MattBrady
02-25-2003, 10:10 AM
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<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center><center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center><center>Installment 12</center><center>by Stuart Moore</center>
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/stratovision.jpg" width="300" height="194" align="right">Stratovision, Videotext, and You
A few years ago, while cleaning out my grandmother’s house, I found a strange, undated AP article she’d clipped out of the newspaper, probably in the late ‘50s. It describes a bizarre process called “stratovision,” developed by Westinghouse, which promised to use “high-flying airplanes” to boost and extend the range of TV signals, allowing for true coast-to-coast television broadcasting.
The prototype for this loony idea was a converted B-29 Superfortress (I don’t know what that is either, but I bet it kicked some ass in Korea), circling at 25,000 feet, that successfully relayed signals to a 250-mile area. The article cites four primary applications for stratovision: coast-to-coast TV broadcasting, military communications, rural TV reception, and simultaneous transmission of programming to theatres or other public gathering places.
Of course, you know what happened. Communications satellites took care of the coast-to-coast problem and military communications, while cable TV provided rural reception. Most theatres still use big spools of film in metal cans, though that may be changing soon, also because of satellites. It’s just as well stratovision never made it big -- otherwise we’d have an entire generation of communications engineers suffering from vertigo, flying around and around in those damn planes.
Stratovision was just a stupid idea with a great name. But some other technologies seem to make sense…and then just don’t catch on.
Over the past twenty years, as technological change has accelerated, a lot of experts have made predictions that flopped. Let’s look at three of my favorites, and see what they show us. Number 1: Nobody will pay for cable TV once satellite dishes get cheap enough. Number 2: People won’t use computers after a while -- just internet devices analogous to phones that will access data stored on remote servers. And Number 3: Comics are doomed because of the growth of electronic media.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/rcrumbtv.jpg" width="300" height="267" align="left">1. Nobody Will Pay for Cable
In 1983, I wrote my senior thesis on municipal regulation of cable television. At the time, I thought cable was in trouble. Direct broadcast from satellite (DBS) seemed to be the wave of the future -- after all, everybody hated their cable company, and satellite dishes were getting cheaper and cheaper. Why pay a subscription fee for a service you hate, when you can get it another way?
The answer was partly economic. Services like DirecTV, which still offer satellite-dish service today, had to charge subscription fees in order to carry and support pay-cable channels, so there wasn’t that much difference between them and the cable company. But it really came down to a matter of convenience. When you buy a satellite dish, you have to install and maintain it yourself. When you subscribe to cable TV, the company puts it in for you, and then it just sits there and works. All you do is send in a check every month.
It can be hard to judge which technologies are going to make it, and which ones aren’t. One reason: Early adopters -- the first people to rush out and buy a new device -- aren’t very good judges of what the average person is going to want. Early adopters like to tinker, and they don’t mind a little inconvenience if it means they get the cool stuff sooner. Most people aren’t like that -- they don’t have the time or patience to screw around with Linux programming or aiming a satellite dish. They just want to buy a product or a service, then sit back and use it.
Everybody still hates their cable company, mostly because cable’s monopoly status in most cities means they can get away with lousy customer service. But cable companies have constantly added more channels and more options, and improved reception, to stay competitive with the competing technologies. So nothing else has achieved a serious foothold on the market, and cable’s general ease of use lets the industry keep most of its subscribers.
2. People Won’t Use Computers
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/larryellison.jpg" width="300" height="209" align="right">This was an early ‘90s favorite among tech-industry insiders, most prominently Larry Ellison, the flamboyant founder of Oracle. The wisdom went roughly like this: Computers are too complicated and expensive, and more powerful than the average person needs. As remote networks get more sophisticated, the average person will simply want a cheap terminal to access remote services, storing his data and preferences elsewhere. Much easier to use, and less expense for most users.
I was always suspicious of this one, because the people promoting it seemed motivated largely by hatred for Bill Gates. Microsoft had pretty much sewn up the operating-system market, so other major computer companies (like Oracle) had a vested interest in coming up with, well, something else. But never mind that. Why hasn’t it happened?
Several reasons. First off, computers have become pretty ubiquitous. Even if Americans don’t have them at home, they’ve used them at work, school, or the library. This is a case where the tech industry reacted too strongly against their own prejudices, assuming that the average person wouldn’t have the patience to figure out a computer. But almost everyone has had to learn Windows at some point, usually in a work situation. The result: It’s not just the early adopters who know how to use computers now. Everybody does.
Second, computers got much cheaper. Most families with a TV can afford one. Hard-drive storage space, in particular, is now dirt cheap.
And third: People -- Americans, at least -- are fundamentally uncomfortable with storing their personal information outside their homes. A PC may be an irritating box to learn how to use, but at heart it’s analogous to that old home filing cabinet -- the information sits inside it, on your desk. Who wants all their personal affairs stored inside an Oracle server 3000 miles away?
You may not use your filing cabinet very much anymore, but there’s no reason to throw it away. Same with your hard drive.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/shatterad.jpg" width="300" height="456" align="right">3. Comics Are Doomed
Let’s sneak up on this one.
There’s a “stickiness” to existing technologies. Every time something new is introduced, people have to invest time in learning how to use it. They don’t want to go through that constantly, even if they can afford it (as most Americans could, in the ‘90s). If something works, why change it?
This rule can go completely out the window, under the right circumstances. LP records, which had been the standard for decades, disappeared with astonishing speed when CDs came in. The same sea-change is going on now with videotapes and DVDs (and will probably happen even faster in a year or two, once home DVD recording becomes easier).
Both of these technologies are measurably better than their predecessors. CDs and DVDs allow better sound/video quality, instant selection of tracks/scenes, and more room for material. They have led to some changes in content: the advent of the CD extended the play-time of the average record, and the extras included with most DVDs play into our society’s current obsession with behind-the-scenes commentary and insight.
But at base, they work pretty much the same way LPs and videotapes did. You pop them in/on a machine and play them.
Radically different technologies have a tougher time. Multi-player internet gaming still hasn’t spread to the masses -- partly because of connection speeds, but also because an important part of the gaming experience is the social, physical contact with friends. The web did catch on, because it’s so massively useful. But even the web primarily gives you easier access to things you always could have gotten from the library, a university, or by catalog shopping. The only really successful e-commerce site that uses a radically new procedure is the insidiously addictive eBay -- and even that is based on auctions, which are centuries old.
(In 1983, cable-TV pundits talked about the possibilities of Two-Way TV and the humorously named Videotext, which was supposed to allow two-way transmission of public service information, shopping, etc. These services did come to pass -- but on the web, which is much better suited to this sort of thing. It’s all a matter of the best tools for the job. You don’t watch movies on the internet, and you don’t look up operating manuals on your TV.)
So why haven’t electronic media killed comics?
Well, to start, there are some fundamental economic problems with electronic media. The dot-com boom accustomed consumers to getting big discounts and free giveaways, and we’re just crawling out of that mindset now. I’d argue that the new media have bitten into the traditional comics market, just as they have with (say) network TV. But why hasn’t something -- Flash animation, PDF format comics, some kind of online subscription model -- wiped out the comics market entirely?
The answer: Technology has not yet come up with a better delivery model for comics -- just as the communications industry hasn’t improved on mass-media cable TV, after more than twenty-five years. The growth of trade paperbacks is a step forward, but it’s analogous to the shift from VHS to DVD. The format is a little different, which may affect the presentation in small ways; but basically it’s the same content, with room for some nice extras.
I have no doubt that we’ll see some form of large-scale electronic format for comics material within the next ten years or so. But nobody’s yet done it in a way that both (a) makes money and (b) is as enjoyable an experience as reading colored ink on paper. The web is great for promotion, early looks, and free publicity. But so far, the rest is…stratovision.
Comics, like technologies, are “sticky.” We’re used to them, and nobody’s come up with something better. They will change; they are changing. But it’s going to take a while for our “communications satellites” to come along.
Meanwhile, we’ve got comics. And that’s not so bad.
**
Stuart Moore’s comics work: Go to <a href="http://www.rocketcomics.com" target="_blank">http://www.rocketcomics.com</a> and <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094" target="_blank">http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094</a> for a look at LONE, launching in summer 2003, with a special 10-page stand-alone preview story in ROCKET COMICS: IGNITE, Dark Horse’s contribution to Free Comic Book Day in May. Issue #6 of ZENDRA: HEART OF FIRE, the conclusion of my epic science fiction series from Penny-Farthing Press, is out now; more info on the trade paperback of the first ZENDRA series can be found at <a href="http://www.pfpress.com" target="_blank">http://www.pfpress.com</a> . Then visit my message boards at <a href="http://www.joequesada.com" target="_blank">http://www.joequesada.com</a> and we’ll continue this discussion there. See you in 14 days!
<center>A THOUSAND FLOWERS</center><center>Comics, Pop Culture, and the World Outside</center><center>Installment 12</center><center>by Stuart Moore</center>
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/stratovision.jpg" width="300" height="194" align="right">Stratovision, Videotext, and You
A few years ago, while cleaning out my grandmother’s house, I found a strange, undated AP article she’d clipped out of the newspaper, probably in the late ‘50s. It describes a bizarre process called “stratovision,” developed by Westinghouse, which promised to use “high-flying airplanes” to boost and extend the range of TV signals, allowing for true coast-to-coast television broadcasting.
The prototype for this loony idea was a converted B-29 Superfortress (I don’t know what that is either, but I bet it kicked some ass in Korea), circling at 25,000 feet, that successfully relayed signals to a 250-mile area. The article cites four primary applications for stratovision: coast-to-coast TV broadcasting, military communications, rural TV reception, and simultaneous transmission of programming to theatres or other public gathering places.
Of course, you know what happened. Communications satellites took care of the coast-to-coast problem and military communications, while cable TV provided rural reception. Most theatres still use big spools of film in metal cans, though that may be changing soon, also because of satellites. It’s just as well stratovision never made it big -- otherwise we’d have an entire generation of communications engineers suffering from vertigo, flying around and around in those damn planes.
Stratovision was just a stupid idea with a great name. But some other technologies seem to make sense…and then just don’t catch on.
Over the past twenty years, as technological change has accelerated, a lot of experts have made predictions that flopped. Let’s look at three of my favorites, and see what they show us. Number 1: Nobody will pay for cable TV once satellite dishes get cheap enough. Number 2: People won’t use computers after a while -- just internet devices analogous to phones that will access data stored on remote servers. And Number 3: Comics are doomed because of the growth of electronic media.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/rcrumbtv.jpg" width="300" height="267" align="left">1. Nobody Will Pay for Cable
In 1983, I wrote my senior thesis on municipal regulation of cable television. At the time, I thought cable was in trouble. Direct broadcast from satellite (DBS) seemed to be the wave of the future -- after all, everybody hated their cable company, and satellite dishes were getting cheaper and cheaper. Why pay a subscription fee for a service you hate, when you can get it another way?
The answer was partly economic. Services like DirecTV, which still offer satellite-dish service today, had to charge subscription fees in order to carry and support pay-cable channels, so there wasn’t that much difference between them and the cable company. But it really came down to a matter of convenience. When you buy a satellite dish, you have to install and maintain it yourself. When you subscribe to cable TV, the company puts it in for you, and then it just sits there and works. All you do is send in a check every month.
It can be hard to judge which technologies are going to make it, and which ones aren’t. One reason: Early adopters -- the first people to rush out and buy a new device -- aren’t very good judges of what the average person is going to want. Early adopters like to tinker, and they don’t mind a little inconvenience if it means they get the cool stuff sooner. Most people aren’t like that -- they don’t have the time or patience to screw around with Linux programming or aiming a satellite dish. They just want to buy a product or a service, then sit back and use it.
Everybody still hates their cable company, mostly because cable’s monopoly status in most cities means they can get away with lousy customer service. But cable companies have constantly added more channels and more options, and improved reception, to stay competitive with the competing technologies. So nothing else has achieved a serious foothold on the market, and cable’s general ease of use lets the industry keep most of its subscribers.
2. People Won’t Use Computers
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/larryellison.jpg" width="300" height="209" align="right">This was an early ‘90s favorite among tech-industry insiders, most prominently Larry Ellison, the flamboyant founder of Oracle. The wisdom went roughly like this: Computers are too complicated and expensive, and more powerful than the average person needs. As remote networks get more sophisticated, the average person will simply want a cheap terminal to access remote services, storing his data and preferences elsewhere. Much easier to use, and less expense for most users.
I was always suspicious of this one, because the people promoting it seemed motivated largely by hatred for Bill Gates. Microsoft had pretty much sewn up the operating-system market, so other major computer companies (like Oracle) had a vested interest in coming up with, well, something else. But never mind that. Why hasn’t it happened?
Several reasons. First off, computers have become pretty ubiquitous. Even if Americans don’t have them at home, they’ve used them at work, school, or the library. This is a case where the tech industry reacted too strongly against their own prejudices, assuming that the average person wouldn’t have the patience to figure out a computer. But almost everyone has had to learn Windows at some point, usually in a work situation. The result: It’s not just the early adopters who know how to use computers now. Everybody does.
Second, computers got much cheaper. Most families with a TV can afford one. Hard-drive storage space, in particular, is now dirt cheap.
And third: People -- Americans, at least -- are fundamentally uncomfortable with storing their personal information outside their homes. A PC may be an irritating box to learn how to use, but at heart it’s analogous to that old home filing cabinet -- the information sits inside it, on your desk. Who wants all their personal affairs stored inside an Oracle server 3000 miles away?
You may not use your filing cabinet very much anymore, but there’s no reason to throw it away. Same with your hard drive.
<img src="http://www.newsarama.com/flowers/shatterad.jpg" width="300" height="456" align="right">3. Comics Are Doomed
Let’s sneak up on this one.
There’s a “stickiness” to existing technologies. Every time something new is introduced, people have to invest time in learning how to use it. They don’t want to go through that constantly, even if they can afford it (as most Americans could, in the ‘90s). If something works, why change it?
This rule can go completely out the window, under the right circumstances. LP records, which had been the standard for decades, disappeared with astonishing speed when CDs came in. The same sea-change is going on now with videotapes and DVDs (and will probably happen even faster in a year or two, once home DVD recording becomes easier).
Both of these technologies are measurably better than their predecessors. CDs and DVDs allow better sound/video quality, instant selection of tracks/scenes, and more room for material. They have led to some changes in content: the advent of the CD extended the play-time of the average record, and the extras included with most DVDs play into our society’s current obsession with behind-the-scenes commentary and insight.
But at base, they work pretty much the same way LPs and videotapes did. You pop them in/on a machine and play them.
Radically different technologies have a tougher time. Multi-player internet gaming still hasn’t spread to the masses -- partly because of connection speeds, but also because an important part of the gaming experience is the social, physical contact with friends. The web did catch on, because it’s so massively useful. But even the web primarily gives you easier access to things you always could have gotten from the library, a university, or by catalog shopping. The only really successful e-commerce site that uses a radically new procedure is the insidiously addictive eBay -- and even that is based on auctions, which are centuries old.
(In 1983, cable-TV pundits talked about the possibilities of Two-Way TV and the humorously named Videotext, which was supposed to allow two-way transmission of public service information, shopping, etc. These services did come to pass -- but on the web, which is much better suited to this sort of thing. It’s all a matter of the best tools for the job. You don’t watch movies on the internet, and you don’t look up operating manuals on your TV.)
So why haven’t electronic media killed comics?
Well, to start, there are some fundamental economic problems with electronic media. The dot-com boom accustomed consumers to getting big discounts and free giveaways, and we’re just crawling out of that mindset now. I’d argue that the new media have bitten into the traditional comics market, just as they have with (say) network TV. But why hasn’t something -- Flash animation, PDF format comics, some kind of online subscription model -- wiped out the comics market entirely?
The answer: Technology has not yet come up with a better delivery model for comics -- just as the communications industry hasn’t improved on mass-media cable TV, after more than twenty-five years. The growth of trade paperbacks is a step forward, but it’s analogous to the shift from VHS to DVD. The format is a little different, which may affect the presentation in small ways; but basically it’s the same content, with room for some nice extras.
I have no doubt that we’ll see some form of large-scale electronic format for comics material within the next ten years or so. But nobody’s yet done it in a way that both (a) makes money and (b) is as enjoyable an experience as reading colored ink on paper. The web is great for promotion, early looks, and free publicity. But so far, the rest is…stratovision.
Comics, like technologies, are “sticky.” We’re used to them, and nobody’s come up with something better. They will change; they are changing. But it’s going to take a while for our “communications satellites” to come along.
Meanwhile, we’ve got comics. And that’s not so bad.
**
Stuart Moore’s comics work: Go to <a href="http://www.rocketcomics.com" target="_blank">http://www.rocketcomics.com</a> and <a href="http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094" target="_blank">http://www.newsarama.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000094</a> for a look at LONE, launching in summer 2003, with a special 10-page stand-alone preview story in ROCKET COMICS: IGNITE, Dark Horse’s contribution to Free Comic Book Day in May. Issue #6 of ZENDRA: HEART OF FIRE, the conclusion of my epic science fiction series from Penny-Farthing Press, is out now; more info on the trade paperback of the first ZENDRA series can be found at <a href="http://www.pfpress.com" target="_blank">http://www.pfpress.com</a> . Then visit my message boards at <a href="http://www.joequesada.com" target="_blank">http://www.joequesada.com</a> and we’ll continue this discussion there. See you in 14 days!