The Carver's House

Concluding my talk at DLSU, I told the class that if there was a way (not the only way) for comics to regain a strong foothold in a society that has grown to prefer film, television and novels for their entertainment, it has to up the ante in some way. The three aforementioned media have their own unique and obvious strengths, and these strengths can easily trump the comics medium straight in the face. The three factors that influence the effectiveness of a medium are the comics creator's playground. However, the accessibility factor is dependent on cost, and the approval factor is dependent on an audience's specific tastes. So the factor over which a comics creator has the greatest control is content quality. Content quality. My thinking is that people generally don't really care much about medium as much as they do content, unless two media are pitted against one another over the same material. This has led to numerous debates over whether a movie was equal, if not superi...

In a previous post, we've listed down the three factors that gauge the effectiveness of a communications medium. Again, our current media-heavy environment has blurred the lines between what one medium can do over another, so the focus has shifted more towards effectiveness, with greater involvement of the recipient of the communications message. At the core of these three factors is audience, which is an integral part of the communications cycle. Without an audience, there is no communication. There won't even be a reason to communicate at all without the awareness of an audience. (Unless, of course, the audience is oneself.) The three factors: 1) Accessibility. There was a time when radio was the medium of choice. It was cheap, and you could get all the information you thought you needed over the lifespan of those 20-pound Eveready batteries. But radio gave way to television. Television evolved from a few channels to a few dozens on cable. Then the internet changed the media...

Last week was light at the office, so I took Thursday off to go to my alma mater and give a talk about the value of comics as a medium. (I had wanted to go to a talk at the UST, but it was scheduled for later this week--crunch time for Real Living .) The questions I was supposed to answer were, "What are the unique qualities of comics?" and "What can comics do that other media can't?" The first question was somewhat easy to answer, since it didn't entail any comparison with other media. The second question, however, gave me a headache. In today's cross-platform option-riddled multimedia world, I was hard pressed to come up with a strong case for the comics medium. Because, truth to tell, the web is a powerful medium in itself, boasting the capabilities of all media and then some. Through the web, one can watch videos, listen to music, read text of all kinds, play games, get an education, and fiddle with the loads of interactive opportunities thrown in. P...