Over the last few months, Scott McCloud's name has been all over
the place. Mainly because of his book Reinventing Comics and the
criticism that it has drawn. Within The Comics Journal issues
and
Gary
Groth wrote a scathing editorial against McCloud and his views. Scott gave
a reply in issue , but did
not address all of the criticisms. In this interview he replies to those
criticisms still remaining from Gary Groth editorials and to others in the
industry.
Coville:
Over the weekend I read your response to TCJ's Cuckoo-Land
thing, so this interview will be a little bit shorter since you already
discussed that.
McCloud:
(laughter) Right, yeah.
Coville:
I'll start off with Understand Comics, one of the things you
mentioned was Sequential Art. Obviously we know what that is, one after
the other. But you didn't talk too much about political cartoons or single
panel cartoons, as if they are not comics. Any comment on that?
McCloud:
I think it's misunderstood that I don't see them as comics
doesn't mean that theyre some lesser form of art. I think cartooning has
every bit as rich a history as comics does: I just see one of them as being
a way of drawing and a way of seeing and the other a way of arranging
what we create. So they are two different things. Now they intersect all
the time, of course. There is a rich joint tradition of cartooning in
comics. I just don't think it's the same thing. So Keith Haring was a
cartoonist for example, but he wasn't making comics. He did his cartoons
on walls and whatnot. If he was doing, you know, the comics in the
newspaper then it would be easier to think of him as a cartoonist but he still
wouldn't be a comic book artist. Or excuse me, he would be a *comics*
artist. Of course, comic *books* that is a whole nother can of worms. So
by making that separation, making a very small subtraction, from my general
lumpy conception of what comics are, I was able to draw that
boundary much, much larger for many other things, many historical
precedences and many potential future forms. So even though I cut loose
that one single panel exception, I was able to draw my map larger and able
to include a whole lot of other things. Seemed worth it. But I think many
people misunderstood that exception is somehow a demotion of single
panel cartoons like The Far Side or political cartoons or caricature. And it's
not. Some of my favourite artists are single panel cartoonists. People like
Steinberg or some of the great political cartoonists, they're terrific.
It's just not comics, that's all.
Coville:
Moving on to Reinventing Comics. There is a DC Disclaimer
that you mentioned before about particular ideas giving some people
problems. What particular ideas do you know that set some people off?
McCloud:
I think it was pretty clear. Towards the discussion at the
end of the product of the book, was the chapter that was most
objectionable to some people at DC was the business chapter. The 2nd
Chapter of the book, I think, that some people up at DC and Time Warner
found my projections for the future of comics distasteful on some levels.
But it was really my view of the history of the business of comics that
upset some people. To DC's credit, they honoured the contract that I had
with them and did not enforce any corrections for editorial reasons. And I
appreciate that, I think they behaved honourably, but it's not the history
of comics as DC would necessarily like to see it.
Coville:
There are two versions of Reinventing Comics, one
Perennial/Harper Collins and one that DC was publishing.
McCloud:
That was true for Understanding as well.
Coville:
Understanding, as well?
McCloud:
Yeah. It's a bit of a long history, but in brief Understanding
Comics was first published by Tundra. By the time it hit the stands
Tundra no longer existed and had been swallowed up by Kitchen Sink Press.
Kitchen Sink Press was the company that I first signed up with to produce
Reinventing Comics. In fact. I did most of the work on that book while
still at Kitchen Sink Press. And when Kitchen Sink Press underwent a
great deal of turmoil and it floundered, Dennis Kitchen was forced out. I
needed to find an escape route quickly. I didn't trust the people that were
running the company. I didn't want anything to do with it. DC looked like
the safest port in the storm and we needed to make a decision extremely
fast. And DC was that decision (laughter).
And when we did it, Understanding Comics came with us. As far as the
book market, Dennis Kitchen had tried to market Understanding Comics
in the book trade and in other comics, obviously. We found it was
just not practical so we had partnered with Harper
Collins and since 1994 both Understanding Comics and later Reinventing
Comics appeared in bookstores under the Harper Collins imprint,
specifically Harper/Perennial. So it's a bit complicated, but basically one company
handles it for comic book stores, another company handles it for the
general market, the book stores and airports and everything else. And
that's worked out all right. Harper also licenses it to other countries
and Understanding Comics is in about 14 languages.
Coville:
Wow!
McCloud:
I like what Harpers is doing.
Coville:
Still, with Reinventing Comics, you mentioned one of the
drawbacks to self publishing, specifically mentioning Dave Sim, is
doing all the business related stuff. Is that not similar to
publishing your own web comics because you have to learn HTML and
make sure everything works in both browsers and all the server-related
stuff and so forth?
McCloud:
Those certainly are challenges for publishing on line but
they are radically different in one respect, which is those are
creative challenges; challenges in producing the work. The challenge
of making that work available to the public is trivial in comparison
to making it available in print. It takes enormous, constant,
backbreaking work and a huge amount of money to get your work
printed, or to print it yourself, to get it shipped, to deal with the distribution
system, the retail system, and to get your work hauled all over the
country just to make it available to what may potentially be a very small number
of customers. If you have 3 people nationwide who want to buy your
book, youre going to have to ship 100,000 copies to make it available to those 3
people because you don't know where they are. So self publishing is
constant, extremely hard and expensive work; whereas the work of
publishing on the net is primarily the work of learning how to produce the
work. Once you have the business of uploading it to the website, it's
trivial. It's one of the easiest parts of making a web comic. It's simply
uploading it. And at that point, your work is available to anyone who
wants to see it... if they can find you, which is whole nother whole can of worms.
Then the expense is 70 dollars to register a website domain for 2 years
and on average, probably somewhere between 20 to 40 dollars to have
that domain hosted somewhere, a month. And while I don't want to
downgrade the importance of that, obviously for some people that can be a hardship, but
compared to self publishing (mutual laugher) those that can't afford that
I don't see self publishing as viable alternative, either.
Coville:
Just out of curiosity, I know you were interviewed in the same
Internet comic that Groth did . . . his first Cuckoo-Land piece. I was
wondering when that happened, the interview?
McCloud:
Are you referring to the Internet issue of Comics Journal?
Coville:
Yes.
McCloud:
And the question was?
Coville:
How long prior to the issue did that interview take place?
McCloud:
That was done for that issue. Charles Hatfield and I had
been kicking around the idea of an interview for a while. That one was set
up with the implication that it would run in the same issue. As to Groths
review, I should say to Gary's credit he gave me fair warning that the
review was coming and we had a perfectly polite exchange prior to it and
although I haven't spoken to him since, I expect to have a perfectly polite
exchange after the fact. We live in a civil society (laughter), Garys
opinions are as strong as anything you can find in the comics press. I
consider him the loyal opposition and it's all part of the debate and
thanks to Gary that debate has become much more pronounced, much
more public, and frankly much more interesting. Now, that's not to say that I
didn't consider some of what he wrote to be unfair, but I was given ample
opportunity to call him on it and I did.
Coville:
My next question was: What was your general reaction to it
when you finally read it?
McCloud:
It was a Gary Groth Review (laughter). I began reading the
comics press about 25 years ago. The Comics Journal was on the scene
about that time, maybe a little before. And every time Gary writes
just about anything, he just about excoriates it (laughter).
Coville:
Scorched Earth is the term I hear (laughter).
McCloud:
Yeah a scorched earth review, and even jokingly said in the
subject line of his original e-mail that there was a hatchet job on
the way. Which ironically, he considered a serious review, but yeah, hes
always been like this. We would expect no less of him (laughter). I think
maybe some younger fans that don't know the history, might be a little
appalled at it because Gary has been fairly quiet lately. He hasn't really
been on the rampage much but there is ample history of that sort of
thing.
Coville:
Okay, I'm going to go through the nuts and bolts of stuff that I
didn't think you address very well or address very much.
McCloud:
Go for it.
Coville:
I know you went back and forth with Gary over this, but do you
think you have been hyping the Internet and web comics a bit too much?
McCloud:
Hmm.. It's problematic, because I think Gary is right,
that I haven't spent enough time addressing the potential for
corporate abuse and some of the darker aspects of the Internet. So I
think it's correct that I haven't done enough on the negative. I don't
think that necessarily means that I've done too much hyping of the
positive. Because I think the potential of positive change is enormous. In
our community, there are still a great number of people who dismiss the
Internet out of hand. There are still many that think the Internet is about
to destroy everything they love about comics and I can raise my voice to
a thousand decibels and could barely rise above the barrier of cynicism
or even of apathy. So I keep my voice raised to a high pitch on the issue,
because I still think there is a great deal of work to be done on the
issue. I still think that to this day, that I'm not done yet. The hyping
is one of the unfortunate little coincidences of comics history, in
that, since I became obsessed with the potential of comics on the Internet,
at the same time, popular culture became obsessed. Well, actually a few
years before that, there was a real frenzy of popular culture for all
things with a dot in the name . . . probably began in 97 or 98. And it was
pretty thoroughly entranced before that. But I would like to believe that my
enthusiasm for the potential for the web has very little in common with
what was actually being hyped on billboards and TV commercials and talk shows. I
wasn't telling anybody to invest in the stock market and I wasn't telling
anybody that AOL and Microsoft were going to save the world. I wasn't
telling anybody that if they just get a website, they would become a
millionaire overnight. The message that I was trying to express and still
am, is that there is enormous potential for direct communication between
artist and the readers online and there still is enormous
potential for creative exploration of comics out of boundaries online. I
was writing about the future and I still am. I never
promoted the idea that the future is now, the revolution has come, that
this is the web today. What I'm promoting in fact, I am very explicit in
Reinventing Comics, is that we can be misled by some of the drawbacks
in the technology that exists today. I don't have a product basically. The future
I'm talking about is not shrink wrapped, you can't go and buy it today.
That's not what I'm trying to say at all. One of the statements that I
make in Reinventing Comics that Gary misunderstand is this idea: 'If it's
about the present it'd probably hype, if it's about the future, no amount
of hype can do it justice'. Anyone who has something to sell you now, it's
probably hype (laughter) but the magnitude of the excitement is about the
potential of the Internet itself. I don't think it is at all misplaced and I
still think the web is in it's infancy and we have only seen the tiniest hint
of it's potential. So Im still as excited as I was in the beginning. It just
had nothing to do with the stock market, IPO's or this weeks product.
Coville:
Moving on, Groth thinks you hate beautiful print drawing.
True or False?
McCloud:
(laughter) False. Okay, one of the interesting fallouts of
web comics and digital distribution is the fact that print is
becoming visible for the first time. People are able to choose print
in a way that my generation wasn't. We inherited print. If we loved
comics, print was the only way to express that. We now have to consciously
choose print or the web and in either case, choose it for the properties that
plays to their strengths. Now print has enormous strengths . . . it's just that
now we can appreciate it for what it is. It's no longer invisible because
it's no longer ubiquitous.
Coville:
Your Adventures of Abraham Lincoln, you and Groth both admit
that it wasn't very good.
McCloud:
(laughter) Yeah. I believe Groth called it a widely derided
train wreck.
Coville:
Did that give you a pause in using computer technology and comics?
McCloud:
No it didn't, not in the least. How do I explain Lincoln?
The best explanation I came up with for that at the time, when people said
they didn't like it: If you can guarantee the results in advance, it's not
an experiment. The notion that I should put it all on the shelf and forget
about computers because I have this one disastrous failure in using
computers, the only translation I can come up with for that is: if you
first don't succeed, then quit. And that's not my philosophy. I assume
when I fail at something that the failure is mine. That I failed to use those
tools to their best advantage. You have to remember that Lincoln really
began almost as soon as I had tools in hand and it's the very first ever
thing I did, using just computers to generate. And I choked (laughter).
Coville:
Some people think that Reinventing Comics was done just to
capitalize on Understanding Comics and that it should have been told in
an essay form.
McCloud:
That would be Gary.
Coville:
Yeah, Gary. So why did you think that Reinventing Comics
needed to be told in a comic book form?
McCloud:
Well, just about everything I wanted to say could best be
said visually, especially when it's about a visual medium. I'm a
comics loyalist. I'm interested in the things can be expressed through
comics. I think Gary is right in that there are parts of the book that
don't use comics particularly well. Maybe the parts should have been
told in prose. But it's not a comic because I wanted to capitalize on
anything, it's a comic because . . . because I'm me (laughter). Because I love
comics. Because it's the whole point for me, seeing what comics can do.
In Understanding Comics it's clear that it was the right medium for the book.
Coville:
For sure.
McCloud:
In Reinventing, it sometimes is and sometimes it isn't. But I'm
exploring the boundaries of non-fiction comics and the only way to
find those boundaries is to stretch it. And some cases, to stretch it to the
breaking point. I think in some places it broke and in some places it's
solid. But anyone that knows me know why I made Reinventing Comics
as a comic (laughter). Because that's what I'm about. That's
everything that I am, as a comic book artist, seeing where comics
can go. I said at the end of Understanding Comics that I wouldn't do a
sequel right away. Understanding Comics was about 7 years of thinking
about comics and 7 years worth of ideas. And so it just collected to a
point where I needed to put them somewhere, so I put them into a book
(laughter). I predicted that it would be another 7 years of ideas
before I would want to write another, and that's what happened. I think
it's clear that starting in 94, I was heavily obsessed with computers.
Anyone on the convention circuit knew that. Well, I had another books
worth of ideas so I had to put them somewhere.
Coville:
You mentioned that the line work in Reinventing Comics wasn't
quite up to your own standards. Why was that? Was it because of the
technology or . . . ?
McCloud:
It was my use the technology. It still not quite organic
enough. I still think I have a ways to go. I'm still learning how to
use a sable brush, too. I think it looks better than Lincoln
(laughter). But again, are we going to project the message that I
should just quit? Because it's not up to standards? Because others are
using digital technology in a very organic and convincing way? Between
Kyle Baker, Demian 5 from Switzerland, all those people have used it to
great effect. In fact, I think my work has a warmer organic quality
compared to some of the online work that I did, which was done after
Reinventing Comics. I never claimed to be a particularly exciting
draftsman (laughter) and I really don't know that anyone else has, either.
That was never my strength to begin with, but I want to continue
exploring and this is where my passions take me right now. I'd be an idiot just to
stop right now just because of a few failures.
Coville:
Groth notes your bibliography didn't include books that
criticize the Internet and the possible future it brings. Why didn't
you?
McCloud:
Well, what can I say? Groths general criticism that I don't
spend enough time discussing potential for corporate abuse is valid. I
think, well you know pretty much what I think (laughter). I think some of
the objections to the bibliography are a bit silly, especially when he
lectures me for not responding to books that were written 9 months after
Reinventing Comics.
Coville:
Yeah, IBM and the Holocaust.
McCloud:
Yeah, IBM and the Holocaust. What can I say? I think he
could have made a valid point about that, but he stretches it to ridiculous
extremes. Whatever.
Coville:
Do you think computer created artwork will one day
aesthetically surpass traditionally made artwork?
McCloud:
No, I don't think so. I don't see a world that would exclude one
or the other. I don't see aesthetics as some demolition derby where there is
only one car left at the end (laughter). I would hope that there would be
artists making significant and exciting work in all these mediums. I don't
see it as one or the other. For me personally, digital is the most
exciting. But that's just me, this is what I want to work on right now and
I assume others will make that choice also. You know, I assume
others will make that choice for now.
Coville:
One of the problems with your theories is that people will do
what you want them to, in terms of either going out and looking for great
non-corporate entertainment on the web and by paying micro payments
instead of pirating entertainment. Why do you have such high amounts of faith in
the masses?
McCloud:
I would turn that question around and I don't know why Gary
and some other people have such of an incredibly bleak view of
people. In my experience, most people like to think of themselves as
being reasonably honest people, reasonably honourable . . . when they're
faced with a very easy way to get something for free, that would
cost them hundreds or even thousands of dollars, otherwise . . . That
temptation is pretty strong, they usually go for it. I don't see any
system eliminating piracy entirely. One of the reasons I advocate
micro payments should it ever become practical, is that I think that if the
price is sufficiently low and it's very easy to get something legitimately
for that low a price, I think most people will go for it. Because, well, for
a few different reasons. this is such a huge issue. Sorry. I've written
whole essays about this and it's hard for me to condense it down to one
or two sentences. There are a couple of factors: one of them is the fact that if
it's just a little bit more convenient to get it legitimately, if it's a
little more difficult to steal it, and if it's just a few cents more, it's
just simpler, it's just easier and also because piracy to some extent, has
a philanthropic character online. People that are uploading songs and
making their computers available for others to get those songs, they're
devoting a certain amount of time and resources and they're not getting
rich off it, either. This isn't like selling pirated CD's in Times Square. This
is something where you're not making a cent, you're actually devoting
your time and computational resources to giving away this work. Well, if it's
work just available for a few cents and that few cents is actually going
to the musician or cartoonist or writer you're stealing from, then that
whole enterprise just seems a little less interesting, a little less worth
it for the pirate. Again, nothing will eliminate piracy completely but I
think that there are some systems that could make the influences of
piracy lower and allow people to look at themselves in the mirror and feel good
about themselves and not go bankrupt illegally.
Coville:
Your history of the Internet stops just at the time it gets
privatized. Why did you stop it there?
McCloud:
For one thing, it was pretty recent history when I began
writing the book (laughter). It got privatized in 93, late 93, and
the world wide web hit the mainstream, which would have
been 94, and I started writing the book in 97. I was talking about the
origin of the Internet, I hadn't expanded from that since the last really
big event. Now Gary is right that the Telecommunications Act of 96
should have been mentioned at that point. I think it was 96, pretty sure.
Coville:
Yes it was 96.
McCloud:
I think he's right. I think he's right. That should have
been included and I should have gone into a discussion of that. But . . . I
think he's right. Perhaps I should go into a discussion of that now?
Maybe I'm a little tired (laughter) of talking about . . . I'd rather make comics for a
change. You know, I never see myself as the only voice in this debate.
That is one objection that's subjected repeatedly, by Gary in particular. There
is this notion that it is my responsibility to cover *everything*, I mean
even Understanding Comics was criticized because it refused to indulge
in value judgments.
Coville:
You mentioned specifically about not including a chapter on
bad drivers.
[Note: This refers to Scott's reply to Greg Cwiklik and Gary
Groth TCJ #211. Saying "If I wrote a book about how cars work
would I be criticized for not including a chapter on bad drivers?"]
McCloud:
Yeah, (laughter) and I think this is silly because I'm not the
only voice and I never claimed to be the only voice and talking about the
inner workings of comics is a voice all unto itself. Now, if you want a
broad balanced education, you also seek out writers who are discussing
aesthetic values of comics or discussing the political context of comics
or the cultural context of comics. In the comics industry, all those things are
important too. But I don't think it's my responsibility to put everything
and the kitchen sink in that one book. In fact, I actually visited many of
the issues that he felt were missing in Understanding Comics and of
course he hated that even more, because they weren't his (laughter). It's little
hard to win with that standard being applied.
Coville:
You also mention the limitations of print comics by having to
turn the page and the square size. But how much is that because the
industry tends to stick to the same format? Could the limitations be
not be so limiting if they played around with different formats?
McCloud:
I think they are beginning to do that now, they are
beginning to experiment with shapes but they tend to be low run, you
know silk screen, fort thunder, things like that. The industry makes
it very difficult to experiment with different sizes. I did a large
comic called Destroy back in 85 . . . 86, excuse me, and most retailers
just didn't know where to put it. It wasn't even that dramatic of a
difference, it might have been 80% larger than your average comic, but
this was deeply aggravating to the average retailer because they didn't have a
shelf that size. So it's systemic, it's not just a lack of imagination. If
you're a retailer, you're going to have to build shelves that you can fit
your product on . . . (laughter) and I think that's reasonable and it's a
problem when somebody comes up with one that simply doesn't fit on
the shelves. Of course, that's not an issue online.
Coville:
You also mentioned the infinite canvas and doing web
comics, a crazy example given, a comic the size of Europe.
McCloud:
That was just a . . .
Coville:
Yeah, that's why I called it a crazy example (laughter). But if
you did do a really large web comic, there is a good chance both IE and
Netscape would crash, you know. I wonder how infinite is the canvas if
you're stuck to the limitations of the browser?
McCloud:
Well no, I talk about that in the book. What I'm proposing is
not
something that we can accommodate with today's technology, with
today's
browsers. Even with HTML itself, it has all sorts of limitations. I talk
about a comic which you can zoom through, where each panel is
embedded within the previous panel, you couldn't do that in straight HTML either,
you'd need something like Flash to pull it off. But we have an enormous
canvas, so to speak, just as in the average computer game. If you have a
comic the size of the landscape you roam through in Tomb Raider (laughter),
you'd have a pretty enormous comic. So there might be other programming
environments that are more appropriate for comics in the long run. The
book about the future. I never claimed for an instant that you can do all
these things in IE 5, in the year 2001. That would be absurd. Now there
are some people working along those lines, who are doing beautiful
concepts, shorter works that still point to the potential of that
expanding canvas. And I think it's on the strengths of those works, those
creative explorations going on in even this limited environment, that
speaks of potential of that expanded craft. The book is about the future, if it
wasn't about the future, it wouldn't have been in the book.
Coville:
Do you think in the future Microsoft or someone will create a
browser that can handle such a large webcomic?
McCloud:
I doubt it.
Coville:
You doubt it?
McCloud:
I doubt that Microsoft will (laughter). I don't see them
charging up the hill in particular. It could be some third party
creation. It's hard to predict. Some very important software has come out
of just college kids. Or just working out of the garage, you never know.
Coville:
I know you discussed about bandwidth increasing and how that
would help with the comics in terms of loading time and so forth. But
won't it eventually get to the point where it's too powerful, where comics
will be not so great in compared to how quickly movies and animation can
load?
McCloud:
I don't think I understand, if movies and animation are
loading quickly then comics will load instantaneously.
Coville:
Yeah, but what happens when movies and animation load
instantaneously as well? Won't most people pass over the comics and go
straight to those?
McCloud:
No, well I think that's the great challenge isn't it? It
will take more convincing, personally compelling, especially unique to
comics, so that there won't be a reason to not read comics. And if we
have all these movies and videos and animation, not to mention game and
virtual reality environments. But that's what all this is about, that's what the
entire book is about. I see comics as having unique aesthetic ideas to
plant and if you allow that idea to grow in a digital environment, you can
see something that's uniquely comics: that is very exciting, something
very new that's very deeply tied to comics, to the original idea and not
like movies, not like prose, not like any other visual art. Something that
is completely new. I don't know how to describe it exactly. It's hard,
words fail. It's an idea comics that can scale. If you see comics as this
temporal map, as this idea in equal, equal in time. It's an idea of scale.
The more bandwidth you throw on it, the more wonderful the new forms
that can grow out of that idea. They don't look anything like any other
medium. When we begin to mix motion and sound with comics, I think we begin to
hit that slippery slope and when we get enough bandwidth where it can all
becomes a movie war. I hope it doesn't turn into that.
Coville:
I read your Cuckoo Reply that is coming out in issue #235 of the
Comics Journal. Is there anything in there that you now wish you said
differently?
McCloud:
No, I'm pretty happy with it.
Coville:
Pretty happy with that?
McCloud:
Yeah.
Coville:
Your reply seemed like giving him a taste of his own
medicine.
McCloud:
Although, well now, I hope it didn't come across as giving
him a taste of his own medicine because . . . I don't . . . use the same
medicine (laughter). I've tried to respond on point. I try not to make any
ad hominem attacks. I've tried to be polite and reasonable and . . . y'know, I
hope it doesn't come across as just more of the same, but that's up to the
readers to decide.
Coville:
As of late you have been battling a lot of backlash, not just
from the Journal but from Penny Arcade, Bill Griffith and more. Did you
think your ideas would cause this much of a reaction?
McCloud:
There were some surprises. I didn't think certain ideas would
get
people as angry as they did. I misjudged which ones were the hot spots
(laughter). Who knew that my little essay about micro payments would
set off this scorching brush fire in the online comic strip community?
Although really, there was a lot of different issues under the surface,
that one wasn't just about micro payments. That whole period was just
over a one week period, most notably by Tycho at Penny Arcade and which
was pretty personal and nasty. But I talked to Tycho, I talked to John Rosenberg
who does Goats. I talked to Glitch who had written something on her strip, no
stereotypes. And in all cases, we had a polite reasonable conversation.
Tycho posted his thoughts on the conversation that he thought he
misjudged me and it's done. We're done now, the flame war is out. Basically, there
are no parts of the landscape still on fire, as far as I know. I
think it ended pretty amicably. There were a lot of misunderstandings that
went into that one, and we dealt with them as well as we could.
Coville:
Are you sick of defending micro payments yet?
McCloud:
No.
Coville:
No?
McCloud:
I will continue, but I am tired. I'm a little tired because
the debate has strayed a lot from the central issues and much of the
time I spend defending it, it is not really so much defending my
ideas as it is trying to explain what people think I was saying and it is not
what I was saying at all.
Coville:
Yeah.
McCloud:
That can get a little tiring because that is wasted time. If I
have to defend against things like 'Well, McCloud thinks we should pay
25 cents every time we visit a webpage' that's . . . that's . . . I never said that
(laughter). And yet I've heard that parroted back to me a dozen times. So
that part of it is tiring. But the actual discussion is worth it because
there are people out there trying to make it happen, and keeping the public
debate alive is one of the ways which that process can be facilitated.
Coville:
Yeah one of the people trying to make it happen is Javien?
McCloud:
Javien is a Canadian company that's one of many that is
trying to put together a workable micro payments system. I mentioned
them recently because they had one or two good ideas that I liked. I
can't predict whether or not they're the ones who are going to pull it
off. I've always been careful not to back any one company because I
have yet to see any one company that has all the answers. Believe me, I
would (laughter,) I would if I thought one company had figured out all of
the answers and I was very confident in them. I would back them and I
would use their service.
Coville:
One of the practical problems I have today is whenever I go
to the bank machine, I get dinged with a one dollar service charge. I'm
thinking how anyone would make money charging 25 cents, even in the
future, when the services charges are so high among the banking
industry?
McCloud:
Well Amazon and Paypal charge a service fee in that realm and
that's why they are not micro payments (laughter). You can't charge
somebody 2 pennies if it's going to cost you 25 cents for the privilege.
But all along, that's been the challenge of micro payments. If those
transaction fees weren't so high there wouldn't have been a problem to
begin with. That's what the whole discussion is about.
Coville:
Do you think some company will come in and save the day for
you? You know, making micro payments available for a very low amount
of money?
McCloud:
I don't know when it will happen and I don't know who will
pull it off. I think the ability to charge small amounts of money
directly over the Internet is not an unsolvable problem. I think
there are those who believe it will never happen. I think, having just
finished the century which we landed on the moon, cured polio and sent
our voices and ideas around the earth at the speed of thought, I think this
idea that we will *never* solve the technical problems of charging small
amounts of money over the Internet is just absurd. It's not that hard,
it's not rocket science. We've done harder things than this. It just may
take a little more time and I've never been good with deadlines, so
(laughter) things never happen as fast as I want them too, but they
happen.
Coville:
So when micro payments do happen, do you see yourself using them?
McCloud:
Sure, sure. Yeah, absolutely. But again, I want to make sure I
don't inadvertently wind up endorsing some particular company that
doesn't get it all right. I'm very cautious about that, because at this point who
ever. I even mentioned Javien to Tycho in a phone conversation and
now everyone thinks I'm endorsing them. You know (laughter) and that's a
good example of why I'm so cautious.
Coville:
In your second episode of 'I Can't Stop Thinking' you
mentioned a wide variety of things you can do on the Internet because
shelf space is not as limited as it is in the normal store. At the same
time, the Internet lets us go directly to what we want and we don't get
exposed quite so often to different things that we are not interested
in. Is this a good thing?
McCloud:
No, I think we do get exposed, we get exposed by others
letting us know about things. We want to dwell on one particular area of
interest, we can. But the Internet is such a riot of other options of
links, to links, to links, to links. And the opportunity for dozens or
even hundreds of acquaintances over time to send you links to
interesting works, that I think there is a counter-active trend to that tunnel
vision tendency. That doesn't mean there won't be a certain vulcanization
on the web, I think there will be, but I think within any given community,
lets say the comics community, I think that diversity has the upper hand
in the long run. I think that right now, diversity is so thoroughly
discouraged by economic systems that we have and by the dynamics of shelf space,
that the web has already shown it's ability to show its direction. The best web
comics today are remarkably diverse, compared to what's on the average
comic store shelf.
Coville:
In Reinventing Comics, you use that one symbol, the eye open
and the eye shut a lot. It's even on your main webpage. Why are you
so fond of that symbol?
McCloud:
I just had to pick something (laughter.) Having finished
Understanding Comics, I realized I didn't really have a symbol for
comics itself and the little guy with the hat, you know that fellow
raising his hat seemed a little bit overly specific. In the end, I
decided that, to me, would be the essences of comics; two images
of comics first of all, any two images in sequence but in
particular the eye open, eye closed because I thought the balance
between the visible and the invisible and I don't know, it just seemed like the
best single image I could pick to represent the form because I was going
to be using it. I had to use something (laughter) when I was putting
together all those diagrams there . . . there needed to be a symbol for comics
itself and the tubed hat seemed a little specific to Understanding Comics.
Coville:
Are you planning on doing a 3rd 'Something' Comics book?
McCloud:
Yeah, not right away.
Coville:
Not right away?
McCloud:
Probably in another 7 to 10 years.
Coville:
Do you know what that will be about?
McCloud:
Yeah, I pretty much do, but I'm not telling anyone. Or at
least not right now (laughter). Because the 3rd book is different from the
first two just as the 2nd one was different from the first.
Coville:
Is that going to be done through print or is that going to be on-line?
McCloud:
I don't know.
Coville:
Have to see what it's like 7 to 10 years from now.
McCloud:
Yeah exactly. I don't want to predict.
Coville:
Are you still open to doing any print comics in the future?
McCloud:
Sure, I think there are all sorts of things that are
interesting to do in print. But generally speaking, I like to do it for one
or the other. If I'm working for the web I want to do something that's
designed for the web. Perhaps I could only work on the web, but I don't
like this idea of repurposing, I don't like this idea of holding yourself
back because you might reuse it in some other form. Only working in
black and white, for example on the web because youre hoping that King
Features will pick up your strip. That's just sad. Youre on the web, use the web. Or
if your in print, use print (laughter) to speak to those aspects of print
that are most exciting, use that dative quality. You know, use
that high resolution and the ability to produce fine line work, use it. Do
something that print can do best. I just hate repurposing, I hate
castrating your work so that it would be suitable for a variety of
platforms.
Coville:
Do you have any print projects in the near future?
McCloud:
A couple of magazine pieces. I'm doing a 6 page original
comic in Wired Magazine, for example. But they're piecemeal, I don't
have a graphic novel in the works at the moment but I may at some
point. If I could just work online for the next two years I would. But I
can't. I have many things I'd like to do online but not because I
hate print or anything, but because I've been working in print for how
long is it now? 17 years? And I'm ready to do some . . . well I have a long list of
online projects. I could easily go two years with it, but unfortunately I
don't have that option because the economy that works online is just not
mature yet. Maybe someday.
Coville:
Do you think because of Reinventing you're constantly talking
about online comics, this hurts your ability to get print books?
McCloud:
Mmmmm... No, I don't think other things have to do with it
(laughter). I never really tested the waters that way, couldn't say.
But no, I don't think a publisher would particularly care one way or
another. I mean, if I expressed an interest in doing a book in print
then I obviously have nothing against print as far as that book goes. I've
never told people to stop making printed books. That's just another
weird, distorted version of me that people are trying to sell.
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