Digital Threat To Art

Is handmade cartooning on its way out?

Avatar -  a fine example of what digital art can do to art

A Casual look at the number of internet sites that offer free softwares to make cartoons, it seems so. Digital Art had been threatening to push fine artists out of business for over a decade now. Is the same fate now awaits for cartoonists as well. In 2007, when comiXology launched as an online community for readers, it grew into a niche equivalent of iTunes. With more than 20,000 titles by dozens of publishers including Marvel and DC, Comics by comiXology has become the dominant platform for finding, buying, and reading comics on Web, tablet, or smartphone. The underlying technology is licensed, too. Branded apps from Marvel, DC, BOOM! Studios, IDW, and others use it and are linked. If you are reading comics on a tablet, you might as well be reading Comics. Similar to iBooks, Comics (free) functions as store and reader. The Store is easy to navigate and search, much faster than rifling through bagged copies in storage boxes. Select a specific comic and the display shows a coverflow of the series, price, credits, summaries, and a few preview pages.

A Digital cartoon- human hand cannot do such a fine job

Saving shelf space is the obvious advantage of digital comics. A single issue takes up anywhere from 10 to 20MB. In terms of physical size, an iPad single page is slightly smaller diagonally than paper,—9.7 versus about 12 inches. It’s hard to imagine using a smaller tablet to read comics, or one of those Macrocephaly smartphones. Virtually all smartphones would be eliminated too were it not for Guided View. With digital comics you don’t have to worry about wear and tear. On many occasions I’ve dug out my old comics from the 90s only to have them disintegrate in my hands. With digital comics, no bags and boards are necessary (just a good computer). You don’t have to worry about an issue being out of stock.

Second reason for the burst of digital cartooning is the Social Media. Social media world has become such an integral part of our lives that sometimes it gets tough to imagine how life would be without Twitter and Facebook.

Mary Talbot's Memoir in Graphic Novel

Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, her husband had earlier been known for the creation of the immensely famous and readable books: "Luther Arkwright," "Grandville," and "Alice and Sunderland,"Now after a span of many years the writer-illustrator couple have joined hands to bring out one more very interesting book : Dotter of her Father’s Eyes

In Dotter of her Father’s Eyes, Talbot takes on an autobiographical history written by his wife, Mary. Mary’s father was an eminent scholar of James Joyce, who poured his life into his work. Whether tapping away at a typewriter, producing essays and dissertations, or quoting Joycean bons mots, he wasn’t left with much time for his family.

However, he deeply inspired his daughter’s own work, who also went on to become a literary academic. Through her own studies she finds out about Lucia, Joyce’s daughter, and sees parallels between the two daughters’ lives.

Mary’s tale is interesting and engaging, a coming of age story from a female perspective, but where the male artist is as deeply entrenched in the story (literally married to the subject) as the writer. The parallels Mary draws add a rich flavour to the text, and she puts her own knowledge of how stories should fit together to good use here.


Both narratives are elegantly done. Talbot has a keen eye for the revealing detail, an important skill if you are working in comics. She makes connections, but never labours them. Both fathers, for instance, have their prissy side: Atherton disdains chips, while Joyce is convinced that all a girl really needs to know is the right way to carry her umbrella. But she has been helped hugely by her illustrator, a man she did not even have to leave the house to see – for, as you will perhaps have guessed by now, Mary M Talbot is married to the great, Brian Talbott and he has kindly provided for her some of the most beautiful and poignant drawings of his career: black and white for 30s Paris; sepia tones for postwar Britain; full colour for the present day.

He and Mary met and married in 1970 – his drawing of their wedding day, all flares and innocence, will make you cry – and they have been together ever since (this is where the two narratives peel away from one another; unlike Lucia, Mary had a supporter to see her through). And this must be why their exquisite and moving book feels like a celebration, for all that there is so much sadness between its covers. It says: we have survived – and we still like each other so much, we have made this.

From the Coffers of Sand Art Championship

In 1989, a group of Sand Artists had formed a group in USA and called themselves Archiesand. Sand castles and cand sculptures are there forte. Soon the artgroup took the form of a movement as they started organising sand art festivals. in 2007 they won the US open Championship in Sand Art and since then aquired international prominence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ugEij3_-vU&feature=fvsr

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=archisand

Read more on Archisand at http://www.sandcastlecentral.com/

and at http://sandscapes.com/

Sand Art is emerging as a great new form of in-expensive art meant for anybody with a passion for sculpting but do not have institutional support.