Reading the article by Mike Rosen-Molina, I cannot help but wondering, is this the future of comic cartoons? As another piece of ‘art’ being viewed online? The article does give a very detailed explanation on how the cartoonists actually engaged their readers, how they create controversy and different kinds of emotions making their work both attractive and enjoyable at the same time.One of the cartoonist Francesco Marciuliano was quoted "Once I really start to hate a comic enough, a lot of the time I actually start to love it,". Most of us would probably still remember how enraged we were (still are) with how indecisive Archie was with his choice of Betty or Veronica, wouldn’t we?
It was also being discussed how people react to their cartoons, how being published online helped the cartoons gotten noticed and fished out people’s real reaction to the storylines and pictures. Twitter, for the most part, has been a great help in supplying positive feedbacks while letters (including email) have been proved otherwise. It is also their needs to exist from time to time, creating headlines and twists in their storylines, to make sure that at least their works would stay on the radar, not abandoned or forgotten.
A great example is what The Garfield’s creator, Jim Davis, did. When Dan Walsh, of Travors.com created the Garfield without Garfield page, he was flattered and joined in on the effort. Well it was pretty funny seeing Jon Arbuckle talking to himself in all the bxes, but avid fans of Garfield must not be happy when they see it.
(Wikipedia)
(Garfield without Garfield)
And it is quite a sad thing to see him talking to himself. Well, in conclusion, it has been said that the internet would bring an end to the comic artists, since less people are buying the printed version of their works nowadays. Despite the success of the recent crop of super hero films , it is no secret that the increased interest in those characters hasn't exactly translated into a dramatic upswing in the sales of the comic books that spawned them. People are more engaged when they watch the movie, with the presence of visual and audio effects. However, it was a good move for the cartoonists to join the internet army, hopefully just like in the comic books, this will be when the hero sweeps in and save the world!
References:
1. Garfield minus Garfield, viewed on 16 June 2010 at http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
2. Is There a Future for Comic Books?, 2005, comics.ign.com, viewed on 15 June 2010 at http://comics.ign.com/articles/629/629984p1.html
3.Rosen-Molina M, 2009, Newspaper Cartoonists Engage Audiences (including haters) Online, PBS.org.
4. Schiver, KA, 1997, Chapter 6: Interplay of words and pictures, in Dynamics in document design: creating text for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York
No comments:
Post a Comment