edwest
12-27-2010, 10:06 AM
Yep, Mark Waid has decided to evangelize for the inevitable digital future. Problem is, he has no punch line. He is also living in a world where the future is great but he's not telling anyone how he plans to get there.
Mark, if you're reading this, experiment all you want, but please don't sell the fiction that for the first time ever, "the people are free." Uh, uh. Amateur junk fills the internet. A lot of it is about novelty and yelling into the microphone. Please stop listening to the Beats and Hippies, and realize people don't spend years learning this craft only to spend way too much time worrying about how to pay their bills. You, like everybody else, can do precisely what you want, but please don't tell anyone that they can't put up their 5 year old's crayon drawings all over the internet. The "control" issue was settled long ago. Before, young creators lamented, "If only I had the money, I'd change everything." Today, no such excuse exists.
I wish you well Mark, I really do. But before anyone starts a business, even a modest business, they have a plan. I know you've written that you'll be unveiling yours soon. I look forward to it. I work in the media. I understand how it works. I like and welcome experimentation, but you don't leave your audience hanging, at least you shouldn't. You'd be a better evangelist once you can tell your audience how the comics business/industry/hobby will get from point A to point B. And once again, global internet access is yours. Drop the oversized sweater, the espresso and the hangers-on who like Karl Marx and do your stories.
Ed
Mark, if you're reading this, experiment all you want, but please don't sell the fiction that for the first time ever, "the people are free." Uh, uh. Amateur junk fills the internet. A lot of it is about novelty and yelling into the microphone. Please stop listening to the Beats and Hippies, and realize people don't spend years learning this craft only to spend way too much time worrying about how to pay their bills. You, like everybody else, can do precisely what you want, but please don't tell anyone that they can't put up their 5 year old's crayon drawings all over the internet. The "control" issue was settled long ago. Before, young creators lamented, "If only I had the money, I'd change everything." Today, no such excuse exists.
I wish you well Mark, I really do. But before anyone starts a business, even a modest business, they have a plan. I know you've written that you'll be unveiling yours soon. I look forward to it. I work in the media. I understand how it works. I like and welcome experimentation, but you don't leave your audience hanging, at least you shouldn't. You'd be a better evangelist once you can tell your audience how the comics business/industry/hobby will get from point A to point B. And once again, global internet access is yours. Drop the oversized sweater, the espresso and the hangers-on who like Karl Marx and do your stories.
Ed