Security Comics

Anyone who follows my ramblings will know that, as an ex art-flunky, I still keep a few pokers in the fire of crapulence that is the arts world. Specifically, the comics industry as a sometime commentator and / or participant.

Mainly, I complain about stuff very loudly. As such, it's a finely honed knack for complaining that usually erupts into chaos such as this, or full scale war (scroll down to "Chris Boyd", then click the link for lols-a-plenty).

With that in mind, I feel vaguely qualified to examine the latest comic offering - a bunch of short strips with the theme of Ad/Spy/Whatever-ware. From the blurb:

"The cartoons cover online security issues such as phishing, pharming, malware, spoofing and password protection. But as opposed to most other educational efforts relating to these topics, the cartoons do not only teach its readers what to do and not to do, but why, too.

"That makes the advice easier to make sense of," said Srikwan."

...hmm. The problem is, nobody reads cartoons to be "taught". If there's a message wrapped up inside a piece of art, be it a painting on the wall or 22 pages of men in spandex punching each other in the face, it should come as a natural byproduct...not the main objective. Otherwise, what you're handing me is a boring lecture and I don't care.

As an example, here's the current cartoon that greets you when you hit the main site.

Uh, hello, room service? Send up a plot and three pages of dialogue right away! The weekly grind is tearin' me apart!! If it had any more words on it, I'd be tempted to think it was one of those black and white Swedish films where everyone is miserable and playing Twister with Death.

I don't know about you, but I'd given up after the third panel.

These things give off major mixed messages - on the one hand, they're absolutely stuffed with words that would fly over the heads of many readers, yet the actual content of the strips (once the endless babble is stripped away) is likely too simplistic to be of much use to anyone reading them in the first place. The way many of the cartoons simply end in mid-air doesn't help very much, either.

With a bit of tweaking, these strips could be very good - but the current lack of focus with regards the main audience is holding it back a fair bit. Still, I'll be keeping an eye on them to see how they develop...