The final blog is about the future of comics, web comics and motion comics. For this week, I read "Stand Still, Stay Silent" for the web comic.
So Stand Still, Stay Silent is a post apocalyptic story about a boy in the Icelandic countries (Norway, Iceland, Sweden, etc..) and the "rash illness" that's spreading across the country and the government involvement. The first thing I noticed about this web comic is the art style and panel layout. The artwork is actually really beautifully done, and the color tones match the atmosphere of the story (Warm oranges, toned down grays and blues) and the emotion of the story and characters. The panels are inconsistent in their layout (which is a good thing), some pages have panels that overlap each other (same with speech bubbles), while other pages are full blown images that give a sense of intensity and emotion, along with informational. The story, although I didn't care too much for it, was actually well thought out and written. It has elements of personal story and a sense of government involvement, which ties the story together and makes you really believe that this is a living, breathing world.
So I guess the big question is "What is the future for comics?", and to that, I think it's a mixed answer. Do I think comics are going to go completely digital? And to that, I say no, because when comics become digital, they lose a certain credibility. With most books now a days, digital isn't such a bad thing, because everyone has smart phones or tablets to allow for easy transport. Although comics are the same way, there's a big element that makes comics unique, and that's because they're collectables. People have been collecting comics since they were released, and it's not because they hope they're going to increase in value and then just sell them, it's because most people grew up with comics, they share an emotional bond with comics. First editions, foiled covers, mint condition, there's a ton of reasons why people collect comics, and because of that, I don't think comics will ever stop being printed.
With that being said, I don't think web comics, or digital comics is a terrible idea either. We've learned in this class that it can take days, weeks or even months just to knock out just a few pages of a comic or a graphic novel, and I think that has a huge role to play in human error. For example, if I'm drawing on paper, there's a chance I could mess up a line, spill something on the paper or even lose it. But with digital art, you can "undo" mistakes, which takes out the human error and save time, thus making it easier and quicker to knock out pages. Another reason why it's a good idea, stems from what I said earlier about books; they're easily transported. My wife and I take a lot of cruises, so for her, she downloads a lot of books on her iPad, so that when we're laying in bed and relaxing before bed, or even by the pool, she can take all her books with her on a small device. Well the same concept applies, allowing to download a collection of comic books on a device allows people to read it no matter where they are without holding a physical copy. And that's kind of where all paper materials are going, it's mostly going digital because we're getting to a point in our lives that saving trees is more important than ever.
So to conclude, I don't think comics are in a state now that they were in the late 80's to late 90's, where comic books were a big deal (at least they were for me when I was a kid) to kids as they use to be, but I also don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon. The late Stan Lee, along with comic books were a huge influence for me as a young artist, and even though I didn't major in Illustration (I went for Graphic Design), it doesn't mean I stopped drawing, and never will.
