Kotaku
One more nail in newspapers' coffin.
Time Magazine has an interesting piece up on the changing face of comic strips and how they no longer need a newspaper to survive.
Webcomics have been around since the late 1990s, and today there are thousands of them. The diversity of artistic styles is astonishing: anime, clip art, crude scribbles, beautiful finished drawings and everything in between. The Web also frees comics from the iron cage of the traditional strip format. "Being online, there's no reason our strip has to be three panels right next to each other," says Mike Krahulik, half of the team that produces the webcomic Penny Arcade. "It often is. But there's nothing keeping us from making full-page comic-book-style layouts. There's nothing stopping us from doing whatever we want." Webcomics aren't shackled to the grinding schedule of the daily paper either; Penny Arcade publishes three times a week. And Penny Arcade is always in color. On the Web, every day can be Sunday.
The story goes on to talk about the artistic freedom, both in the art style and writing, that web-based comics seem to embrace.
It wraps up with some quote from PvP's Scott Kurtz and this bleak declaration: At a certain point newspapers just aren't worth the hassle.
Unfortunately, I think that's a growing sentiment.
New Zip for the Old Strip [Time]
