I started writing an essay about how print collections of webcomics invariably create a meditation on the formal concerns of both mediums, but it was going nowhere.
The points I was orbiting were
1) Reviews of webcomics collections are inherently stymied by the fact that the comics are all online for free. What can I say about Hark a Vagrant that would do a better job of telling someone what to expect from the book than ‘Go to the website?’ For those who have been to the website, this has the comics about the Nancy Drew and Edward Gorey covers gathered in one place, a little bit–but not enough–pony, and lots of Canadians being polite.
2) Print collections, curiously, are different from their online sources if only because the absence of load times makes every comic seem connected to the one before. Being bound in one book instead of merely sharing a domain name links them implicitly in a way that the actual links on the website do not. And that’s weird to me. Why does this feel so much more substantial than harkavagrant.com when it contains only a fraction of the comics? Why is Penny Arcade so much funnier to me on the page than on the web? Why do I feel I have these comics available at my convenience when I buy the book but not when I save every comic from the site to my hard drive? What is the transformative power of the physical?
3) There is a value in buying these sorts of collections even though they are free online–a value that goes beyond financially supporting the artist by doing something other than buying a t-shirt (although we all love topatoco with an unseemly ardor). Of course such things already, and maybe exclusively, appeal to fans, but there’s something more there, something to do with the physicality of the piece, to do with the ability to actually own it. And I don’t have an explanation for that, an explanation for the ineluctable appeal of ‘thingness.’ Why do I buy webcomic collections? Why do I buy music on vinyl–almost exclusively records that come with an mp3 download code? What is the power that lies in not only holding something, but paying for it, by laying that claim of ownership upon it?
Since I didn’t have answers to these questions, the essay went off the rails. The collection is, as anyone who has been to Beaton’s website would expect, excellent, only drawing the criticism that it is too short, that there is not enough, that, when faced with content like this, we could only ever be demanding more.
- Goodreads rating – 4.22
- DIGEST – Donald