Today, Shaenon Garrity has a column exploring the way cartoons and comics are shared online, often without their original creators being credited.
[T]he uncredited versions of comics often spread more quickly than the credited versions. After all, the sites and individuals sharing the uncredited versions are likely to be less ethical about how they use the art. While the credited version may be reposted by fans sharing it with a small circle of friends, the uncredited version can wind up on a series of image-sharing sites dedicated to spreading maximum content for maximum hits.
“In some cases, an individual edits out attribution in order to pass the work off as their own,” says [Rachel] Dukes. “More frequently, attribution is edited out by staff of meme-based websites like 9GAG that profit off of ad revenue. The reason that they do this is because they want readers to stay on their website, clicking from image to image, for a long period of time. That’s how they make their ad revenue.” The last thing these sites want is for users to leave their site to look at an individual artist’s website instead.
Elsewhere:
—Reviews & Commentary. Art Spiegelman on Ad Reinhardt. Françoise Mouly on Ad Reinhardt. The cartoonist and critic Derik Badman writes about a slew of comics. I like Badman's writing partly because though his tastes are sometimes baffling (to me), he is always upfront and forthcoming about them, and doesn't seem to be posturing or rancorous. Sean T. Collins has moved all of his Vorpalizer webcomics reviews to a new location. Kevin Melrose compares the coloring of the new Marvel reprint of Miracleman with the Eclipse originals.
—Best of Lists. The A.V. Club's list includes some interesting choices. The Comics Alliance list is occasionally weird, superhero-heavy, and published in multiple parts annoying for linkblogging, but some of the entries are written by strong reviewers familiar to readers of this site. (1, 2, 3). Whitney Matheson at USA Today and Publishers Weekly also have lists.
—Interviews. Alex Dueben talks to Jennifer George, Rube Goldberg's granddaughter and the editor of about the new book celebrating his work. Bryan Munn asks Jeet Heer about his new endeavors as a comic-strip writer. Former DC publisher Jenette Kahn was interviewed at the Chicago Humanities Festival:
—News. Forbes takes a look at how the growing popularity of tablets may affect the comics business. NPR's All Things Considered devoted a segment to the Billy Ireland library. Bleeding Cool has promoted Hannah Means-Shannon to editor-in-chief. That site's coverage of alternative and independent comics has improved measurably since she started writing for it.
—Random. Brandon Graham continues to be a good blogger.
