Dylan’s blog

hicksvillecomics.com

My new webcomics site, hicksvillecomics.com, is now online and will be updated several times a week.

It opens with two serials, The American Dream and Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, and two complete short comics, Siso and The Physics Engine.

Plenty more to come! I'm having a blast!

One of the serials on my new website!

It's almost ready! Just a few finishing touches (man, that CSS & php does my head in!), and my new website will be ready. It will serialise new work, and I'll also gradually add old stories, to create a permanent online library of my comics. I may get it finished today, but it will definitely be up and running by next week.

Of course, I'll announce it here the moment it goes live.

Another of the serials on my new website!

Hicksville Comics

...my new site! I'll be serialising new work on it (including the stories I was serialising in Atlas).

I'm just putting the finishing touches to it at the moment. Hopefully it'll be ready by the end of this week (if not sooner). I'll let you know the minute it goes live...

PirateBay

Good grief! It seems my humble little cartoon has made it all the way to the front page of the Pirate Bay. Now I really know what "going viral" feels like! All I can say is... ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The Internet Blackout in protest at s92 of the Copyright Amendment Act is now over, having climaxed today with a huge blackout of websites and blogs. Thousands of people have also blacked out their twitter, facebook, myspace (etc) profile pictures, in opposition to this silly and unjust new copyright law.

My own contribution to the campaign was a quickly thrown together cartoon which became my first small taste of going viral. Within hours of posting my cartoon to Facebook and this blog and emailing it to the Creative Freedom Foundation, it had already spread far and wide across the web, from Scoop to Frogblog, Kiwiblog, Comics Lifestyle and beyond. It was twittered, linked, copied and emailed.

The result: I was on a high for the rest of the weekend! I mean, being published in a book or magazine is hugely exciting. But going viral -- this was something else! Wow!

Thing is, it was a perfect example of why the new copyright laws are going in the wrong direction. The web is not about restricting access to art; instead it's all about putting it out there and watching it spread. Am I worried about someone making posters or t-shirts of my cartoon without paying me royalties? Am I going to sue if you put it in your magazine? Are you kidding? I want this baby to be seen by as many people as possible, in the hope it will add to the debate, make a few folks think, maybe even change a mind or two...

I've spent a lifetime trying to get my work out there in front of people - and now all I have to do is upload it and... well, actually, that's all I have to do! I can't even begin to describe how exciting that is.

I won't say any more here about my opposition to s92 (I've explained it already in my cartoon and in an earlier post). But suffice to say I just had my own little taste of the pleasures of freedom on the electronic frontier...

So anyway - let's keep the pressure on the government over s92 - and in the meantime, enjoy the amazing marvel of modern technology and cultural evolution that is... the internet!

P.S. I'm currently putting the finishing touches to a new site on which I plan to serialise new work online. Needless to say, this weekend has made me even more happy to be making this step. Thanks everyone!

...the Internet!

2 comments

For more information, visit the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Damn right!

As the "copyright wars" simmered away worldwide for the last decade or so, New Zealand largely remained aloof, to everyone's relief. Well, not everyone; American corporate media industry lobbyists set up NZFACT to pressure the NZ government (and police) to cooperate in their ham-fisted "war on piracy." And last year, with the help of music industry lobby APRA, they successfully persuaded the Labour government to pass a truly horrible law, supposedly in the name of "protecting artists" from online copyright theft.

Well, at the election in November 2008, that government was defeated, and now we have a new one. But the law remains, and one of its worst sections, s92a (which obliges ISPs to kick those accused of copyright infringement off the internet - without any proof required) comes into force in February. Any hopes that the new government would see sense on this issue appears to have been dashed, as they've now said they intend to go ahead with the "guilt upon accusation" law.

Last month, a new organisation was set up to speak for artists who feel industry lobbies like APRA and NZFACT don't speak for them: the Creative Freedom Foundation. They have an online petition and have been busy trying to get our voices heard in the media. Now they're asking all New Zealanders who oppose s92a to write to the government.

For what it's worth, here's what I wrote, in an effort to explain why I oppose the new law:

I am writing to strongly oppose the implementation of s92a of the Copyright Amendment Act.

I am a full-time professional artist and author, who depends largely on royalties for my income. In theory, then, I am just the sort of person s92a is supposed to protect.

In my opinion, however, s92a does not protect me at all. Instead, it is destructive of the new opportunities now emerging on the internet for artists like me.

This year, I am shifting a large part of my work online, which is increasingly the way things are going for many writers, artists, musicians and even film-makers. Artists like myself are busy building new forms of distribution and finding new ways to gain professional and financial rewards from the opportunities the internet presents. S92a will do nothing to prevent serious, organised, profit-making piracy - but it will do a lot of harm to the kind of small-scale, innovative online activity that is fast transforming the arts economy worldwide.

Furthermore, it is unworkable and unjust. I'm not surprised that the UK government is now backtracking from their similar proposals, and that other countries who have considered similar laws are rejecting them as destructive. It doesn't take much effort to find countless stories of why these sorts of policies are ridiculed around the world - from false accusations to porn producers using them to extort money from innocent internet users. Please don't make New Zealand into the laughing stock of the internet!

There are plenty of alternatives. Many countries are exploring policies that would encourage online innovation while continuing to reward content producers (such as a small tariff on ISP data charges which goes to an administered fund for creators; opt-in systems where consumers can pay a set fee to enable them to download whatever they like; expanded fair use definitions, etc). There are plenty of new and innovative business models emerging - but laws like s92a hinder, rather than helping, such innovation.

The reality is that new technology is transforming the whole landscape for the arts and media. This change is exciting and presents countless positive opportunities for artists, musicians, authors and filmmakers. Such change cannot be prevented. Trying to do so merely delays the emergence of new models, and creates plenty of injustice and hardship along the way (by punishing the innovators and criminalising a whole generation of enthusiastic young internet users).

New Zealand can be at the crest of the wave, or we can be left behind by the rest of the world.

For a small, remote country, the internet is our best opportunity in generations. We simply cannot afford to mess it up like this!

The final point I would like to make is this: s92a is NOT in the interests of artists. When groups like NZFACT and APRA claim to represent us, they do not. They represent the middlemen who profit from our work - often at our expense. This law does not protect artists. It serves only those who are afraid of innovation and change.

Liberty Leading the People (Eugene Delacrox, 1830)

Since the days of the French Revolution, one half of Europe has always been referred to as the left, the other half as the right. Yet to define one or the other by means of the theoretical principles it professes is all but impossible. And no wonder: political movements rest not so much on rational attitudes as on the fantasies, images, words, and archetypes that come together to make up this or that political kitsch.

The fantasy of the Grand March that Franz was so intoxicated by is the political kitsch joining leftists of all times and tendencies. The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles notwithstanding, for obstacles there must be if the march is to be the Grand March.

The dictatorship of the proletariat or democracy? Rejection of the consumer society or demands for increased productivity? The guillotine or an end to the death penalty? It is all beside the point. What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March.

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

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