually it crushes any hope for the world to become reborn) and that seems to be its biggest problem for me because it is about a civilization rebuilding itself.
I can see where people would like this book and think it is one of the greatest ever written. I think my complaint (and powerlord's) is that the book just isn't for us. If I was really to look at what I didn't like about this book was that the reviewers constantly crow about it and never add the warning: "NOT FOR EVERYBODY!"
Slashdot Mirror
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
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
I feel badly for Patrick because this question has really put him in the spotlight as a parent. And its a really tough time to be a parent.
For our own two teenage boys, we have a weekly recitation on what not to bring to school (alcohol, drugs, weapons (guns, knives, laser pointers), large amounts of cash (over $20) and pornography), what not to say at school (threats of any kind, racist comments anywhere, dirty jokes in open areas and backtalk) and what to do if you are bullied (go straight to the office, demand that an Incident Report be written up, use terms like "I felt uncomfortable with the way he looked at me", "I didn't like the way he touched me/grabbed me" and during the incident look the bullies straight in the eyes - do not turn away and do not say anything).
I've heard of a number of cases like Sean's and if the kid has said anything threatening, suddenly he will find that he scared five other kids that are all a foot taller than him which ends up with him talking to youth worker/police officer with a tape recorder running (and maybe being videotaped at the same time).
The only defense a kid who's being bullied has is to stay calm and in control during these situations and afterward demand that the incident is documented.
Patrick, my heart goes out to you and Sean,
myke
I was horrified by original "joke". Maybe humor can be defined as when somebody else falls, but I don't believe that it is funny to parody providing the tools to destroy somebody else's life.
And with this is where I think MasterCard should have approached RHF. Instead of lawyers initially quoting registered marks and stating copyright law, wouldn't it have been more effective if a MasterCard executive wrote the email saying that they were upset at the suggestion that MC is a necessary element to a massacre?
I was shocked by the virtually unanimous support for RHF in this case (little web guy against multinational lawyers). How many people would be still be against MC if they had emphasized they did not want their product associated with tragedies like Columbine instead of initially quoting copyright law?
Maybe this is a case where the human element could generate more sympathy for the company.
myke
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but one of the things that both Kubrick and Clarke were most proud of was the special Oscar(tm) that went to Planet of the Apes for makeup.
The "proto-humans" at the start of 2001 were never considered because the Academy could not be convinced that they were not actually trained apes.
myke
I've got over 100 hours in a Cessna as Pilot In Command, an engineering degree and I read "Aviation Week & Space Technology" cover to cover every week. I could swing $20K (as well as the cost of flying a fighter for an hour) to learn how to safely eject and I'm a quick study and should be able to remember what buttons not to push.
By Tito's and the Russian's arguments, I would be "Practically a Fighter Pilot". Yet, if I were to seriously suggest this I would get chucked out on my ass.
I feel badly for Dennis Tito, he paid for a shot and the world changed on him. I would hope that once the station has been built and guidelines for tourists have been established that he be given the first seat going up. But until then, he should just look up like the rest of us.
If what I wrote above isn't true, maybe somebody could give me the URL where I can sign up to fly a Tomcat. Off the Reagan would be preferred.
myke
I think the big question, that Jon nosed around with that nobody has commented on, is quite simply what is a 'Bad Monopoly'? I've tried to articulate it several times in this reply and the best I can do is a company in a leadership position that stifles competition.
This is not a very crisp definition and one that would have to be interpreted by company officials, judges, justice departments, etc. Despite this, I have to point out that there are a lot of companies that would be in violation of this definition.
I shudder at the amount of power Michael Eisner's Disney has in the media and over our everyday lives. The same goes for AOL/Time-Warner, Boeing, Intel and Walmart. None of these companies are innovative and yet they hold commanding positions in their markets and do everything they can to maintain the status quo. These positions seem to be based on forceful management, vast sums of money, political saavy and public inertia.
I really feel that if Microsoft is guilty of anything, it is the stupidity and arrogance of Gates et al resulting in the refusal to give lawmakers the lip service that would have let them walk out of the court with a slapped wrist.
This isn't "right", but explain to me why it is okay for another Washington based company that produced over 70% of all the airliners in the United States to buy up its closest competitor to increase its volume to essentially 100% by burying many of the company's products.
In this (Boeing) case, apparently it is the continuation of a 'Good Monopoly' for it to buy McDonnell-Douglas and to shut down all but one of MD's airliner assembly lines.
So what is a 'Bad Monopoly' and why is Microsoft guilty of being one?
The decision was made to put this text on the CD-ROM to reduce the overall price of the book and make it less "telephone directory" like (as it is, it will tip the scales at 1,200+ pages). These appendices were requested by people who felt that the first edition of the book assumed that the reader was able to program and understood Ohm's law. These appendices are not central to the theme of the book and are superfluous for many readers.
I feel that in this case, putting the appendices on CD-ROM was a good compromise. The information on them is not part of the overall book, but is important information for some readers. The same amount of work (and cost) was put into making the pdfs as if they were going to be pages.
The reason for going with the software copyright statement for the pdf appendices was due to feeling from the McGraw-Hill (who publishes my books) corporate lawyers that this was the most appropriate method of protecting the electronic text/files/format.
I've written eight books so far and in none of these cases, sending a partially completed manuscript is acceptable. I doubt McGraw-Hill is any different in this regard than any other publisher. Even with seasoned writers, not many publishers are willing to start the copyedit/layout process without a completed manuscript, there is just too much danger or later chapters requiring substantial changes in early chapters.
I suspect that the last 100 pages of Inside AutoCAD Map 2000 are appendices and site links that are actually very appropriate in pdf format. Anything else will get the book/author/publisher hammered on Amazon.com and other Internet resources (like /.).
The pdf of the last 100 pages was probably done for cost reasons, but before you judge the situation, let's get some facts on what is contained in the pdfs. If it is straight text, then the complaints are justified. If it is appendices with vendor/site links, then maybe consideration should be given as to whether or not this is an appropriate way for providing this information.
As the Human Torch used to say: "Flame On!"
I was actually disappointed by the article because it doesn't look forward. If IP law is stuck in the 1800s, how did people become billionaires in the twentieth century? And, based on this past history, who's to say that new forms of separating people from their money won't be found by the recording industry greedheads?
I wouldn't be surprised to see Napster and every other site offering entertainment content get so wrapped up in litigation that their great-grandchildren are indentured workers. I can see sites avoiding any possibility of being wrapped up in this controversy resulting in MP3 dying except for personal use on personally owned CDs.
Personally, I would like to see the levelling of the playing field that the article mentions - I think it would be a real change in society and one for the better, but I wouldn't count on it.
myke
I read CFL for the first time a few months ago and I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with it. I found the changes between the three different eras to be quite jarring and difficult to get into. There are other outstanding books which took magazine novellas about different eras and combined them into a full novel without being confusing or ("The Listeners" by James Gunn is an outstanding example of this).
The book itself is very tedious to read and anybody that finished it should be proud of themselves. This is not to say that its badly written, just that every sixty pages or you had to learn a new "world" (while trying to tie back to the previous one). I can believe that people would start this book and give up about halfway through it.
As well, I found that the book didn't sit well with me for a variety of reasons.
Even though I am catholic, I didn't know a lot of prerequisite information regarding the beatification process and had to go to my wife (who is a religeon teacher) and ask exactly what was happening. To be fair, as you read through each novelette, you do get all the information that you require to understand what is happening - it just takes a while to figure out what the characters are discussing.
I also didn't like the theme of the book that human civilization is doomed to destroy itself in nuclear fire once it reaches a certain point. I found this view to be simplistic in its portrayal as an inevitible outcome of imperialistic asperations of which all humans have.
Not that this should be a prerequisite, but this book does not offer any hope (actually it crushes any hope for the world to become reborn) and that seems to be its biggest problem for me because it is about a civilization rebuilding itself.
I can see where people would like this book and think it is one of the greatest ever written. I think my complaint (and powerlord's) is that the book just isn't for us. If I was really to look at what I didn't like about this book was that the reviewers constantly crow about it and never add the warning: "NOT FOR EVERYBODY!"
myke