A Subject Close To My Heart…
on August 3, 2010 at 4:17 pm
This news story caught my attention for obvious reasons, discussing the future of comics, print vs. digital.
I live in both worlds. I grew up on print comics, and drew dozens of comics that were printed in the 90′s. Plus, Benita and I make the lion’s share of our money from selling trade paperbacks.
Beginning in 2004, I wasn’t what one would call an early adopter in web comics, but I brought “Johnny Saturn” to the web with enthusiasm. More people read the comic per week than the total number of people who bought the hard-copy comics I drew in the 90′s.
I don’t buy single-issue comics anymore. The cost grew too much, and the storage space in my home was shrinking. I love comics in a very real way, but I now prefer trade-paperbacks. That’s the future of print comics, the collected edition. Collectors love to have something nice, be it the library edition “Hellboy” books, or the oversized “Watchmen,” or the huge “Invincible” collections, to whatever really.
As far as webcomics go, I believe the future is already here.
Agreed, but slightly different reasons — I can’t stand the pacing of reading single comic issues (which is why I didn’t get into them until so late in life). I can pick up a trade and loose myself in it for a few hours, but the 5-10 minutes entertainment I get out of a single issue just doesn’t cut it. My webcomics work because I subscribe to dozens of them, so there’s something to read daily.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Because of ‘decompression’ and writers like Brian Michael Bendis, comic pacing is much slower than it used to be. Mind you, I can really dig a good Brian Michael Bendis story, such as Powers, but it is what it is.
Well, it was much different when you got a single story in a single issue. There’s just so much crap going in any one title these days that has ramifications from some giant year long event going on in either Marvel or DC that I just don’t care anymore. It’s gotten too out of hand. I don’t mind a multi-issue arc provided I only have to keep up with the one title like some manga or Johnny Saturn. I think that’s why I like Aym Geronimo so much; It’s just singular stories featuring the same characters. Also, the artwork is much simpler, dynamic and easy to read (as opposed to the over-the-top art styles being used in the mainstream comics these days) and I like that a lot. It has style and class.
Benita says I sound like an old man (“you kids get off my lawn!”) sometimes, and now it’s your turn, Joel.
I don’t mind fancy drawing and rendering if it’s good and serves the story well. Otherwise, bleh…
Back in my day we didn’t have fancy-shmancy graphics and androgenous characters in our video games!! NO!! You were just a damned pixel. ONE PIXEL. And it was a huge pixel. You were a little square and the only thing you had for weapon was an arrow that was supposed to be a sword. And it only pointed in one direction: TO THE LEFT!! You kids with your fancy monsters and dragons that looked like they stepped right out of a picture book. We had ducks!! Those were our dragons!! And that’s the way it was. AND WE LIKED IT!!