Tuesday, July 1, 2003

If You Can Spare a Quarter ...

Go to Scott McCloud's site and read part one of his new online graphic novel, The Right Number.

Mr. McCloud has written and drawn a couple of concise, intelligent books explaining comics as an art form. He believes the future of the medium is online, and has devoted a lot of time to his site and putting various comics up there. They're all free, and I urge you to look at them too.

One of Mr. McCloud's dreams has been effective micropayments online. That is, you could quickly and easily spend a quarter or some other tiny amount to access a piece of creative work. The reasoning is, of course, that such a system would reward the creator with instant income and the surfer with low-cost fun.

For whatever reason, micropayments have been slow in arriving. But Mr. McCloud has found such a system for this new work, and I urge you to try it. It helps to have a Paypal account. You pay a few bucks into a micropayment stash, which then can be doled out to individual projects.

Not sure if the explanation makes sense, and it's all a bit long-winded, but the concept interests me. The point is, though, The Right Number is an intelligent, slickly drawn comic. And there are two more parts to come.

Check it out.