Four-Color Fate
One thing is for sure. Comics are a people's medium.
I've been reading up on the history of comics lately. We are familiar with Scott McCloud's take on the comic legacy (Understanding Comics, P.10-16), but there is much more McCloud couldn't fit in his book.
My impression of comics' middle history:
It could be considered true that the essential language of comics was developed, more or less, to communicate ideas more easily than by using the written word.
In the 1400s and earlier, things like reading were only for the upper classes, and art was more of a skilled labor than a means of personal expression. Comics grew out of the need for the less educated to communicate ideas, parts of the bible, stories, etc. (See, for example, these Cantigas from 1255.)
As painting as an expression of ideas became more popular, comics lost their place, basically forgotten, until printing came around and introduced the idea of mass communication. Comics took their place as entertainment. For the most part, they were for the telling of moral stories and comedies. But as it became cheaper and cheaper to make comics, the quality degraded and comics lost their edge. Eventually, people turned to other forms of entertainment and expression (such as painting, prose and poetic writing, and so on).
It would seem, then, that the roots of comics were born from revolutions that provided common people a means to communicate and absorb ideas --thus, comics are a people's medium. The legacy of comics should have its place with the legacies of blues and punk, indy films and Woody Guthrie. They were made possible because the people were dissatisfied with the standard means of communication and expression. They wanted some kind of change.
Now, this got me thinking about webcomics. Specifically, do the theories behind the birth and growth of webcomics follow in this legacy of "people's expression"? I think so. I would, in fact, say webcomics are more a part of this legacy than any development in the last few hundred years of comics history. Here are some reasons why:
- Webcomics don't yet have the total misconception of being a "kids' medium". We don't have to work against 75 years of "POW," "ZAP" and "SNIKT" the way print comics do. And people don't have to brave a comic book store, only to have their misconceptions of the comics world reinforced.
- The "printing press" of webcomics is the Internet. We all know how the Internet has connected the common person. Virtually everyone has access and uses it the way we used to use newspapers and the postal service: for information and correspondence. For a connection to the world around us. A place to find expressions we agree with.
- Anyone
can publish them. If you have the desire to make a comic, you can publish it to the world immediately. This is Warren Ellis' SUPERFAST theory.
Now, don't mistake this for me saying all of the webcomics out there are good. I'm sure even in RodolpheToepffer's day there were some stinkers. Mediocrity of material and the pure flood of junk may even be the reason comics were choked out again in the 19th century. This is something to learn from.
Webcomics are not, right now, an accurate representation of the peoples' expression. No more than print comics are. But they have the potential. Webcomics must innovate. We can't rely on sequential storytelling's old conventions and rules.
Comics were founded on making a new language and webcomics must continue in this tradition, and use the new tools at our disposal effectively, or suffer the same four-color fate, or worse, fall into obscurity.
--Neal--
Notes: This site (bugpowder.com/andy/earlycomics.html) is an amazing resource for works in comics history. Thanks to BillyK and the Indy-Creds for bringing it up!
4/13/02
