Not particularly controversial... maybe for the comics subculture but not for people in other fields. Music has already gone this way to a certain extent.
TCJ needs to get their act together. It was kind of hard to tell that you wrote the article and there was no indication of who you are. They should at least give you a brief bio blurb and a link.
Derik, I think you’re right in making the music comparison. I’ve heard print described as the new vinyl, and I think there’s some truth to that.
Some ideas for you, Blaise…
The idea that form and content can be separated is suspect. (Where is M. McLuhan?) The loss of print would not just be a loss of a certain form of distribution/presentation; it would be a loss of art itself. The medium, particularly in the case of print I think, is more than a medium—it is a crucial part of the art/content.
However, I do think you’re right in saying this print-loving subculture “will increasingly fetishize its own physicality and print-based origin.” This all happened over 100 years ago with the Arts and Crafts Movement, a reaction to 19th-century industrialization/mechanization. “The Arts and Crafts Movement started as a search for authentic design and decoration and a reaction against the styles that had developed out of machine-production” (wikipedia). The movement’s desire to put a human hand in the creation of arts/crafts/furniture— and place these things in the hands of people—ironically took these things out of the hands of the people. They became too expensive for the everyman. They were objects for an elite. This same thing will happen with zines, prints, artist books etc. My cherished Jordan Crane screen print cost me some cash! Cheaper to grab a jpeg and use his image as my desktop wallpaper.
Undoubtedly, the internet will continue to further its dominance as a distributor of content. At the same time, the “trophy subculture” will flourish, though become smaller and more concentrated at the same time. I think beautiful things will come of it. Yes, you are right in pointing out there is cultural capital attached to print, but there is also much more than that. There is real artistic value attached as well.
Isn't this different from the Arts and Crafts Movement? I feel like what's great about the web is the ability to democratize form so that anyone can excel at content. Fancily produced books are a form of industrialized culture while the work inside them doesn't have to be. Finding a way to distribute the experience of the content is what's important. Physical vs. virtual has nothing to do with craft vs. industrialization.
Also, one of my favorite things about comics is that they are (or traditionally have been) mass-produced culture. They're not one-of-a-kind elitist objects that most folks can't afford.
"The idea that form and content can be separated is suspect."
Yes, but I think in the digital age this relationship has changed. For example, what is the "form" of this blog? Is it the operating system in which it is viewed in, the browser, the blogger template, or the computer/phone/other physical device?
I would say that print content has been associated with print itself, but think about the ways in which all content is digitized before it is sent to the printers. Almost all printed content today can be said to have digital origins. I don't think print operates independently anymore as a "form". It has to admit, as do other forms - television, theater, CDs, DVDs, etc - that it has lost its exclusive hold on content. "Form" has become somewhat formless in the digital age.
Jason Overby wrote: "I feel like what's great about the web is the ability to democratize form so that anyone can excel at content."
Whats democratic about Google owning Blogger?
I don't know what you mean when you write "...anyone can excel at content."
Blaise wrote: "Unlike their digital counterparts, trophies require investment of money. This investment can increase or decrease in value, and may translate into nonmonetary value, such as cultural/societal value, as well.
A computer costs more than a comic book. Only mediocre comic books decrease in value. All computers decrease in value.
Blaise wrote: "Participants appeal to an environmental sense of conservation as well, effectively creating a zoo (or, in keeping with our metaphor, a “trophy room”) of endangered species on display."
The environmental impact of a computer is far greater than a comic book. It's easy and fun to trade a comic book and it's far easier to recycle a comic book without it leaking toxins or releasing carcinogens.
Blaise's essay stinks of dramatic irony but I have to read and respond sincerely because it stinks. If a computer or any other digital delivery device is to supplant print, why would it be exempt from trophy status?
If Blaise keeps this up I'm going to start calling him Lil Bezos.
well, mostly this has made me think about (my) assumptions about access (to the forms that hold the content that i want)--whatever they are.
i can go about my day fully confident that unless my house burns down, i get robbed by someone from this blog, etc, i will still have all my books and zines "forever" (let's say, another 50 years at least that i am alive). i wish i could instill the same confidence in blogger, google. facebook, whatever, the web in general. i've had emails deleted, i've discovered favorite youtube videos gone forever, etc. how does the easy access to this content weigh in balance with the fact that some magical server cannot hold it all for eternity?
if every post on this blog only stayed up for an hour, it would become precious (ie restricted, ie elitist in one sense) and maybe be compiled into a book that i could buy for many many dollars... and maybe, maybe, i would i buy it.
? ps- i feel like this sounds very 90s "trust no one"!
What does this mean? Anti-corporation? There are lots of other free blogging and hosting platforms that have nothing to do with corporations.
Anyone can excel at content is like the ultimate DIY. At least if you live in a big city in the "first world" (I know that this is a big qualifier), you can fairly easily and cheaply (or fer free) come across computers with internet access - under these circumstances, there are no physical impediments from you creating culture and distributing it to tons of people. This will only get easier, cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and look better as time progresses, in my opinion.
P.S. I still don't like to read comics on the internet (mostly), but there's lots of other stuff I'm fine with experiencing "virtually." And within, like, twenty years, I bet I'll read comics that way too.
P.P.S. but I still really love making physical "things" and distributing them physically. I just don't have a lot of desire to own them. I don't know what that fucking means. Maybe my daughter will feel completely differently since she grew up post-internet.
I like the beautiful object route that the boutique publishers are taking, but at the same time I'm valuing lo-fi objects more and more all the time. Maybe it's a reaction?
Point is I think there is a whole range worthy of exploration when it comes to the exchange of esoteric objects. I mean, what would you rather have a brand spanking new copy of Kramers 7 or a full run of Paper Rodeo?
I wrote: "Whats democratic about Google owning Blogger?"
Then Jason Overby wrote: "What does this mean? Anti-corporation? There are lots of other free blogging and hosting platforms that have nothing to do with corporations."
One of many dictionary's offers the following definition for "democratic:" "pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all..."
When you guys write about the internet/digital being free or democratic you confuse me.
I can't see past major corporations providing, charging and servicing the way we communicate digitally.
Many times over, Blaise and yourself make internet/digital sound like a utopian creative free-for-all, when to me, it seems unequivocally capitalist and corporate.
Don't you see ownership as part of this "virtual" experience? Most people are paying to read your blog and my comment.
I'm very wary of placing the expression of my experience completely in the hands of corporations and I'm bitter and cynical about individuals providing personalized platforms for corporations to sell ad space.
well blogs and the internet are free at the library. cant make a zine for free at the library but you sure can make a blog.
but i like zines more. i dont like the internet even though i use it a lot.
i do think its nice that blogger and flickr are free...who BUYS a domain name anymore? you can have a place for your art on the internet in a much freer way now then 10 years ago...
but i still find something inherently gross about the internet. im not articulate enough to say why though...only that even the best comics in the world look vaguley shitty on a computer.
i should clarify: you CAN make a zine for free. it is easy to do that at kinkos and staples...but the way of doing this is more 'exclusive' (being the kind of person that would actively want to steal from kinkos, which isn't everyone...or simply knowking how to do it) then simply going to your local library and starting a blog.
I'm enjoying this discussion. As someone who has worked for and who is published by a boutique publisher, I can say that the goal is not to exclude readers with trophy books.
Much as I enjoy the debate, isn't this an old topic? One that seems to come up again and again.
What I find frustrating is that there seems to be a perception that boutique publishers willingly make expensive books to somehow exclude those who cannot afford them.
It is a symbolic gesture to print something these days, sure. But a conscious "investment in maintaining it's cultural dominance" is just your outside viewpoint taking over.
And by the way, why are you writing in this "artspeak" lately? It's really off sounding to me. Your sincerity and casual tone is what makes you a good writer, Blaise.
"Don't you see ownership as part of this "virtual" experience?"
I don't. If someone took this content and posted it all over the place, made it into a hit Broadway Musical, used the premises described herein to architect a building, I'd be pretty stoked. The conversation doesn't belong to me. And if I could print minis and mail them for free, I'd do that too.
"Most people are paying to read your blog and my comment."
You're right. I forget this because the internet is free where I live, and I have free access to it all around Portland using this IPod someone gave me. When I visit my folks in the Dallas suburbs, however, that's not the case.
"I'm very wary of placing the expression of my experience completely in the hands of corporations and I'm bitter and cynical about individuals providing personalized platforms for corporations to sell ad space."
That's a good point. Blogger or Google or whomever could pull the plug and get rid of everything here if they thought it was offensive, or violated copyright protections. I have faith in the internet, I think, because it hasn't bitten me in the ass... yet.
@frank i'm getting a lot of inspiration from artspeak writers lately. also, i thought for tcj.com i had to make something that was less penetrable than the normal things i write. more 'official'. now i'm reading this guy seth price and he is able to write in this amazing way that i am interested in, which is like wandering through the internet, pulling things from wildly different places. so i am critical of the way i've been writing as well.
re: "investment in maintaining it's cultural dominance" i was referring to everyone involved in print culture who supports or is supported by the culture - consumers, editors, self publishers, pr people, reviewers, stores, collectors, etc - as well as publishers.
i don't think boutique publishers make books to exclude people, not at all. a lot of things on the internet are just as exclusive. i'm just noting how many people have a paycheck attached to this culture, or who have bought a library of books whose value can fluctuate depending on the way the culture is perceived.
It's like going to a free punk show where one of your friend's bands is playing. You're participating with everybody else to make the culture, and, to me, that's so much more fun and rewarding than going to see U2 or Radiohead or somebody, even though they're possibly better musicians. Nicely printed books seem like that sometimes. There's nothing wrong with them, and I enjoy lots of them, they're just a little more pomp and circumstance. I like minis a lot because they can be so cheap, there's often more direct communication between the creator and the audience, and they're not so precious. I like blogging for similar reasons. This blog feels like that punk show to me. Some people are talking over in the corner, not paying attention to the show. Other folks are busting heads. Some people are enjoying getting beat up. Some just listen quietly. But everybody feels like they're part of shaping the experience.
public space in first world countries has ceased to exist, in the physical realm and in the digital realm. the internet, however, is infinite, it is like 'nature' or the 'frontier' of old - it is endless and constantly moving, expanding. people are free to set up shop anywhere. in over 99% of the case, people set up shop in corporate territory. and yes, this does create serious issues to consider, but there is no alternative in the physical realm either. books create private space, not public space.
if we are considering the physical demands of digital media, let's consider the same demands of print media. to read a book in so-called public space one must go to the park, which, like the library, has hours of operation, rules, restrictions, and so on. by limiting myself 'basically' to one object (a mobile computer) i am freeing myself from demands of a privatized physical realm.
this is a nomadic lifestyle. if our blog gets shut (via jason's new post?) down we'll move to tumblr. and so on. corporations on the internet are staking space, but this space has no inherent value except for the capacities and freedoms it offers.
are we being used by blogger or are we using blogger? blogger doesn't see a penny and we get a free space on the internet to congregate.
Blaise- I think that your comment about physical public space "ceasing to exist" is curious. Sometimes it seems like a generation's ability or interest to engage in physical space is waning? I worry about the internet creating so much navel-gazing passivity that some fascist mop-up patrol just has to throw a butterfly net over our heads and drag us off to prison (with full internet access of course)
I just watched part of Children in Paradise, (downloaded from the Internet of course) with its evocation of the incredible street life in Paris in the 1800s. People had some fucking real world skills back then. Hardcore social interaction street skills. I always worry about the shit going down. Can I paddle a boat away from underwater city, make bread, milk a cow, etc. etc. (the answer: NOT at all.) But on the other hand, you need computer skills to survive in this wretched techno culture or else become obsolete. The web cartoonists are the most adapted to the modern environment. fully complete bullshit trophy publishing.
I don't know. I'm sorry. I am a self hating internet addict and a wanna-be luddite. I do think that reality can be perceived as boring and its banality is key to its inspiration, wheras the internet promises to be interesting, but is ultimately boring....I think the cumulative effect is in retraining everybody to communicate in the modes of advertising and pornography.
cheers on a good essay on an important topic. -M Thurber
Austin wrote: "but i still find something inherently gross about the internet. im not articulate enough to say why though...only that even the best comics in the world look vaguley shitty on a computer."
Of course, this is mostly dependent on the way someone lays out their website, there are certainly classy ways to display comics online (e.g. What Things Do), but I think the accessibility of the internet is actually what causes crap work in a lot of cases. How many times have you come across a webcomic that only had three installments (and was probably about video games)?
Not to downplay the internet, or that a large percentage of folks still don't have access to it, but I think a lot MORE effort goes into the creation of a zine, a lot more thought is required. It's "easy" to start up a blog with any half-baked idea and quit, no one gets halfway through making 100 copies of their mini-comic and gives up (assuming they've drawn the whole thing already).
Blogger is like a mustachioed villain, it'll get it's money, see?
For boutique books, I find that most which are formally printed are fairly priced (at least they are on Amazon), I just tend to have a lot of trouble justifying paying "too much" for the handmade art object. I would dearly love a copy of Gary Panter's new "Jimbo" zine, but $15 for 8 pages? Signed, stamped, and limited be damned, that is WAY too much. That's coming from someone who considers Gary to probably be the most significant living illustrator.
Am I being stingy though? Should the xeroxed zine be freely considered as a (monetarily) valued piece of history? Or should it be the fun thing for trading and selling just barely above cost? Is it just rarity that causes this inflation, like when those old Brinkman zines sold online for hundreds of dollars? Jeff "Noise Nomads" Hartford once expressed his disbelief over this to me, saying "it's just weird, when I got those things like 8 years ago from Mat for free". I guess "buying a piece of history" is the natural course of things though. I have gone WAY too far off topic at this point...
I feel equally guilty paying money for a printed object as I do reading a comic on the internet, and paying for that experience. It's all for different reasons but it ends up creating the same amount of guilt and confusion. There are good and bad sides to both. I wish they could exist in harmony. Maybe they are existing in harmony. I think it is wisest to use them both, if possible, and move on. I try to question all qualities of both but notice the good things of both and indulge in them. Sometimes I really enjoy seeing drawn images flickering on a screen, and certain comics experiences are often more fun read in the casual blog environment than on paper, which has so many more expectations. I'm a little ashamed to admit that but it's true. I think as long as we don't take both internet and print for granted, we'll be golden. I refuse to believe that one of them is evil.
As for the internet not being free, as someone who can't really buy books at all, the one-time computer-purchasing fee and maybe a regular internet bill is much more financially feasible than buying books all the time for years, isn't it? Maybe not. But it seems that way to me, at least. I was given this old laptop as a gift and I steal the internet from Burger King. (I wanted to say this in the earlier Burger King discussion but decided not to.) I know that without the internet I would have no idea what is going on in comicland at all.
Also, the controllers of the internet seem much less demanding and frightening to me than comic shop owners, distributors, comics publishers, etc. In a lot of ways, at least. Not that these comics community figures are bad or evil in any way; it's just that they are humans I might actually have to deal with instead of executives who might delete my Photoshopped jpeg of John Stanley shaking hands with one of my characters.
The survival instinct manifests itself via fight or flight. Depending on which survival strategy is taken the subject adapts by either getting bigger/stronger (fight) or smaller/faster (flight). When the environmental paradigm changes everything is put on notice. Fight, flight, or death.
The advent of the internet has been a paradigm shift for comics (and all media at that.) Some comics get bigger/stronger (boutique books), some comics get smaller/faster (webcomics), some comics die (pamphlets.)
web comics still don't smell like anything. i bet your article would be much more interesting blaise, more provocative, if it reeked of ink and glue. and horse hair. and cat guts.
i remember i used to have to read "it's a good life if you dont weaken" in little bursts because that book had such a heavy smell. and it didnt smell like old bookstores, it smelled like fresh off the presses seth. it was so specific a smell, totally brought on by deliberate ink, paper and production choices.
creating your own smell to accompany your online reading experience is a more dangerous option. potentially noxious, yet totally adroit in the realm of skills thurber mentioned (cow milking, boat rowing, etc)
@anonymous, i find it easier to engage in a discussion that uses unemotional language. the majority of comments that appear on the tcj post, as well as the responding post, use emotional, moral language and i cannot engage with it.
37 comments:
Not particularly controversial... maybe for the comics subculture but not for people in other fields. Music has already gone this way to a certain extent.
TCJ needs to get their act together. It was kind of hard to tell that you wrote the article and there was no indication of who you are. They should at least give you a brief bio blurb and a link.
Derik, I think you’re right in making the music comparison. I’ve heard print described as the new vinyl, and I think there’s some truth to that.
Some ideas for you, Blaise…
The idea that form and content can be separated is suspect. (Where is M. McLuhan?) The loss of print would not just be a loss of a certain form of distribution/presentation; it would be a loss of art itself. The medium, particularly in the case of print I think, is more than a medium—it is a crucial part of the art/content.
However, I do think you’re right in saying this print-loving subculture “will increasingly fetishize its own physicality and print-based origin.” This all happened over 100 years ago with the Arts and Crafts Movement, a reaction to 19th-century industrialization/mechanization. “The Arts and Crafts Movement started as a search for authentic design and decoration and a reaction against the styles that had developed out of machine-production” (wikipedia). The movement’s desire to put a human hand in the creation of arts/crafts/furniture— and place these things in the hands of people—ironically took these things out of the hands of the people. They became too expensive for the everyman. They were objects for an elite. This same thing will happen with zines, prints, artist books etc. My cherished Jordan Crane screen print cost me some cash! Cheaper to grab a jpeg and use his image as my desktop wallpaper.
Undoubtedly, the internet will continue to further its dominance as a distributor of content. At the same time, the “trophy subculture” will flourish, though become smaller and more concentrated at the same time. I think beautiful things will come of it. Yes, you are right in pointing out there is cultural capital attached to print, but there is also much more than that. There is real artistic value attached as well.
Isn't this different from the Arts and Crafts Movement? I feel like what's great about the web is the ability to democratize form so that anyone can excel at content. Fancily produced books are a form of industrialized culture while the work inside them doesn't have to be. Finding a way to distribute the experience of the content is what's important. Physical vs. virtual has nothing to do with craft vs. industrialization.
Also, one of my favorite things about comics is that they are (or traditionally have been) mass-produced culture. They're not one-of-a-kind elitist objects that most folks can't afford.
"The idea that form and content can be separated is suspect."
Yes, but I think in the digital age this relationship has changed. For example, what is the "form" of this blog? Is it the operating system in which it is viewed in, the browser, the blogger template, or the computer/phone/other physical device?
I would say that print content has been associated with print itself, but think about the ways in which all content is digitized before it is sent to the printers. Almost all printed content today can be said to have digital origins. I don't think print operates independently anymore as a "form". It has to admit, as do other forms - television, theater, CDs, DVDs, etc - that it has lost its exclusive hold on content. "Form" has become somewhat formless in the digital age.
Jason Overby wrote: "I feel like what's great about the web is the ability to democratize form so that anyone can excel at content."
Whats democratic about Google owning Blogger?
I don't know what you mean when you write "...anyone can excel at content."
Blaise wrote: "Unlike their digital counterparts, trophies require investment of money. This investment can increase or decrease in value, and may translate into nonmonetary value, such as cultural/societal value, as well.
A computer costs more than a comic book. Only mediocre comic books decrease in value. All computers decrease in value.
Blaise wrote: "Participants appeal to an environmental sense of conservation as well, effectively creating a zoo (or, in keeping with our metaphor, a “trophy room”) of endangered species on display."
The environmental impact of a computer is far greater than a comic book. It's easy and fun to trade a comic book and it's far easier to recycle a comic book without it leaking toxins or releasing carcinogens.
Blaise's essay stinks of dramatic irony but I have to read and respond sincerely because it stinks. If a computer or any other digital delivery device is to supplant print, why would it be exempt from trophy status?
If Blaise keeps this up I'm going to start calling him Lil Bezos.
Blaise, it sounds like you are personally frustrated with procuring the means to produce comics.
well, mostly this has made me think about (my) assumptions about access (to the forms that hold the content that i want)--whatever they are.
i can go about my day fully confident that unless my house burns down, i get robbed by someone from this blog, etc, i will still have all my books and zines "forever" (let's say, another 50 years at least that i am alive). i wish i could instill the same confidence in blogger, google. facebook, whatever, the web in general. i've had emails deleted, i've discovered favorite youtube videos gone forever, etc. how does the easy access to this content weigh in balance with the fact that some magical server cannot hold it all for eternity?
if every post on this blog only stayed up for an hour, it would become precious (ie restricted, ie elitist in one sense) and maybe be compiled into a book that i could buy for many many dollars... and maybe, maybe, i would i buy it.
?
ps- i feel like this sounds very 90s "trust no one"!
Anon-
Untrue
JTM-
"Whats democratic about Google owning Blogger?"
What does this mean? Anti-corporation? There are lots of other free blogging and hosting platforms that have nothing to do with corporations.
Anyone can excel at content is like the ultimate DIY. At least if you live in a big city in the "first world" (I know that this is a big qualifier), you can fairly easily and cheaply (or fer free) come across computers with internet access - under these circumstances, there are no physical impediments from you creating culture and distributing it to tons of people. This will only get easier, cheaper, more environmentally friendly, and look better as time progresses, in my opinion.
P.S. I still don't like to read comics on the internet (mostly), but there's lots of other stuff I'm fine with experiencing "virtually." And within, like, twenty years, I bet I'll read comics that way too.
P.P.S. but I still really love making physical "things" and distributing them physically. I just don't have a lot of desire to own them. I don't know what that fucking means. Maybe my daughter will feel completely differently since she grew up post-internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0bGs-hhenI
jason, you are like blaise's older brother on this blog. let him fight his own battles.
I like the beautiful object route that the boutique publishers are taking, but at the same time I'm valuing lo-fi objects more and more all the time. Maybe it's a reaction?
Point is I think there is a whole range worthy of exploration when it comes to the exchange of esoteric objects. I mean, what would you rather have a brand spanking new copy of Kramers 7 or a full run of Paper Rodeo?
I wrote: "Whats democratic about Google owning Blogger?"
Then Jason Overby wrote: "What does this mean? Anti-corporation? There are lots of other free blogging and hosting platforms that have nothing to do with corporations."
One of many dictionary's offers the following definition for "democratic:" "pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all..."
When you guys write about the internet/digital being free or democratic you confuse me.
I can't see past major corporations providing, charging and servicing the way we communicate digitally.
Many times over, Blaise and yourself make internet/digital sound like a utopian creative free-for-all, when to me, it seems unequivocally capitalist and corporate.
Don't you see ownership as part of this "virtual" experience? Most people are paying to read your blog and my comment.
I'm very wary of placing the expression of my experience completely in the hands of corporations and I'm bitter and cynical about individuals providing personalized platforms for corporations to sell ad space.
well blogs and the internet are free at the library. cant make a zine for free at the library but you sure can make a blog.
but i like zines more. i dont like the internet even though i use it a lot.
i do think its nice that blogger and flickr are free...who BUYS a domain name anymore? you can have a place for your art on the internet in a much freer way now then 10 years ago...
but i still find something inherently gross about the internet. im not articulate enough to say why though...only that even the best comics in the world look vaguley shitty on a computer.
i should clarify: you CAN make a zine for free. it is easy to do that at kinkos and staples...but the way of doing this is more 'exclusive' (being the kind of person that would actively want to steal from kinkos, which isn't everyone...or simply knowking how to do it) then simply going to your local library and starting a blog.
I'm enjoying this discussion. As someone who has worked for and who is published by a boutique publisher, I can say that the goal is not to exclude readers with trophy books.
Much as I enjoy the debate, isn't this an old topic? One that seems to come up again and again.
What I find frustrating is that there seems to be a perception that boutique publishers willingly make expensive books to somehow exclude those who cannot afford them.
It is a symbolic gesture to print something these days, sure. But a conscious "investment in maintaining it's cultural dominance" is just your outside viewpoint taking over.
And by the way, why are you writing in this "artspeak" lately? It's really off sounding to me. Your sincerity and casual tone is what makes you a good writer, Blaise.
"Don't you see ownership as part of this "virtual" experience?"
I don't. If someone took this content and posted it all over the place, made it into a hit Broadway Musical, used the premises described herein to architect a building, I'd be pretty stoked. The conversation doesn't belong to me. And if I could print minis and mail them for free, I'd do that too.
"Most people are paying to read your blog and my comment."
You're right. I forget this because the internet is free where I live, and I have free access to it all around Portland using this IPod someone gave me. When I visit my folks in the Dallas suburbs, however, that's not the case.
"I'm very wary of placing the expression of my experience completely in the hands of corporations and I'm bitter and cynical about individuals providing personalized platforms for corporations to sell ad space."
That's a good point. Blogger or Google or whomever could pull the plug and get rid of everything here if they thought it was offensive, or violated copyright protections. I have faith in the internet, I think, because it hasn't bitten me in the ass... yet.
@frank i'm getting a lot of inspiration from artspeak writers lately. also, i thought for tcj.com i had to make something that was less penetrable than the normal things i write. more 'official'. now i'm reading this guy seth price and he is able to write in this amazing way that i am interested in, which is like wandering through the internet, pulling things from wildly different places. so i am critical of the way i've been writing as well.
re: "investment in maintaining it's cultural dominance" i was referring to everyone involved in print culture who supports or is supported by the culture - consumers, editors, self publishers, pr people, reviewers, stores, collectors, etc - as well as publishers.
i don't think boutique publishers make books to exclude people, not at all. a lot of things on the internet are just as exclusive. i'm just noting how many people have a paycheck attached to this culture, or who have bought a library of books whose value can fluctuate depending on the way the culture is perceived.
Austin English wrote: "well blogs and the internet are free at the library."
Your tax dollars are hard at work to support libraries.
Austin English wrote: "you CAN make a zine for free. it is easy to do that at kinkos and staples..."
Someone pays for it.
Ain't nothing for free.
It's like going to a free punk show where one of your friend's bands is playing. You're participating with everybody else to make the culture, and, to me, that's so much more fun and rewarding than going to see U2 or Radiohead or somebody, even though they're possibly better musicians. Nicely printed books seem like that sometimes. There's nothing wrong with them, and I enjoy lots of them, they're just a little more pomp and circumstance. I like minis a lot because they can be so cheap, there's often more direct communication between the creator and the audience, and they're not so precious. I like blogging for similar reasons. This blog feels like that punk show to me. Some people are talking over in the corner, not paying attention to the show. Other folks are busting heads. Some people are enjoying getting beat up. Some just listen quietly. But everybody feels like they're part of shaping the experience.
this is pretty sweet: punk rock 101
another context for viewing this:
public space in first world countries has ceased to exist, in the physical realm and in the digital realm. the internet, however, is infinite, it is like 'nature' or the 'frontier' of old - it is endless and constantly moving, expanding. people are free to set up shop anywhere. in over 99% of the case, people set up shop in corporate territory. and yes, this does create serious issues to consider, but there is no alternative in the physical realm either. books create private space, not public space.
if we are considering the physical demands of digital media, let's consider the same demands of print media. to read a book in so-called public space one must go to the park, which, like the library, has hours of operation, rules, restrictions, and so on. by limiting myself 'basically' to one object (a mobile computer) i am freeing myself from demands of a privatized physical realm.
this is a nomadic lifestyle. if our blog gets shut (via jason's new post?) down we'll move to tumblr. and so on. corporations on the internet are staking space, but this space has no inherent value except for the capacities and freedoms it offers.
are we being used by blogger or are we using blogger? blogger doesn't see a penny and we get a free space on the internet to congregate.
Blaise- I think that your comment about physical public space "ceasing to exist" is curious. Sometimes it seems like a generation's ability or interest to engage in physical space is waning? I worry about the internet creating so much navel-gazing passivity that some fascist mop-up patrol just has to throw a butterfly net over our heads and drag us off to prison (with full internet access of course)
I just watched part of Children in Paradise, (downloaded from the Internet of course) with its evocation of the incredible street life in Paris in the 1800s. People had some fucking real world skills back then. Hardcore social interaction street skills. I always worry about the shit going down. Can I paddle a boat away from underwater city, make bread, milk a cow, etc. etc. (the answer: NOT at all.) But on the other hand, you need computer skills to survive in this wretched techno culture or else become obsolete. The web cartoonists are the most adapted to the modern environment. fully complete bullshit trophy publishing.
I don't know. I'm sorry. I am a self hating internet addict and a wanna-be luddite. I do think that reality can be perceived as boring and its banality is key to its inspiration, wheras the internet promises to be interesting, but is ultimately boring....I think the cumulative effect is in retraining everybody to communicate in the modes of advertising and pornography.
cheers on a good essay on an important topic.
-M Thurber
Austin wrote: "but i still find something inherently gross about the internet. im not articulate enough to say why though...only that even the best comics in the world look vaguley shitty on a computer."
Of course, this is mostly dependent on the way someone lays out their website, there are certainly classy ways to display comics online (e.g. What Things Do), but I think the accessibility of the internet is actually what causes crap work in a lot of cases. How many times have you come across a webcomic that only had three installments (and was probably about video games)?
Not to downplay the internet, or that a large percentage of folks still don't have access to it, but I think a lot MORE effort goes into the creation of a zine, a lot more thought is required. It's "easy" to start up a blog with any half-baked idea and quit, no one gets halfway through making 100 copies of their mini-comic and gives up (assuming they've drawn the whole thing already).
Blogger is like a mustachioed villain, it'll get it's money, see?
For boutique books, I find that most which are formally printed are fairly priced (at least they are on Amazon), I just tend to have a lot of trouble justifying paying "too much" for the handmade art object. I would dearly love a copy of Gary Panter's new "Jimbo" zine, but $15 for 8 pages? Signed, stamped, and limited be damned, that is WAY too much. That's coming from someone who considers Gary to probably be the most significant living illustrator.
Am I being stingy though? Should the xeroxed zine be freely considered as a (monetarily) valued piece of history? Or should it be the fun thing for trading and selling just barely above cost? Is it just rarity that causes this inflation, like when those old Brinkman zines sold online for hundreds of dollars? Jeff "Noise Nomads" Hartford once expressed his disbelief over this to me, saying "it's just weird, when I got those things like 8 years ago from Mat for free". I guess "buying a piece of history" is the natural course of things though. I have gone WAY too far off topic at this point...
I feel equally guilty paying money for a printed object as I do reading a comic on the internet, and paying for that experience. It's all for different reasons but it ends up creating the same amount of guilt and confusion. There are good and bad sides to both. I wish they could exist in harmony. Maybe they are existing in harmony. I think it is wisest to use them both, if possible, and move on. I try to question all qualities of both but notice the good things of both and indulge in them. Sometimes I really enjoy seeing drawn images flickering on a screen, and certain comics experiences are often more fun read in the casual blog environment than on paper, which has so many more expectations. I'm a little ashamed to admit that but it's true. I think as long as we don't take both internet and print for granted, we'll be golden. I refuse to believe that one of them is evil.
As for the internet not being free, as someone who can't really buy books at all, the one-time computer-purchasing fee and maybe a regular internet bill is much more financially feasible than buying books all the time for years, isn't it? Maybe not. But it seems that way to me, at least. I was given this old laptop as a gift and I steal the internet from Burger King. (I wanted to say this in the earlier Burger King discussion but decided not to.) I know that without the internet I would have no idea what is going on in comicland at all.
Also, the controllers of the internet seem much less demanding and frightening to me than comic shop owners, distributors, comics publishers, etc. In a lot of ways, at least. Not that these comics community figures are bad or evil in any way; it's just that they are humans I might actually have to deal with instead of executives who might delete my Photoshopped jpeg of John Stanley shaking hands with one of my characters.
I'll stop before this gets even worse.
The survival instinct manifests itself via fight or flight. Depending on which survival strategy is taken the subject adapts by either getting bigger/stronger (fight) or smaller/faster (flight). When the environmental paradigm changes everything is put on notice. Fight, flight, or death.
The advent of the internet has been a paradigm shift for comics (and all media at that.) Some comics get bigger/stronger (boutique books), some comics get smaller/faster (webcomics), some comics die (pamphlets.)
It's that simple.
I can't take an Eagles fan seriously.
web comics still don't smell like anything. i bet your article would be much more interesting blaise, more provocative, if it reeked of ink and glue. and horse hair. and cat guts.
i remember i used to have to read "it's a good life if you dont weaken" in little bursts because that book had such a heavy smell. and it didnt smell like old bookstores, it smelled like fresh off the presses seth. it was so specific a smell, totally brought on by deliberate ink, paper and production choices.
creating your own smell to accompany your online reading experience is a more dangerous option. potentially noxious, yet totally adroit in the realm of skills thurber mentioned (cow milking, boat rowing, etc)
I didn't buy a copy of Tony Millionaire's "Billy Hazelnuts" for the longest time because it smelled like burning Christmas trees.
sneeze on your kindle
jimmy corrigan smelled cool.
i spritz'd my zines with pine sol, then crammed them into rawhide boxes.
paper radio coated in vegan chocolate
Well that's why you keep backups of anything that is important. Always keep backups.
@anonymous, i find it easier to engage in a discussion that uses unemotional language. the majority of comments that appear on the tcj post, as well as the responding post, use emotional, moral language and i cannot engage with it.
I think it's Jared Gardner who responded to you at tcj. You have David Gardner written on the front. Just sayin'.
fixed
thanks frank
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