I don't really know why I update this blog. I do have doubts that any of my friends still actually read this with any regularity, probably due to my sporadic updates and insane ramblings and postings of song lyrics and whatever pops into my mind. So, today, though I am probably speaking to an empty audience, I will write down these thoughts, so in the course of time, I can say, yes, I commented on that too.
As many of my friends are aware, there is this phenomena known as the "web comic." The humble and accessible web comic is something I have enjoyed for years. My favorite web comics are
PvP,
Penny Arcade, and
Ctrl Alt Del. I consider these to be strips of particular quality and relevance and I visit these sites whenever I expect them to update so my mind can soak up every delicious, pixel morsel of humor. Today's installment of Penny-Arcade, and also PvP, have once more touched upon the reaction from some in "print comics" to the web phenomena. It would seem the web comic artists have had an uphill battle to gain a sense of legitimacy. Here seems to be a point where one can see the line dug between those who believe the internet to be a media fit for mass content distribution and those who would stick with traditional channels of distribution.
Personally, I don't think it matters how content comes packaged, so long as it comes and is of good quality. Case in point, I am one of those crazies who, against the better judgment of history, decided to purchase
Half-life 2 via
Steam. Steam got the content to me fine, and other than a few days of authentification troubles, I was able to sufficiently douse myself in the water of life known as Half-life 2. What did I lose not buying the game in stores? Well, I don't have to store the CDs, throw away packaging, or find a place in the clutter for a manual. Half-life 2 simply came and nestled itself where I needed it, on my computer. This is what the Web has done for comic strips too.
Thanks to the web, I don't have to buy a news paper to see the comics that I want to see, about the subjects and characters that I care about. When I was a kid, I would always take the funny pages from the Sunday news paper and read up on the antics of Garfield and the loveable Foxtrot characters. Now the comics that I want to read come to me via my computer, no fuss, no muss. While I do miss the recycling of the rest of the news paper that I didn't read, I think I can do with out it. I will also leave the "Is the Web more efficient than print" question to the economists and environmentalists.
The internet is becoming, has become, and will be more so, a method of direct distribution to those who want to look. If I want to look, I can find almost anyone’s opinion on almost any subject imaginable. And thanks to free speech and discretionary nature of the internet, if I want to read a comic about
a robot that sexually molests fruit, so be it. The internet contains the fringes of free speech with in its expansive borders and provides fertile, equal ground for things to
rise and fall on their own merits. Can anyone not see what is about to happen? When content creation and viewer ship become so tied, that no man in a suit can pry them apart? Where a person, or a group of people, with solid ideas and means can just make it happen and we, the consumers, can have access to the product without the need for a publisher to put it down on paper(CD, radio waves, satellite, DVD, VHS, BetaMax, smoke signals, ect...)?
Current State: Here
Current Mood: There
Current Emote: *is everywhere*
Current Tarot: The Sun
Current Music: "Odin' s Wrath," StarBlast.
"The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and I,
until only the mountain remains." - Li Po
PS: Thank the diety for spell checkers!
