I re-read Bill Waterson's "Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Edition" a little while back. In it, Waterson lays out his comic author's manifesto. Looking at the funny papers today, it seems as if his push for greater creative freedom in that sphere has gone totally unheeded, and the doom Waterson prophesied is about to be fulfilled. Fifteen years ago, however, he was shrugged off as an idealistic crank. This sense of being treated like the "Cassandra of comics" seems to have played a part in Waterson's decision to retire early. Then it seemed as if a lone voice of dissent had been snuffed, but the world would go on. As we know today, Waterson's predictions were on target, and far from being a crank, he was prophetic and ahead of his time. Just as the rise of the internet is quickly making newspapers obsolete, the chance for artistic freedom offered by the internet is making the newsprint comic obsolete. In the rise of the web comic, we see an answer to the call Bill Waterson raised almost two decades ago. Web comic artists are free from the exploitative licencing agreements that wrenched comics away from their creators. Without the format restrictions imposed by print media, web comic authors are free to design their own layouts and take up as much or as little space as they want. Finally, without syndicates and editors, authors are able to create whatever they want and go direct to the public with it. The world Waterson's manifesto laid out has come.
I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old. That's a couple years after it first came out. The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer. I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit. It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows. With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play. What was that first game? It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past . Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge. It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing? There were stretches when I didn't. Many times, I've just been too busy. There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
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