Via Our European Friends
First, a quick update to our ongoing Who’s Gonna Be At NYCC discussion: Scott C will be at (and have copies of his new book, Amazing Everything for sale via) the Insight Editions booth, #1939. He’ll also have signings/appearances at the Simon & Schuster (#2612) and :01 Books (1730) booths at various times on Saturday, in support of Zombie in Love (S&S) and Nursery Rhyme Comics (:01), respectively. Schedule here, and speaking of Nursery Rhyme Comics, the fine folks at :01 (hi, Gina!) sent me a review copy yesterday and I can’t stop smiling when I look at it. Guys, I need to find a small child available for short-term leasing so I can read these nursery rhymes and thus mold the intellectual development of a small person.
- Once upon a time, there was a man named George Plimpton; he engaged in many acts of experiential reportage, inspired at least one videogame, and was celebrated in song. Oh, yeah, and a great literary journal that he founded had a chat with Kate Beaton, continuing her metaphorical Sherman’s March to the sea of popular consciousness¹. Also, it is entirely likely that this marks the first time that the words alcoholic dickbags ever appeared in the The Paris Review.
- Also from across the Ocean Sea³, Internet Jesus has some words on digital comics (cf: yesterday, this page), webcomics (cf: every day, this page), and some critical points of distinction between them. It’s worth reading the entire thing, but some of his most salient points are made not in the text, but as captions inside images, which I will reproduce here as an amuse-bouche for your electronic media palate:
- Why people like digital comics: you can charge for them, and they look pretty on an iPad.
- Why people like webcomics: they’re free.
- Webcomics are broadcast.
- (This is the point at which this whole entry just got the hell away from me and became an extended fugue state ramble about the shape of comics and, God, I don’t know, a dozen other things. Abandon hope all ye who read on. It’s not going to get better.) (Seriously.)
Señor Jesus was wrong on one point — his thoughts may have come from a fugue state, but they are not a ramble, and no hope need be abandoned. There’s quite a lot of Ellis-style cut through the bullshit and say what everybody else is too polite to say about what webcomics are good for, about how digital (paywalled small chunks of story) may or may not do, and where we may see either or both progressing in the future. Read it carefully, set it aside for a year or so, and read it carefully again to see what the passage of time has brought; I’m betting he’s more right than wrong.
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¹ At this rate of progress, Beaton will soon infiltrate the culture to the point that the collective neurons used to track things like Snooki and Kardashians will be reduced to scorched earth, the better to be rebuilt to a new and more useful purpose.²² Don’t look at me like that; we both know perfectly well that grey matter is better used to track the delightful exploits of fat ponies and cookie-eating Napoleon than any current inhabitant of People or US Weekly.
³ Alternate views of Columbus and his legacy may be found on the internet.
[…] Ellis: Why people like webcomics Found via: Fleen – Original Source: Warren […]
By Newscast for October 16th, 2011 | The Webcast Beacon Network on 10.18.11 12:24 pm
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