But first...
a little administrative update.
As you might have noticed there's been a few little changes to the site. My goal now is to re design all the bloggs to be far less image intensive than what you're used to. It might make them bland, but until I can find good, cheap image hosting we're going to have to put up with some bland designs for a while. I can't stand seeing the nav images cutting in and out because mywebpage.netscape.com seems to be turning to shit. Plus, all my recent webdesign projects have to be put on hold until decent hosting can be found. If my friends and my own adventures on the world wide web are to continue either that web server needs to be built or I have to shell out cash for hosting.
Understanding Comcis. One would think that spending more than half a lifetime reading comics would provide me with everything I needed to know about Comic Books and the inner workings of sequential art. It is possible to know how something works on an abstract level for many years, but it is seemingly more difficult to comprehend the delicate mechanics of art and the philosophies that created them. Back in 1994 a comic book artist named SCOTT MCCLOUD wrote and illustrated UNDERSTANDING COMICS. A 215-page comic book about comics that explains the inner workings of the medium and examines many aspects of visual communication along the way. In short, he uses the structure of a comic book to explain the hidden language and mechanics of comic books themselves. The whole thing is quite brilliant and a damn good read for anyone who has 2-3 hours to kill. Over time you get a feeling for McCloud's voice as you read the book and view the images in proper sequence.
McCould's Website, as linked above, is something I think all you readers out there should check out. Not only does it provide you with a number of interesting webcomics like Zot!, but in McCloud's "I Can't Stop Thinking" section, he (using comic art of course) goes into depth about his feelings towards media industries and the rights of consumers. Just take a look at this lilttle WEB COMIC about the late great file sharing program that was Napster (not to be mistaken for Napster's new bastardized form as seen today). It's nice to see someone so enthusiastic about the rights of creators and consumers as McCloud seeks to find ways to deliver creative media directly to consumers without the need for an over-bloated industry hell bent on out-dated distribution methods.
The web comics themselves may seem like they're of crude quality, but McCloud is trying to maximize readership by allowing images to load as fast as possible. The images themselves are simple small sized .gifs. The effect is quite staggering as each webcomic is only one page (single html document) in size. McCloud understands that the "online canvas" is vertical and not horizontal. People naturally follow along single page content by scrolling upwards and downwards. Ther eis no need for multiple pages and navigation, just make one large page with many images stored vertically. Having them be optimized at such small sizes allows each page to load incredibly fast.
I like the way this man thinks. I definately recommend taking a look through his site as well as reading both UNDERSTANDING COMICS and REINVENTING COMICS. Of course you can also check out his trade paper back for the NEW ADVENTURES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Yeah, that one doesn't make much sense to me either.
