T Campbell's Blog

A recent couple of posts made last weekend quite the passionate one at this blog. Let’s cap it off with a quick discussion of my other project that I consider capital-I Important, Clickwheel.

Wherever comics have gone, they've found new possibilities. We've seen that over and over again. When we moved from the editorial section to the newspaper comic, from there to the comic book, from there to the graphic novel and the webcomic-- each time, imaginative writers and artists found new ways to reach their audience, new ways to connect.

The iPod is a handheld, portable media player. It combines several important virtues of newspapers (portability, ubiquity), comic books (portability, durability) and webcomics (ubiquity, durability).

Portability: Unlike the computer and even the laptop, you can carry an iPod anywhere and start reading from it within seconds-- in fact it's even more portable than a newspaper or comic book-- try stuffing one of either of those in your pocket. With some you can manage it, but not without endangering the merchandise.

Durability: Unlike newspapers and the cheaper comic books, the iPod is built to last. A reader can condense an entire collection of comics into their hand, look back on previous work and make comparisons. Your iPod isn't built to last forever-- what would Apple sell you then? But it will serve you well for several years, and the files you collect in the earlier models can live on in their successors.

Ubiquity: Newspapers can still be found nearly everywhere, but their circulations are slowly drying up. Web connections are going more and more places, but without a portable interface their effects will always be limited. iPods can go almost anywhere on Earth that humans can go... and they pretty much are.

Comics on the iPod?

Just like searchable comics, I consider this not merely a cool idea, but a necessity.

As a visual form, comics are jacked right into the reptile brain. And no matter how good our image-making technology gets, it’s always going to be easier to make comics’ few, economical frames than the many frames required for animation. That ease makes comics an ideal platform for individual voices, while their multiple frames allow them to convey four dimensions. Add that up, and you have the most democratic of the popular arts.

But democracy doesn’t just take care of itself. Democracy has to be defended.

Media moguls are pushing a vision of the iPod as video player. The creation of video is more communal than individual, easier to moderate, easier to manipulate. And video exerts a more powerful draw on people than comics-- it's more mesmerizing: it does more of the cognitive "work" for you and pretty soon you just lie back and enjoy. Comics will have to fight to be recognized as viable here.

But then, we’re used to that.

We fought to be recognized as a source of powerful, original ideas for video (i.e., movies and television) instead of a target of Adam West-style ridicule, and won.

We fought to be recognized by the literary establishment and won.

We fought to be recognized as a viable source of online entertainment (when all the investor dollars were going into limited animation) and won.

And we can win again. It’ll take brains, guts and talent, but it can happen. I’m working with some fine minds and a growing number of fantastic cartoonists to make it happen.

I wouldn’t bet against us.

The official launch is less than a month away. Be braced.