I love minicomics. To me, they are the most perfect form of comics - comics in their most refined state. They are a formal embodiment of comics' most attractive feature: comics, unlike film or theatre or even music, require no collaboration, no real financial resources to make happen. One person can do it all. With minicomics, that person is not only producing the work, but more often than not printing, assembling and stapling the things as well. If comics are the people's artform, minicomics are its most accessible manifestation.
So if it's a digital minicomic, is it still a minicomic? Who knows? I don't know if I'm that bothered about the label, to be honest. If I'm concerned about anything, it's that being sold as a proper comic alongside a lot of slickly-produced material might give readers unrealistic expectations. The nice thing about putting a physical minicomic into somebody's hands is that the format has a kind of in-built humility to it. It says, "Don't expect Maus here. This is just a bit of fun." I hope that, even without those visual cues, Comixology's customers will approach this throwaway, trifling bit of fluff in the right spirit.
All this is irrelevant to you, the Hotel Fred reader, of course. Simply by reading this, you have all the context you'll ever need - and a DRM-free version of the comic if you want it, to boot.
Anyway. All of this gives me an excuse to share these graphics I created for Comixology...
I shall keep you posted about my digital adventures.
Yeah, even though standardizing formats aids the dissemination of creative works, standardization itself is at odds with creativity. Playing with that conflict, I think, was key to Chris Ware's early breakthroughs. Even "Maus" started as minis inserted in issues of "Raw".
ReplyDeleteI's not just comics, either. Why is it that a 7" T. Rex record with three songs totaling eight minutes from the early seventies is a single, but a 7" punk record with three songs totaling four minutes from the late seventies is an EP? I collect music as well as comics and have read a lot of discographies. I've learned that merely having standardized formats is no guarantee of consistency or even consensus. That leaves some wiggle room for creativity and I suspect that it always will.
Yes. All good thoughts. I suspect my next minicomic might be built with possible digital applications in mind, which this one certainly wasn't - maybe a colour version for digital or something. Be nice if I can keep things low-key while I'm working all this out.
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