When digital gods question their own faith

In addition to being a life-long practitioner of the proud traditions of the comic book geek, my skills as a resident geek of all things pop and tech culture have grown quite a bit over the past few years. One place I’ve found these ideologies of geekdom to have come together quite nicely is the Underwire blog on Wired.com. The tasty little slivers of all things comic-bookly techy pop (in varying combination) have aptly filled many a lunch hour. That is until I came across Scott Thill’s recent post on Andi Ewington’s Forty-Five appeared it would provide the same satisfaction.

From the outset the post was a great teaser for a graphic novel I soon hope to own. It touched on the concept of, essentially, a new style for investigative journalism’s use in graphic fiction. I’d honestly love to see the technique used more and hope Ewington brings us something that’ll push the medium further.

Scrolling down past several beautifully executed pieces of finished art, it all gets a bit lost. Instead of exploring the book and its themes, the post breaks down into a recounting of the hard work it takes to pull together resources and meet deadlines in order to get a book out. (Really? It’s hard work?) Everyone now and then should be allowed a few pedestrian bits to help fill space (wouldn’t doubt it if most of you will probably think that’s exactly what I’m doing now). That being forgiven, what really gets me here is Thill’s final statement exploring the horizon for comics, questioning if there’s a digital age ahead.

Just to be clear, here we have a blog on the site for one of the world’s most preeminent technology publications questioning if the comic medium has a future in digital format. I don’t mean to break balls, but I can’t help but be astounded at the lack of credit given to the comics industry by a blog that should damn well know better. Sure, there could have been earlier strides made to move comics away from print, but when I can now turn on an episode of Man Caves (you heard me) and see Marvel’s digital subscription service getting prime product placement as part of a fellow geek’s comic-themed basement renovation, I think it’s safe to say the digital age is here.

As creators, we shouldn’t even question the possibility of digital formats – we should embrace them, champion them. From the very start of a new comics project, we should be thinking of the digital promotion and delivery of the book right behind theme development and talent procurement. But most of all, we shouldn’t have to read pontifications by apparently savvy experts on all things geek as to where the future of our medium lies.

We’ve seen our future. We know it. Now let’s get our there and prove it.