Collective Thinking
Something has occurred since the advent of Web 2.0, I think, and that's the idea that free information is worth something more than has been paid for it. There are several comix collectives out there now, including ACT-I-VATE and now candycalavera (elsewise known as Sugarskull) along with The Chemistry Set, The Comic Stripjoint and the rather specific-to-minis SIZE MATTERS blog (although its not really a collective rather a review site, but still, there's enough comix over the course of a week that I count it in the same breath as the others). But of course we can't count out one of the originals of collectives with our own homegrown The Kansas City Comix Scene and if you're not aware of minicomics should click and check it out.
That said, there are only a few strips of real quality out of the many that appear on all of those sites that it's rather disconcerting that we can't see the quality ones float to the top on another site. Perhaps a syndication deal needs to be worked out, so that the good strips can be recognized and someone can pay, say, twelve bucks a year to see them. Girlamatic kind of let me down when the content sort of petered out. I don't think it's necessarily bad stuff, it's just not something I want to pay for any more. I do pay for my daily dose of Calvin & Hobbes from one such syndicate, and maybe that's the way that things will go in the future of webcomix. I don't know, I'm kind of hoping to see a discussion of where it'll lead over at Warren Ellis' Engine if I can get over and start it. I haven't been in there lately, but that's a comix collective of a different stripe, too, as will be Warren's ROCKETPIRATES when it launches sometime this spring. We'll see.
Meantime, here's andrew6's interesting thoughts on the format of floppies:
A lot of comics readers over the last few years have complained about “decompression”. “Why, when I was a kid,” they say, “We could get a darn good story in just sixteen pages for 35 cents…”. I’m not entirely sure that’s true--looking back at those days, I don’t see a lot of darn good stories coming out of the WFH assembly-line. I don’t necessarily see a lot of darn good single issue stories coming from factories these days, either, but there are at least two reasons I can think of for that, one economic and one aesthetic. And both, I think, contribute to a problematic scenario in which comics are being written for one format, the trade paperback, but are being released first in a different one, the traditional comic book floppy.
Click through and read more. Meantime, I'll let the thoughts I'm having continue to brew and remind you that I'll have a new mini comic this Wednesday. Let me know if you want a copy.
That said, there are only a few strips of real quality out of the many that appear on all of those sites that it's rather disconcerting that we can't see the quality ones float to the top on another site. Perhaps a syndication deal needs to be worked out, so that the good strips can be recognized and someone can pay, say, twelve bucks a year to see them. Girlamatic kind of let me down when the content sort of petered out. I don't think it's necessarily bad stuff, it's just not something I want to pay for any more. I do pay for my daily dose of Calvin & Hobbes from one such syndicate, and maybe that's the way that things will go in the future of webcomix. I don't know, I'm kind of hoping to see a discussion of where it'll lead over at Warren Ellis' Engine if I can get over and start it. I haven't been in there lately, but that's a comix collective of a different stripe, too, as will be Warren's ROCKETPIRATES when it launches sometime this spring. We'll see.
Meantime, here's andrew6's interesting thoughts on the format of floppies:
A lot of comics readers over the last few years have complained about “decompression”. “Why, when I was a kid,” they say, “We could get a darn good story in just sixteen pages for 35 cents…”. I’m not entirely sure that’s true--looking back at those days, I don’t see a lot of darn good stories coming out of the WFH assembly-line. I don’t necessarily see a lot of darn good single issue stories coming from factories these days, either, but there are at least two reasons I can think of for that, one economic and one aesthetic. And both, I think, contribute to a problematic scenario in which comics are being written for one format, the trade paperback, but are being released first in a different one, the traditional comic book floppy.
Click through and read more. Meantime, I'll let the thoughts I'm having continue to brew and remind you that I'll have a new mini comic this Wednesday. Let me know if you want a copy.