For example web comics have not really taken off. Why not? Well... a couple of years ago, I did several hours of work to find all the web comics I could, and made one mega-bookmark to load them all every day to read. And yet I have never done this!! The durn mega-bookmark still sits on top of Safari, untouched, but not deleted because of all the work I put into collecting them. (Probably half the links are dead.)
I did not use them because I simply am not comfortable enough to sit and read comic strips in my office chair. And also, most web comics are scaled for tiny screens on PCs from 1997, apparently. If somebody makes a web comic application which really utilizes the iPad's potential, I think we have a whole 'nother game.
And also, as a writer/artist I get the weird feeling in my gut that there's a potential market here, similar to the app market which did not exist before the iPhone put the platform there. I feel that graphics-rich books of various kinds, perhaps some with videos embedded, would become much more sellable. It's just a feeling.
TTL wrote to me:
It will be very interesting to see the effect the iPad will have on how people read stuff. Who knows, it might even be that it will take a little steam off from writing articles on the web, when people start to wonder whether they should publish that content for the iPad instead.
Are we going to see more longer format writing again? Just as people learned to output their thoughts in byte size chunks that can be quickly consumed from blogs while sitting on the office chair.
I predict the iPad will be a game changer in more ways than one.
I'm getting just the same feeling about long-format writing, it'll be quite interesting.
----------------
I just wrote to David Pogue:
Dear David,
Re this article: .... so now baby boomers are synonymous with oldsters intimidated by technology!!
When you and I were kids (David Pogue and I were both born on 9 March 1963), baby boomers were the young and the hip!
Then they were the big and powerful.
Now, revenge is ours.
I must speak now, in a few years it'll be too late...
Love, Eolake
Who is David Pogue? If you are going to drop names, please make them people I actually know.
ttl said...
He's some Irish singer. No need to make such a big fuzz about it.
eolake said...
Yes, of course I was referring to the great Irish singer David Pogue, cousin and arch-rival of Bonno (I am never sure of the spelling, sorry). Although as serious fans will be aware, he is technically Scottish, but his parents moved to Ireland when he was less than a year old, so obviously he was left no choice but to come with them.
Word is that David has been trying for the last couple of years to find a hot female pop singer to make a hit duet with, but he keeps being frustrated by the fact that just as they start the agent message-tag game, the female singer will invariably become involved in some drug-related scandal or such, and David will have to pull out, not to shame his deeply catholic parents.
Another frustration in his life is that when he's in NYC, he keeps getting stopped on the street by people who mistake him for another David Pogue, who apparently write about computers or something for the NY Times. He can only make them go away by pointing out that unlike the other David Pogue, his ears are anatomically correct and he can use in-ear earbuds without problems.
Update: ttl said...
So, Eo, are you planning to publish some ... er ... “graphic-rich” books for the iPad?Eolake said...
Definitely.
Although to be honest, less than ten percent of such plans of mine tend to pan out. So we'll see.
My latest idea is to do a "powerpoint" type slideshow instead, so each page is a drawing, and the "text" is spoken word which I record. This will leave the art free of text, because I find that text almost always drag the art down, aesthetically.
For example the most beautiful pages I have found in comic books over the years have been pages entirely without any text on them. But it's hard to tell a story that way, so I figure spoken word would be a solution. (Each page could be a full drawing, or it could be several like a comic book page.)
If one is good enough (I don't know if I am), one can also put a lot more tone and emotion and so on into spoken word than in text.
And of course a huge number of people in the world just are not comfortable reading, either for psychological or eye-sight reasons.
I just wrote to Steve Jobs:
ReplyDelete"We talked about this years ago in that meeting with with Bill, when he kept yakking on about media convergence. What took so long, buddy?"
I expect to hear back real soon.
PS: Who is David Pogue? If you are going to drop names, please make them people I actually know.
PS: Who is David Pogue? If you are going to drop names, please make them people I actually know.
ReplyDeleteHe's some Irish singer. No need to make such a big fuzz about it.
I've got a folder called "Humour" with comic rss-feeds in Google Reader and it's the second one I read every day. (the first one's called "Alerts")
ReplyDeleteA good way to keep up with Cat and girl, Dilbert, The Duplex, Real life adventures, Loose ends, Pearls before swine, Murray the nut, Sinfest, xkcd, We the robots, Savage chickens, Questionable content, lolcats, etc. ... and of course the I Can Has Cheezburger lolcat newsfeed.
Drats, I should've previewed my comment. There's a redundant "lolcats" entry in my list. Let's pretend it was on purpose to emphasize their importance for my mental wellbeing. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThis is a bummer.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/01/ipad-books-are-us-only/
Yes, of course I was referring to the great Irish singer David Pogue, cousin and arch-rival of Bonno (I am never sure of the spelling, sorry). Although as serious fans will be aware, he is technically Scottish, but his parents moved to Ireland when he was less than a year old, so obviously he was left no choice but to come with them.
ReplyDeleteWord is that David has been trying for the last couple of years to find a hot female pop singer to make a hit duet with, but he keeps being frustrated by the fact that just as they start the agent message-tag game, the singer will suddenly be involved in some drug-related scandal or such, and he'll have to pull out, not to shame his deeply catholic parents.
Another frustration in his life is that when he's in NYC, he keeps getting stopped on the street by people who mistake him for another David Pogue, who apparently write about computers or something for the NY Times. He can only make them go away by pointing out that unlike the other David Pogue, his ears are anatomically correct and he can use in-ear earbuds without problems.
Eolake has mentioned Pogue a lot but to be honest I have never had any desire to find out who he is. :-)
ReplyDeleteFolks, don't believe any of the nonsense Eo is spouting.
ReplyDeleteDavid is well known because he is part of the Irish musical family, The Pogues. That's all.
Heretic! His best work is his solo work! What about the grammy he won for On And Off And On The Wall Again And Again? What about his groundbreaking flute work in "This Man's Heart Is Forever Pulverized". If you ignore that, you're just putting on blinders purposefully.
ReplyDeleteDave Nielsen, sure, go back to your American West Coast grunge rock, see if real music will miss you at all...
ReplyDeleteSo, Eo, are you planning to publish some ... er ... “graphic-rich” books for the iPad?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely.
ReplyDeleteAlthough to be honest, less than ten percent of such plans of mine tend to pan out. So we'll see.
My latest idea is to do a "powerpoint" type slideshow instead, so each page is a drawing, and the "text" is spoken word which I record. This will leave the art free of text, because I find that text almost always drag the art down, aesthetically.
For example the most beautiful pages I have found in comic books over the years have been pages entirely without any text on them. But it's hard to tell a story that way, so I figure spoken word would be a solution. (Each page could be a full drawing, or it could be several like a comic book page.)
If one is good enough (I don't know if I am), one can also put a lot more tone and emotion and so on into spoken word than in text.
And of course a huge number of people in the world just are not comfortable reading, either for psychological or eye-sight reasons.
Haha, so when you were born the Beatles were singing "Love Love Love" in the background? Haha (;-)
ReplyDeleteit certainly paid.
At the time I could already understand the lyrics, hehe. Granny that I am, today. ( no Granchildren to look after though, haha).
Right you are, Monsieur! Forget the Pogues, the Cors and the Ruttles, what about praising the four Beatle brothers? John, Paul, Ringo and Averell Beatle. But everybody keeps forgetting Averell´s name. He´s like music´s 4th Musketeer. :-(
ReplyDelete[I for one didn´t forget you, Chico Marx! ...Or was his name Carl?]
What about his groundbreaking flute work in "This Man's Heart Is Forever Pulverized".
I thought it was "This Man's SPLEEN Is Forever Pulverized", adapted from a Baudelaire masterpiece poem?
No, you're confusing it with the action movie of that title, with action star Dave Pague.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think the immense potential for interactive/animated/with sound/rich books is still direly undertapped today. I mean, for one, how many webcomics do bother with some simple .GIF animations, such as, say, (at random) MY AVATAR RIGHT HERE with blinking eyes?
ReplyDeleteI´ve made myself my own homepage, with all my regular links, after becoming self-taught in HTML. I don´t know the first think of making Adobe Flash files, but I´ve learned many tricks. For one, and just for the %$#@ sake of it, I´ve got images of Garfield, J.J.Doonesbury, Archie Andrews, Mrs Americana and the Yahoo! logo´s smiley all looking alive there, each blinking at their own frequency. (Fastest for Mrs Americana because she´s getting chloroformed by the evil Mr. X, so she´s half-fainting. :-)
If Blogger didn´t convert my GIFs into static PNG format, I´d be posting many more on my blog.
Starting with a prototype of terrorist-proof skyscrapeers. No fib!
But anyway, I think there´s immense room for interactive books, somewhere between static printed text/comics, TV cartoons, and the highly complex stories of adventure/RPG videogames.
For instance, a special CD-Rom edition of Harry Potter, with old paper texture background for the pages, a font like quill writing, animated images in color, and sometimes an embedded small video or music/voice from the movies.
So many possibilities, so little imaginative talents! Many promises of the "multimedia format" are still buried in the form of raw ore.
Dave Pague? I could´ve sworn it was Troy McClure. (Also seen in the classic Stop, or my die-hard Mom will Indy your nachos!.)
ReplyDeleteThat's very true. The multi-media art format seemed so very promising, on CD-ROMs in the early nineties, before the web arrived to very unexpected kill them!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Scott McCloud makes the point in his excellent book (maybe the second one) that a comic which starts to use any animation at all, is no longer technically a comic. And worse, it will be in a competitive space with real animated videos, which may not make it look good!
On the other hand, Scott McCloud makes the point in his excellent book (maybe the second one) that a comic which starts to use any animation at all, is no longer technically a comic. And worse, it will be in a competitive space with real animated videos, which may not make it look good!
ReplyDeleteThat is true. Besides, I don't find word balloons and text boxes distracting. What I dislike about modern comic books compared to those of even 20 years ago is that they are so heavy on computer coloring and computer text. I actually kind of long for the comparatively crude four-color work of the Golden Age.