Thursday, March 02, 2006
I could say something clever here - like I love the smell of drama in the, er, well, afternoon - but actually there's a pretty valid argument after been raised.
Antartic Press have published a book by
T Campbell called "The History of Webcomics" and
Scott 'Angry Young Man' Kurtz has taken issue with a couple of things. Besides the accusations of
inaccuracy in the book, these could be levelled at almost any quasi-historical document, and let's ignore
Campbell's self-declaration of world nenown - he can declare himself the Grand Potentate Of French Frilly Knickers for all I care. Let's even ignore the fact that they've had printed ads done up, showing a cover with copyrighted characters that they never obtained permission to use. The really valid argument here is that if any of these accusations were levelled at someone from outside the webcomic cognoscenti, everyone would be hopping mad. A supposedly ill-researched tome masquarading as a definitive history. A blatant breach of copyright to garner quick publicity and kudos. Suspect claims about authority of knowledge. People would be hopping mad. It's actually funny the amount of sneering that goes on when some journalist writes a piece about webcomics but now that it's one of their own...well, now the general consensus seems to be that Kurtz is being unreasonable. The fact is that the publishers and/or T Campbell either lied or behaved unprofessionally. Either side, it's hardly unreasonable to take them to task. Campbell has apologised and defended his position but on, at least, one level it doesn't wholly add up. It doesn't make the book a bad thing and it doesn't mean Campbell is the spawn of Satan but it does raise questions that go a little beyond the usual webcomic drama carpery.
On a lighter note and for no real good reason -
a list of things that are okay.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it's David Bowie.
Not so much
because they're discussing Jack Chick but mostly because of Alexis Christoforides' idea - 'How about an online quiz? You get a picture of ten Jack Chick characters, and you must guess whether they will be DAMNED TO HELL or not by their looks!' That's a fucking brilliant idea.
Boing Boing have a link to the
findings published by a special Australian committee on copyright and DRM. The rough outline seems to be that there should be a drastic scaling-back of the protections given to DRM in most countries, so that it doesn't override public rights. How many more governments do you think will fund expensive reports for the purpose of stating the obvious? Some Canadian called Micheal Geist has much more balanced, and less flippant,
analysis of the report than I'll ever give you.
And on a final note, just a quick query - what sort of insanity makes someone believe that spamming me through my own contact link is effective advertising?
2 Comments:
Thing is, I got permission from those guys to use their art. I misinterpreted how far that permission extended, apparently especially in Scott's case.
Look, fair enough. It's probably any easy enough mistake on your part. I would, though, have expected more from the publishers. Honestly, I think you made mistakes in how you approached certain areas of this but you have held your hands up as much as you can. Scott might prefer if you did a bit of self-flaggelation aswell but I'm not pushed really. My argument was that alot of people have applied a double standard in the way they're treating it as if you have no case to answer on any level. If you were a journalist, with no previous connection to webcomics, who had just decided it was a really interesting subject to explore - then I think alot of those people would be taking Scott's stance. I'm not really that bothered by the whole thing, and I honestly wish you the best of luck with it, I just think it's pretty funny.
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