Comic Books Going Way of TV, Moving Towards Internet

Years ago, I openly and actively celebrated any and everything that could be accessed on the internet for free. Verily, this was college, and verily, I was poor. Old habits die hard. Even after buying real furniture from an actual store, having a diet that is no longer based solely on Ramen noodles mixed with rooster sauce and being able to buy necessities—and even “luxury commodities”—without the loss of plasma, I still tend to access most TV and film content on the internet. However, even in the depths of my excusable collegiate poverty there was always one form of semi-popular entertainment that I would make monetary exception for: comic books and graphic novels.



Looking back, I’m not sure whether or not purchasing comics in lieu of medicine or vittles represents the typical behavior of a highly-evolved species, or a sin against common sense, but there was always something special about sinking my teeth into the pages of Allen Moore, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison and, in later years, Daniel Clowes, Craig Thompson and Charles Burns that provided a fertile ground for ritual and nostalgia in a way that TV never could.

So, what to make of new web services like Eagle One Media, Inc that host comic books and graphic novels on their site? Well, aside from the blinding rage I feel at the idea of comics coming one step closer to TV and film (for which it basically exists solely to provide fodder for, as it is), I also feel a tinge of shame knowing that I now sort of relate to the TV and motion picture industrialists who felt they had a good thing going for it before that whole internet thing came along. The notion of being able to just, um, scroll from page to page without fear of sticky, plot-disrupting pages or inky fingers seems like cheating to me.

But then again, perhaps just as I still tend to buy movies and TV series on DVD and simply watch the things I wouldn’t really care to own online, this might give me the chance to read the comics that I’ve always a.) been too embarrassed to read, or b.) would cost too much or require payment of library fees to read in person.

At any rate, I still actively and openly celebrate any and everything that can be accessed on the internet for free or, factoring in regular employment, reduced price, but, as I am learning with web-hosted comic books, I might have to begrudgingly celebrate these modal transpositions as well. And, hey, given the downward trend in printed publication and the less-than-healthy profit margins comic books have typically generated anyway, the movement towards online publication was, perhaps, inevitable.

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