Location In Research

Scott McCloud's second non-ficton comic theory book. In this volume McCloud outlines a number of sociological, economic and technological environments in which he believes comic occupy a certain position. McCloud then examines these in detail and with specific focus on the emergence of "web comics" in an attempt to disclose where the future developments of comics may lie.

On the whole this work isn't as tight as either of McClouds other similar volumes dealing as those do with comics as a medium, a subject on which McCloud is a recognised expert. Here McCloud often strays into sociology, economics and particularly information technology and internet history, as well as rolling around in whatever particular futures these may hold for comics.

Unlike the close affinity McCloud has with comics, these areas appear to streach him a little more and the reader is often left questioning a huge assertion made with little grounding (especially if that reader is me). McCloud's assertions that VR is an inevitability and that the future of comics is largely in "web comics" is interesting but hugely flawed, after all vinyl records and printed books were supposed to have dissapeared by now (2007). If it makes sense for media to develop and combine with other media to form either new media or new ways of looking at old media, then this historically has happened, where it hasn't made sense the attempt has failed (as with the old set-top box style web tv). It is for this reason that technical and programming manuals are successfully making the leap to digital format, it's easier to look up programming concepts on the screen the programmer is working on. Also when the programming langugage changes and develops, so to do the manuals without the need of the programmer to buy expensive new volumes with a limited shelf life. Whereas fiction largely remains a print based form due to issues of mainly portability and the simple fact that having an entire collection of literature on a single digital media gives one central point of failure for that particular library.

There is certainly a bright future for "web comics" but I would suspect not at the expense of the more traditional print based media, offering as it does a fundamentally different experience to the reader. For example, how is an artist to achieve a "bleed"effect in an infinite canvas?

McCloud charts 12 "revolutions", or directions in which the medium of comics may expand and develop. These are:

1. Comics as literature.
2. Comics as art.
3. Creator's rights.
4. Industry innovation.
5. Public perception.
6. Institutional scrutiny.
7. Gender balance.
8. Minority representation.
9. Diveristy of genre.
10. Digital prduction.
11. Digital delivery.
12. Digital comics.

Far from all of these are of interest to this research (although they are, in themselves interesting).

In fact the directly useful are mainly "Digital comics", "Institutional scrutiny" (in the sense of academic scrutiny) and "Public perception" (similarly). Of minor interest are matters of "Minority representation" but really only in the sense of designing with an eye to the exclusion of as few as possible.

Of most interest are the ideas put forward in the section dealing with how a digital comic might be navigable. McCloud's concept of the "infinite canvas" is something which interface design can learn from and experiment with.

This is what I propose to do with it.