Quote

I've been trying to make this argument that digital comics and print comics are both art, but there are subtle differences.

You know, comics were created at the same time as the cinema. And the cinema very quickly became a major art. Cartooning didn't become a major art. There's a reason for that. People don't know how to deal with drawings.

Comics, at least in periodical form, exist almost entirely free of any pretense; the critical world of art hardly touches them, and they're 100% personal.

The audience for comics has shifted dramatically. And the boundaries between books and fine arts have blurred. Maybe it's the globalization of fine art through the Internet - it's easy for certain groups to coalesce around a certain kind of work or medium.

To paint comic books as childish and illiterate is lazy. A lot of comic books are very literate - unlike most films.

Comics are a particularly esoteric field where you really learn how to do it, by doing it or by learning from other practitioners.

People are so afraid to say the word 'comic'. It makes you think of a grown man with pimples, a ponytail and a big belly. Change it to 'graphic novel' and that disappears.

I'm more into graphic novels than comic books.