Want to draw comics for a living? Watch the video here three times in a row then come back.
How do we feel? Hmm?
Now…want to WRITE comics for a living? Watch. Any difference?
Seasoned vets can make fun of some of the oddball qualities of Clive and Daina Goodinson’s labor of love, but in its current incarnation, Pixton is pretty close to what a lot of young newbies have been asking for for years (I know, I get the emails!) and there’s clearly a lot of thoughtful design work going on under the hood.
Much like the Photo Comic software Comic Life, this appears to be a thoroughly user-centered venture. Users want it. Users will get it. And like Comic Life, I could see this continuing to find a place in classrooms, families, or around the water cooler.
The reaction of a lot of my cartooning peers may be a simple “GYAAAGH!” but this sort of thing never bothered me. The goal posts in the whole “only a human can do it” game are going to be moving a lot this century and I’m happy to dance around them with the rest of the creative community.
Screwed around a bit with Harmony last night after work; a spare but fun online sketching tool that’s part of the ongoing Chrome Experiments series.
Ever since the sublime original KidPix, I’ve liked art tools that ditched the obvious analog metaphors (paintbucket, eyedropper, pencil), but kept the idea of limited control that makes traditional picture-making so unpredictable.
Drawing with tools like “fur” and “ribbon” are like taking a dog for a walk. You may have a route picked out, but there’s going to be a lot of sniffing and straining at the leash.
Also note sidebar: Italy in April, London in May, and South Bend in 12 days. And when not traveling: 11 hours a day, 7 days a week on the book—and loving it.
I’ve been thinking about art history a lot this year as I tunnel through my art-related graphic novel. As dorky and low-rent as most of the tableaus in the video are, it’s surprising to me how much power several of them have; producing almost a shock of recognition. (This is something Michel Gondry really understands too—that it doesn’t have to be serious or slick to deliver a punch).
I’ve been thinking of cartooning as a kind of visual compression algorithm lately. They travel in such a simple, reduced state, but when unpacked in the mind of the viewer, even a few simple lines can yield a huge set of ideas and emotions.
We’re looking at live action in the case of the video, but I think the effect might be similar.
The esteemed Mr. Manley sends word of a cool game by producer and director Tyler Glaiel and artist Jon Schubbe called Closure.
It’s a spare independent flash game now being developed for other formats which plays with some of the ideas I talk about in Chapter 3 of UC to great effect.
It’s really cool so I decided to link to it—and then realized that I already had an email from Tyler Glaiel telling me about the game over a year ago.
Ivy and I love both of the new OK Go videos for “This Too Shall Pass” (check out the marching band one also) but I’m especially fond of the Rube Goldberg machine version because I remember making stuff like this as a kid.
It’s been almost a century since the real-life Rube Goldberg started creating his ingenious cartoon machines on America’s funny pages, but his place in pop culture is as secure as ever.
Everybody sends out ripples in life, but some are more pronounced than others. I think most artists (unless they’re Buddhists?) like the idea that their own ripples will travel for a long time, but you can never predict exactly what shape they might take.
We watched the Oscars last night, so I finally got to see Tom Gauld’s Diet Coke can animation in action after a flurry of “Wait Wait! Go back!” and rewinding.
Love ’em or hate ’em, ad agencies have great taste in music and comics sometimes. (I’ve seen two commercials using Amon Tobin, but have yet to hear the guy on commercial radio).
I’ve enjoyed Gauld’s work for a while, since the day Kurt alerted me to Gauld’s sublime Hunter and Painter. Gauld’s The Gigantic Robot is a delightful, if brief, read, and his Noah’s Ark comic was my favorite piece in Kramer’s Ergot #7. Check out his recently launched personal site for more info.
The road from Kramer’s Ergot to multi-million dollar national ad campaigns isn’t usually so straight, but hey, any port in a storm. Every generation has its Medicis and sometimes they take unexpected forms. It’ll be fun to see what kind of future work from Gauld this windfall might help fund.
Long-time friend of the site, Greg Stephens suggested I check out this article by Tokyo-based Craig Mod which offers his take on different contents’ ability (or lack thereof) to migrate easily from device to device.
His whole presentation has an amusing vintage-Tufte meets RC-era me feeling, and some of the reasoning may be a bit fuzzy, but his ideas are fun, provocative, and worth a look—as are the many comments that follow.
Craig’s main point—that there are types of content that can’t be endlessly re-flowed and re-purposed because their formal presentation is integral to the work—is a huge issue for comics and the source of a lot of our growing pains to date.
For years, I’ve watched as we’ve tried out a dozen different metaphors for comics on the Web. Pages versus windows, flipping versus panning, “strip” versus “magazine” versus “book”… all the while assuming that the best metaphor(s) would simply win out in the end on an open network.
What worried me is that sooner or later, one or two of those metaphors were bound to migrate to dedicated reading devices, and when they did, the designers of those devices could simply choose which metaphor suited them and lock them in. For a really long time.
If such devices follow an app store model, such experimentation doesn’t have to stop dead in its tracks. Maybe. But there’s no question that “later” is becoming “sooner” is becoming “now” and if we don’t make some smart decisions during this stage of growth, comics could veer dangerously off course for years.
San Francisco, CA
March 23, 2021 San Francisco State University
Round Table Discussion, "Adapting Comics for Blind and Low Vision Readers," moderated by Nick Sousanis
While I’m happy to let Pixton and Bitstrips continue to trade stories of comics-making software tools in yesterday’s mammoth comments thread, let’s invite a hand drawn comic by the great John Porcellino into our hearts for a moment to restore a little balance to the universe.
March 3, 2021
