Digital Funnies: Comics Preservation by Jonathan Barli
Welcome to Digital Funnies, dedicated to preserving the history of
this most neglected of art forms and reintroducing it to scholars and
new readers alike. While several well-known titles such as Krazy Kat,
Gasoline Alley, and Peanuts are being given their proper due in
published form, there is still much of the rich history of comics and
cartooning that will more than likely never see print again and worse,
fade away with time.
Understandably, a publisher would be hesitant to take on the huge
financial risk of publishing an obscure title or cartoonist, but
digital reproduction offers no risk at all and allows for a terrific
means of restoring, preserving, and making available again the vast
amounts of material that have been unseen and unappreciated for far
too long.
Quality is the priority, and sacrifices will not be made in this field
to cut corners. Although the image files are jpegs for easy viewing,
they originate as uncompressed (and thus much larger) print-quality TIFF files. If an
intrepid publisher would ever want to take to print any of the
material held within, it will all be readily available.
Your support is what will keep Digital Funnies alive. For the time being, only material in the public domain will be
undertaken, but who knows what lies on the horizon - there are many
exciting projects coming up so please check back, as new ones will be
posted as they are completed. Any comments, suggestions and words of
encouragement are welcome. Enjoy!
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