One species’ evolution is another’s dead end. The comic as we know it may be evolving into graphic novels and webcomics but the thought of viewing your comic material frame by frame on a mobile phone sends a bit of a shiver through me – and this cover doesn’t do anything to dispel that.
Leaving aside the aesthetic concerns there is an interesting business model at the heart of this, basically commissioning peoples work for free but sharing 50% of revenues with the creators, and perhaps it is something people have been waiting for without knowing it. Whilst I could see the technology being applicable to ‘gag’ cartoonists – something like “Non Sequiter” would be ideal – or perhaps at a stretch a four panel strip like “Doonesbury” – I can’t really see the application to other longer comics forms.
Go check it our for yourself though (there’s a free photostrip comic to download on ROK set at the recent Bristol Comics Expo which uses a couple of our photographs) – there are some credible people involved with this including John Freeman of ‘Down the Tubes’ fame and comic artist Chris Reynolds. I must say, however, I did find that the ‘What is ROK comics?’ piece which leads of the wraparound Comics International cover advert shown above seemed to be written by someone who couldn’t be bothered to check their facts. Their history of comics sales seems to me plainly wrong for many markets – perhaps it holds for the UK, but it’s never mentioned that’s what they are talking about. Also Mobile Phones did not come around in 2000 as I remember carrying around one of the beasts they describe as far back as the early 1980′s. I’m not quite sure who this is meant to appeal to – their lead statement is “ROK Comics has been created by ROK to mobilise and monetise the digital comics marketplace.” – somehow I don’t get the feeling this is comics as an artform – more as a gold rush.
June 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
“I can’t really see the application to other longer comics forms.”
Well, I’m biased on this one since I’m currently engaged in adapting three of my longer form comics for the ROK service. That aside, I suspect we’re looking at a different market for these comics than we traditionally associate with print comics.
Remember the three-panel-a-day Batman strips that used to appear in daily or weekly newspapers? Or even the current “Striker” strips in The Sun? They both tell (or told) longer-form stories that would typically span many strips and have (or had) an audience distinct from the usual comic buyers. So, longer form comics can be done this way.
By way of example, check out the “Free Pro” comics section at http://www.rokcomics.com and you can see the trailers I prepared for “Shades”, “Hunted” and “The Spires”. (Yes, okay, so that’s a bit of a plug but at least the trailers are free!)
June 19th, 2007 at 10:14 am
David, I suspect you’re right – after all the best webcomics have adapted the traditional format to one more suitable for reading on a screen (as you obviously know with the excellent Broken Voice site) and I sometimes wonder how many people who read those actually buy print comics or graphic novels. I’m sure there are a lot, but I also strongly suspect there are quite a few who don’t pick up traditional print media that often but do read a number of online strips and cartoon panels. And as you say there is a long tradition of adapting major comics characters into short 3 or 4 panel strips for daily newspapers – even Dredd was adapted in this form and ran for years; I seem to recall they even managed to do a recap of the epic Apocalypse War in 4 panels at one point!
June 19th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I’m another who has a problem with this, although I’ll freely admit it’s more my problem than the viewing media.
It’s a question of scale really. It’s difficult enough to get used to looking at web-comics, with the strange formats and layouts to fit the comic on the screen, but at least that’s a fairly large space to display the page.
The idea of a comic page on a mobile phone screen just doesn’t work for me. Like you said, if it has to be displayed panel by panel then it’s failing before it begins.
Obviously there’s room for improvement and there could be great possibilities in sending daily single panel strips or newspaper strips out that way, but whole comics? We’re nowhere near ready yet.
Of course, by whole comics I mean the sort of comics I imagine we’re really talking about; 20 plus pages with 4+ panels per page (that would take 80 mobile phone screens – surely the technology isn’t there for that yet. And even if it were, would you want to spend the time slowly flicking through panel by panel? I know I wouldn’t.
Of course, I’m more than willing to be a corporate guinea pig for trials. Maybe Steve Jobs would like to send me a new i-phone to really explore the potential?
And the most interesting thing about it – Joe’s admission that he had a mobile phone back in the 80s. Joe Gordon – comics blogger by night, stock market trader by day?
June 19th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
In correction to the last comment – it was Kenny with the mobile phone and the off shore bank accounts, striped shirts and braces in the share dealership. Maybe I should occasionally look at the byline to see who wrote the article. Duh.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:39 am
It was indeed Kenny in his 80s mode; at that time the closest I got to those brick-sized ‘romafones’ was jokes about them in Peattie and Taylor’s Alex cartoon strip (then in the Independent) where it was an important status symbol for the City crowd. And obviously, as you say, a way of keeping in touch with one’s striped shirt maker and offshore banker :-)
June 21st, 2007 at 11:18 pm
More on the comics on your mobile story –
From Dirk at Journalista:
Trendspotting (http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/?p=140) gathers recent data on the Japanese comics fans’ increasing use of cellphones to read manga. Perhaps the most interesting nugget is how the readership breaks down by gender: Some two-thirds of digital manga readers are women.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 am
Hmmm, I wonder if that would lend some weight to my speculation that this form of comics might appeal to people who perhaps didn’t go into comics stores to buy print material regularly?