The other side of Digital Comics
wolfchylde showed the following to me during my stay in PA:
Both Penny Arcade and PVP Online have published some very interesting critiques concerning a new video called Adventures into Digital Comics (which I've heard of last year or so), which interviews Scott McCloud and other comics artists/writers (James D. Hudnall contributed to the video). But the creators of PA and PVPO (who have a long-standing rivalry) put aside their differences when they saw the trailer for the video.
On Penny Arcade, Tycho criticizes the trailer, which has Cat Garza talking about digital comics, and then lampoons it in the corresponding comic.
As Tycho writes:I wasn't aware that comic creators were still running for their lives with some imagined "The Man" hounding them, hot to crimp their innovative, illegible noble failures lest "the people" catch wind of the revolution. In 2005, I guess I thought we were kind of done with these adolescent tantrums.
Every time I see some book or video purporting to represent "our scene" it's a Goddamn cavalcade of Scott McCloud acolytes singing one Goddamn note. Scott McCloud's great contribution? He championed a bold new high-tech way for artists to be poor. He seems like a good guy, but the man pumps out these starry eyed sycophants who rattle on and on about the Age of Goddamn (Digital Comics) Aquarius. Without the tyrannical constraints of "strips" or "panels," they can now make a comic as vast as their galloping egos. Everyone has always been able to make "challenging" incoherent art that no-one cared about. And now, with the Internet, more people can not care about it than ever.
We're up to our asses in impractical manifestos that don't get anybody anywhere. I can't imagine why we'd need another one.
He and Gabe have usually been very critical of Scott McCloud, especially in this older news post and strip.
I've got nothing against McCloud, in case you're wondering. But I can understand where Tycho and Gabe are coming from.
PVPO creator Scott Kurtz shared his thoughts on his June archives blog post (dated 6/3/2005) (It also mentions Penny Arcade).
Before I start, I need to make a couple things perfectly clear:
1) I consider Scott McCloud a friend. We may see things differently but he’s a great guy, loves comics, and supports my work every chance he gets. We’re not at odds, and it’s always good to see him at conventions.
2) Upon getting “fired up” about this topic, I waited the appropriate 24 hours as imposed by my wife and business manager.
3) I say “bullshit” in this rant at LEAST three times.
. . . “Adventures into Digital Comics” is a documentary that is being produced right now that features interviews with a lot of people who are currently, according to the documentary, embarking on a brand new medium. The opening of the trailer has Cat Garza, an Austin based cartoonist, saying the following:
“When you have systems like the comics industry, you have a lot of doors that are being shut to creative, innovative voices. But with the web, we’re seeing that anybody can create any kind of great work and have viewers…and have readers.”
So here’s the thing. I should probably reserve judgment on this documentary until I’ve had a chance to watch it (and I will), but after watching the trailer, I have to say that I’m really starting to get squeamish at the movement Scott McCloud spawned out of some noble goals.
I don’t think that Cat is right about the comic book industry. I work in that industry and I don’t observe a system that is shutting doors on creative and innovative voices. If anything, this is an industry HUNGRY for creative and innovative voices. Right now it’s kind of sustaining itself on the popularity of 40 and 50 year old properties. But every publisher is pushing their non-mainstream titles. Scott Pilgrim, Blankets, American Elf, Strangers in Paradise, Pigtale, Flight…it’s all out there and being recognized. So I think that Cat’s message is false, and I think it’s unfair and really snotty. Honestly, it's total bullshit.
I dread the future of webcomics as the new breeding ground for “alternative thinkers” who will co-opt Scott McCloud's notions about the web as their new manifesto against more conventional methods of distributing comics. A new club where the misunderstood and manhandled “true artists” will quietly hold their revolution. I truly dread documentaries and books being made that support this bullshit notion.
Read the whole article.
This won't stop me from wanting to see Adventures into Digital Comics, though. Some of the interviews I saw on their site (including Scott McCloud and New Teen Titans co-creator Marv Wolfman) were actually pretty good. So I'm really looking forward to it, regardless. And to be fair, the video is actually about artists who go from conventional comics to the digital medium, so it's not like Pete Abrams (creator of the popular webstrip Sluggy Freelance) is going to get mentioned, either. :)
Similarly, Penny Arcade's second strip of 2005 corresponds to their commentary on the newspaper strip industry. Tycho discusses the cancelling of Garfield in some papers, while Gabe ruthlessly rips into Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur, which featured a strip that demonized web publishing (which is gone).
UPDATE: Thanks to wolfchylde again!
In the very last article (titled "On Stuff") on this news column (dated 6/8), Tycho recaps just about everything I typed above and reflects on why he and Gabe were doing Penny Arcade in the first place.
He also reports that Scott McCloud demands an apology for his comments/strip on Adventures into Digital Comics, and sets the whole record straight.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Scott McCloud has taken down said page from his website, and in its place (same URL), posted a brief apology. OK, that's better. I understand Scott has feelings, but it just wasn't like him to be posting something childish like that. He's usually better than that, and he could've resorted to something better than those tactics.
Both Penny Arcade and PVP Online have published some very interesting critiques concerning a new video called Adventures into Digital Comics (which I've heard of last year or so), which interviews Scott McCloud and other comics artists/writers (James D. Hudnall contributed to the video). But the creators of PA and PVPO (who have a long-standing rivalry) put aside their differences when they saw the trailer for the video.
On Penny Arcade, Tycho criticizes the trailer, which has Cat Garza talking about digital comics, and then lampoons it in the corresponding comic.
As Tycho writes:I wasn't aware that comic creators were still running for their lives with some imagined "The Man" hounding them, hot to crimp their innovative, illegible noble failures lest "the people" catch wind of the revolution. In 2005, I guess I thought we were kind of done with these adolescent tantrums.
Every time I see some book or video purporting to represent "our scene" it's a Goddamn cavalcade of Scott McCloud acolytes singing one Goddamn note. Scott McCloud's great contribution? He championed a bold new high-tech way for artists to be poor. He seems like a good guy, but the man pumps out these starry eyed sycophants who rattle on and on about the Age of Goddamn (Digital Comics) Aquarius. Without the tyrannical constraints of "strips" or "panels," they can now make a comic as vast as their galloping egos. Everyone has always been able to make "challenging" incoherent art that no-one cared about. And now, with the Internet, more people can not care about it than ever.
We're up to our asses in impractical manifestos that don't get anybody anywhere. I can't imagine why we'd need another one.
He and Gabe have usually been very critical of Scott McCloud, especially in this older news post and strip.
I've got nothing against McCloud, in case you're wondering. But I can understand where Tycho and Gabe are coming from.
PVPO creator Scott Kurtz shared his thoughts on his June archives blog post (dated 6/3/2005) (It also mentions Penny Arcade).
Before I start, I need to make a couple things perfectly clear:
1) I consider Scott McCloud a friend. We may see things differently but he’s a great guy, loves comics, and supports my work every chance he gets. We’re not at odds, and it’s always good to see him at conventions.
2) Upon getting “fired up” about this topic, I waited the appropriate 24 hours as imposed by my wife and business manager.
3) I say “bullshit” in this rant at LEAST three times.
. . . “Adventures into Digital Comics” is a documentary that is being produced right now that features interviews with a lot of people who are currently, according to the documentary, embarking on a brand new medium. The opening of the trailer has Cat Garza, an Austin based cartoonist, saying the following:
“When you have systems like the comics industry, you have a lot of doors that are being shut to creative, innovative voices. But with the web, we’re seeing that anybody can create any kind of great work and have viewers…and have readers.”
So here’s the thing. I should probably reserve judgment on this documentary until I’ve had a chance to watch it (and I will), but after watching the trailer, I have to say that I’m really starting to get squeamish at the movement Scott McCloud spawned out of some noble goals.
I don’t think that Cat is right about the comic book industry. I work in that industry and I don’t observe a system that is shutting doors on creative and innovative voices. If anything, this is an industry HUNGRY for creative and innovative voices. Right now it’s kind of sustaining itself on the popularity of 40 and 50 year old properties. But every publisher is pushing their non-mainstream titles. Scott Pilgrim, Blankets, American Elf, Strangers in Paradise, Pigtale, Flight…it’s all out there and being recognized. So I think that Cat’s message is false, and I think it’s unfair and really snotty. Honestly, it's total bullshit.
I dread the future of webcomics as the new breeding ground for “alternative thinkers” who will co-opt Scott McCloud's notions about the web as their new manifesto against more conventional methods of distributing comics. A new club where the misunderstood and manhandled “true artists” will quietly hold their revolution. I truly dread documentaries and books being made that support this bullshit notion.
Read the whole article.
This won't stop me from wanting to see Adventures into Digital Comics, though. Some of the interviews I saw on their site (including Scott McCloud and New Teen Titans co-creator Marv Wolfman) were actually pretty good. So I'm really looking forward to it, regardless. And to be fair, the video is actually about artists who go from conventional comics to the digital medium, so it's not like Pete Abrams (creator of the popular webstrip Sluggy Freelance) is going to get mentioned, either. :)
Similarly, Penny Arcade's second strip of 2005 corresponds to their commentary on the newspaper strip industry. Tycho discusses the cancelling of Garfield in some papers, while Gabe ruthlessly rips into Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur, which featured a strip that demonized web publishing (which is gone).
UPDATE: Thanks to wolfchylde again!
In the very last article (titled "On Stuff") on this news column (dated 6/8), Tycho recaps just about everything I typed above and reflects on why he and Gabe were doing Penny Arcade in the first place.
He also reports that Scott McCloud demands an apology for his comments/strip on Adventures into Digital Comics, and sets the whole record straight.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Scott McCloud has taken down said page from his website, and in its place (same URL), posted a brief apology. OK, that's better. I understand Scott has feelings, but it just wasn't like him to be posting something childish like that. He's usually better than that, and he could've resorted to something better than those tactics.