Andrew P. Mayer » Tech

The Future of Comics are Digital

Andrew — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:44:54 +0000

I’ve been trying to avoid writing these large “here’s what Andrew thinks the future is going to be” pieces lately. But the truth is that they’re also what I’m actually writing for the site, so they’re what’s getting posted.

There’s been an argument going on lately about the future of comics, discussing whether the industry is going to stay in print, or move towards digital. But here’s the ultimate truth: After you’ve read a few comics on the iPad it’s pretty clear that the delicate eco-system has kept the US comic industry afloat for the last few decades has been irrevocably shattered, and print is on its way out.

The problem has been that over the last thirty years comics have gone from being cheap pieces of folded newsprint in corner store spinner racks, to expensive pieces of disposable entertainment placed into handcrafted pigeon-holes that line the walls of nerd media game preserves where the delicate pamphlets can remain pristine.

The end of result of this process has been the creation of an ever-shrinking (and aging) audience that demands a blend of nostalgia and psychedelic science-fiction that makes it almost impossible for a mass market audience to connect with until it’s been re-interpreted by a more mainstream media (usually film).

So the dwindling hardcore gets exactly what it wants, but it comes at the cost of the industry being able to grow outside of the markets it’s already in because the keepers of the preserves are terrified of losing their meager audience.

It’s a classic death spiral, and it means that a once thriving industry is becoming more and more dependant on licenses, name talent, and movie deals, with the irony being that the quirky comics characters and stories are generating huge amounts of money in every medium except comics.

To survive in the long-term, the market has to grow beyond the 100,000 or so people who are willing to walk into a comic shop on a weekly basis, and it’s clear that the rise of consumer computing devices like the iPad, the iPhone, and the Netbook are going to provide that opportunity.

Some people complain that digital comics don’t look as “good” as they are in print. But they’re wrong, it’s better. Not only are they cheaper (usually by 30-50%), but the next generation of readers (like Comixology) include directed panel to panel transitions that make the entire experience richer and more dramatic (if occasionally blurry). Where motion comics failed, these enhanced comics really do make me feel like I’m getting more for my money.

But even if it digital comics were worse , it doesn’t really matter. Most fans didn’t care that mp3s sound worse than CDs either. In consumer technology it’s a combination of price and convenience that trumps quality every time.

And the dirty little secret underlying all of this is there’s an invisible majority of comics readers who are already reading comics by downloading scanned content with no legal option for them to make a digital purchase.

So what does a digital future for comics look like? Everybody seems to think the big transition comes when Marvel and DC jump seriously into releasing their comics in digital format at, or close to, print publication dates. It’s already started: IDW (a major second-tier publisher) has already said they will put out every book two weeks after it comes out in the stores. Marvel is also dipping their toe into the water, saying they will release this year’s Iron Man annual simultaneously in both formats.

While getting the big publishers’ content online is important, the new audience that shows up to read comics on their gadgets may not be interested in the same material that’s been sold at the local nerd-mart.

They may want something slightly different than the endless superhero remixes that have been the staple the business for forty years. There’s already a generation out there that grew up reading manga instead of Batman, and it wouldn’t be surprising to me if we discover that their tastes are more Twilight than Avengers.

I love comics. I’ve written comics, and I’m planning to write more. But it’s clear to me that the future is already here, and that over the next half decade this new medium is going to change what comics are in ways that are going to challenge the status quo, and upset the current audience, creators, and publishers.

The Future Tastes Like Glass

Andrew — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:36:43 +0000

When people ask “Where do your ideas come from?” it’s easy to say “everywhere”, but sometimes it’s here, specifically.

Wrapping a science fiction story around something like this is a no-brainer:

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The Rise of the Slate

Drew — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:43:58 +0000

Over the last 20 years Bruce Sterling has championed the idea of that we should be moving towards the idea of the computer as a “Furoshiki”, essentially a self-folding cloth computer that you can put in your pocket.

While we’re not there yet, the coming rise of the tablet-PC, seen at both CES, and poised to be the next “big idea” from apple (with some announcement coming soon), it seems to be moving us one-giant-step closer to that vision.

Having already purchased an iPhone last year I’m a little nervous at how locked-down this generation of digital “devices” seems poised to become, sacrificing utility and innovation for corporate control, and wrapping everything in poorly understood ideas of corporate “ownership” of ideas at the expense of individual ownership.

That said, I think that these larger formats are going to do wonders for ubiquitous media and communication. And clearly, after we move our traditional media onto these platforms it will change the way we interact with them.

To get some idea of what that might mean, take a look at this concept video for a digital-device based magazine:

Lou Anders on Technology and Science Fiction

Drew — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:02:23 +0000

Lou Anders is the Editorial Director of Pyr, one of the hottest sci-fi and fantasy book imprints. It was a conversation I had with him at Orycon that inspired me to ask whether Fantasy is the New Science Fiction a few weeks back.

Here he is talking to Chip Design magazine about the relationships between Science Fiction and technology.

We have only scraped the surface of genetic engineering. I remember reading somewhere that there is a 60-year cycle from the invention of the technology and the revolutionizing of the world by that technology. We build the first computers and they are giant things that take up whole suites of business building. Now, 60 years later, they have become miniaturized and everyone has one on their watch. Genetic engineering is not yet 50 years old. At some point in the near future we’ll have a genetic revolution that will be equivalent to the computer revolution. Right now we’re at the stage where transistors are so cheap that you can buy a birthday card that players music and then throw it away! That will happen with genetic engineering.

Lot’s more thought-provoking stuff on the other side of the link.

The Kindle: Godwin in the Machine

Drew — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:30:21 +0000

Even as I was talking about how people have trouble with change as they grow older, The Huffington Post published an article a few days before that proved my point beautifully. It also manages to highlight a technique that’s often used to cover up a lack of a cohesive argument: ratchet up the rhetoric of fear and threat so far that people are helpless in the face of it.

Here’s an example of the babbling hysteria contained within:

So that now, sixty four years after the Holocaust, the Nazi disdain for the book has become the feel-good Hi-Tech campaign to rid the world of books in place of massive easily controlled centralized repositories of book texts downloadable on little hand-held devices and from which a text can be dissapeared with the click of a mouse: in Nazi terms, a dream come true.

If you think that’s silly and hyperbolic, read the rest of it. I was no great fan of the Kindle when it launched, but there’s no reason to this rant beyond the formula of claiming that if you can find any twisted way to equate something modern to something the Nazis did it must therefore be the same. It’s silly and childlike, and it’s the kind of thing that destroys our ability to reason our way into the future.

The Slinger Sizzle Reel

Drew — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:27:52 +0000

Here’s a lovely bit of something:

This is basically the video pitch for a television show that doesn’t exist yet.

The aesthetic of projected reality is fantastic, even if it’s more likely to be the 2060s than 2260s.

Sony Home discovers that virtual realities often mean going nowhere

Drew — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:26:07 +0000

The idea of a fully computer-generated virtual reality (VR) hit the mainstream two decades ago when William Gibson introduced to the world to the cyber-cowboys of data-decks of Neuromancer. But even as crude prototypes were developed, and the concepts were discussed late into the night, we were without the computing power to actually make it happen. We could talk a lot about how cool it would be, we just couldn’t actually go there.

Since then there have been a number of attempts to create virtual worlds, but our intellectual understanding of what that might mean has remained far ahead of our ability to actual create it. Second Life, a more recent example, was able to generate far more press than it was activity, because in the end the ability to “do anything” still means that someone has to do all the work that it takes to make something happen.

The disconnect comes from the fact that the endgame of VR isn’t really about breaking the laws of physics, it’s about fulfilling desires. What we’re really looking for is a magical genie where the products of our imaginations can be realized instantly, without the painstaking work that it usually takes to go from fantasy to reality, and without the inherent language process errors that come from Monkey Paws or genies in old Twilight Zone episodes. But even as our digital tools get better and better the interfaces for turning thought into action still remain crude, filtered through complicated devices that still only allow for the simplest approximations of interaction. Or, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, when someone knocks all the crap over in your house in Fallout 3, you suddenly realize that you don’t actually have the hands you need in order to pick it up.

But the idea of VR is compelling enough that it seems to constantly trick people into giving it another go. To that end Sony has clearly decided it’s worthwhile to pour millions of dollars into trying to create a virtual front-end for the Playstation 3. Unfortunately they seem to be running headlong into not only into the classic roadblocks of VR creation, but also the modern problems that come when what people want is to screw around with ideas and characters that other people “own”. As the creators of Spore recently discovered when their users decided that making thousands of living penises was a great idea, giving people the tools to be able to easily do whatever they want comes with the added responsibility of having to police what they actually do.

There are solutions to those problems, but they can be expensive, and once they’re applied you may find that what you have isn’t really a virtual reality anymore. Instead you’ve got a game where the only rules are defined by your limitations, both real and artificial, which isn’t really much fun at all.

The R2D2 DVD Projector

Drew — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:37:17 +0000

I’m not sure what to make of this, but it leaves me feeling dizzy:

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It’s certainly an interesting artifact, and if you’re a geek you realize just how right it is on so many levels. In many ways it represents a genuine manifestation of the role that R2D2 fulfilled in the series, providing mobile technical expertise, and displaying just the right video to the right people at the right time.

It also has all the right inputs, allowing the player to interact with a variety of modern objects. I have to admit that I almost gasped with glee when the iPod dock popped out of the chassis. This is clearly something that has been thought about, and designed with a clear audience in mind, although it’s doubtful the slacker hipster stereotype who’s playing their awesome game on the ceiling of their deluxe bachelor pad is the person who would buy this (or even actually exists). But the nerd is clearly the target market, and it’s a well aimed piece of tech.

It’s also a masterpiece of instant obsolescence.

From the moment you buy it, those slots and connectors are already out of date, and note that if you want to watch an HD-DVD you’ll need to hook up that PS3 they’re talking about. This is a piece of tech that is all about the moment, and as impressive as it is to have a mobile high def screen, it’s something that’s going to last about as long as your average computer.

That said, there’s something truly futuristic about the idea of this thing. It’s the beginning of the transformation of the appliance from a passive to an active device, wrapped up into a context that defines both the expectations and the use of the device.

Having a virtual ball with VirtuSphere

Drew — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:51:29 +0000

This virtual reality sphere is a pretty good idea. Certainly a nice step towards the holo-deck that is our right as humans living in the 21st century.

But then you realize that you actually need to walk to use it… It’ll never catch on.

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via the far too British Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Homersapien

Drew — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:45:27 +0000

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

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This thing is truly an abomination. If the robots do rise up and kill us all, I can no longer blame them.

It also doesn’t use Dan Castellaneta’s voice. Instead it has a “sound alike” who doesn’t sound a thing like him.

Thankfully this monstrous hunk of plastic is only available in England.