But what does all this have to do wih Scott McCloud is sitting on a stage playing with an accordion-like display board. Well, McCloud was invited to speak at the Chicago Humanities Festival on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001. His demonstration was supposed to incorporate PowerPoint to talk about online comics however, due to technical problems, he was unable to do so.
He renamed his talk "McCloud without a Net" and went on with his program, with the accordion display of the old tapestry as his only remaining visual aid. The display was meant to show the audience how even before there was the printed word, there were forms of comics, with coherent narratives, and that this tapestry was one of them. He's trying to explain to the audience how the narrative of the tapestry flows from one end to another and he's trying to position himself in such a way that he can easily do so. All around me cameras are whirring into action as he does so. After the talk, McCloud signs copie of his books for those who brought stuff with them.
Like any new medium, online comics still have a number of obstacles to overcome. One of the biggest is the economics of the system. There has not yet emerged a successful system of making money, let alone a living, doing online comics apart from selling collected books of comics and t-shirts, but many people, including McCloud, have speculated about the possibilities.
For all the progress that has been made, the area is still a much-debated one. Despite this though, the online comics scene is growing "exponentially" according to McCloud and new talent is turning up all the time and a few are even managing to take the field to a new level for the reader.
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Scott McCloud signing books for his fans at the Chicago Humanities Festival. (Photo: Doug Paton)
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