I came across this article earlier about 10 newspaper comic strips the author thinks need to end. While I understand her reasoning, dailies are about the only place to even find newsprint comics anymore. I (and many others) often complain how comic books just don't have that same feeling these days - they're soulless, compared to the comics we grew up with - and I honestly think the computerization of them is partially responsible.
Sure, the printing is better, the images crisper and clearer, but they lack the intensity and... whatever it is that made comic books what they are to begin with! Some of it has to do with the creators, many of whom are really only stopping-through the medium on their way to other fields, and some of it has to do with the notion that the medium is played-out, but that is not true.
Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and others basically revived the medium in the 1980s and that is what it really needs again. Of course, they have been around for nearly a century now, so it is understandable how some think the entire thing has been "done." But I know there are new directions, new arenas, and new concepts just waiting to be explored.
Maybe it is time to let go of the past - look ahead instead of looking back - for comics to move forward, but then again, I think it's important to look back to when comics meant something to find out what it is they are so sorely lacking these days.
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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