Tagged: Variety

Twelve years ago today, as part of the 24 Hours In Cyberspace event, Bill Clinton signed into law the Telecommuncations Act of 1996. A section of the bill came to be known as the Communications Decency Act, which imposed criminal sanctions on anyone who:

knowingly (A) uses an interactive computer service to send to a specific person or persons under 18 years of age, or (B) uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs.

The law also explicity made it illegal to discuss abortions online, and implicitly outlawed a wide variety of non-obscene material.

The online community jumped into action immediately, with the Black World Wide Web protest which encouraged webmasters to make their sites’ backgrounds black for 48 hours (making 24 Hours In Cyberspace literally darker than planned), the Electronic Frontier Foundation starting up the Blue Ribbon campaign, and a number of plaintiffs (including, I’m proud to say, me and my company, BiblioBytes) joining the ACLU to get a preliminary injunction to prevent the act from ever taking place, and then taking it all the way to the Supreme Court (Reno v. ACLU) to get the thing unanimously overturned.

Yes, we shot a law in Reno, just to watch it die.

Sadly, bad parts of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 live on — most notably, the deregulation of media ownership which has led to the massive consolidation of the last decade or so (see ClearChannel and NewsCorp). But at least we’re able to put adult comics online.

The nominees for the 2008 Web Cartoonists Choice Awards are out, providing a peek at who webcomic creators name as their favorite comics, creators and a variety of other categories.

Among some of the nominees:

OUTSTANDING COMIC FINALISTS:

Achewood by Chris Onstaad

Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio

Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell

Perry Bible Fellowship by Nicholas Gurewitch

The Phoenix Requiem by Sarah Ellerton

OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER FINALISTS:

Bear and Kitten by Andy and Angie

Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran

Pictures for Sad Children by John Campbell

The Dreamer by Lora Innes

The Phoenix Requiem by Sarah Ellerton

The WCCA website has a full list of 2008 WCCA categories and nominees along with links to each of the comics. Winners will be announced during MegaCon in Orlando on March 8, 2008.

"Comics Theorist" Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) is the subject of this English-language interview by the crew at ComicGate, a German comics news site.

The interview touches on a variety of subjects, from McCloud’s early expectations for Understanding Comics to what exactly his job description is these days. Apparently, it’s not easy to come up with a title when you’re creating comics as a study of comics.

McCloud explains:

When somebody asks me what I do, how do I answer? What words do we put down on the catalogue, or whatever? These days I say cartoonist and author. That pretty much sums it up. I do a lot of public speaking, but I am doing it as a cartoonist and an author. I would like to be a little more cartoonist and a little less author for a little while. I would like to create a graphic-novel next and I plan to spend the next two or three years of my life doing that. I think it is time after writing about how comics work to actually put those ideas into practice and try to create a work of fiction.

It’s a fairly long interview, but certainly worth a read for anyone interested in comics theory and the evolving role of technology in the comics scene.