I received an email from Scott McCloud concerning my
"Comics Guru or Master of the Obvious?" post from the other day. Scott asked if we could discuss the matter further. I was a bit surprised, actually, since I had no idea that he even knew this strip existed. I sent him the following email, explaining my thoughts about his column and micropayments in general. Although Scott hasn't had the opportunity to respond yet, he has posted a
response to the general backlash on his website. While I think he concentrates too much on the tone of the criticism and not enough on the points it raises, I think the post makes an excellent point about the state of discourse on the internet and our tendency to have itchy trigger fingers. Read on for the text of my letter.
Subject: Re: done yet?
From: Jonathan Rosenberg <jon@goats.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 12:19:33 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
To: Scott McCloud
Scott,
Took a minute to think (which I don't always remember to do) and I believe I can better explain myself now.
Firstly, I want to apologize for the tone of my post -- It was rude and abrasive and unfair, and I will most certainly post a follow-up to address that. I consider myself "under the radar" of most folks, and I don't check myself as much as I should; that's clearly going to have to change.
I consider myself a huge proponent of the online comics movement. Although I'm not as active in the community now as I once was (time and financial pressures have taken their toll), I've tried to do my share to promote individual comic strips on my site, and started fleen.com, which was one of the first online comics directories and communities, providing a forum for those of us who had been plugging away at our sites for a bit, and others who needed some advice to get up and running.
The torch has since been passed; while the intent is slightly different, Keenspot (run by Chris Crosby of Superosity.com) now fills many of those needs, and does it in a more efficient and widespread fashion than I could have hoped to do it myself. Many fleen members have become incredible successes, such as J.D. Frazer of User Friendly and Scott Kurtz (who I believe you are familiar with) of PVP.
Although I don't take as active a role as I once did, I do still have a strong desire to see these people succeed both artistically and financially. I think you have their best interests in mind as well.
That said, I think your musings are simplistic and do an injustice to the community that's already out there. You occupy a position of respect and authority for many of these artists, and by portraying a method of micropayments that does not, and very well may never, exist as a solution to their problems, you undermine the work that they've already done to pay their bandwidth bills and rent.
That's a big statement, so let me explain myself.
By creating the idea of a feasible micropayment system in these people's eyes, you take away mindshare from methods of generating revenue that can be used currently. If people stop trying to innovate new ways to support themselves based on current technology while waiting for a micropayment solution (which may exist one day, but not likely for a very long time), many small, independent artists will fail before they see that day.
As you have positioned yourself as a spokesman for the online comics community, I think you may find it helpful to research some of the solutions that are currently being tried (such as network subscription models, voluntary donations, and merchandising), as well as exploring some of the downside to current and proposed micropayment systems (high transaction cost, high barrier to entry, lack of usability, lack of standards, the problem of exposing new artists to potential audiences when content is gated). I know that you have addressed some of these issues on your writing, but I feel that they are significant enough that they should not be glanced over. It will be very, very difficult for a micropayment system to overcome these hurdles, and this should be taken into consideration should you choose to further evangelize these potential systems.
I would be happy to discuss these ideas with you further if you are interested.
-j
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jonathan rosenberg
goats: the comic strip
http://www.goats.com/
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