San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend—a huge media convention that started out as being about comics but has since transitioned into being about TV shows and movies based on, that have some tenuous relationship to, or may even have nothing whatsoever to do with comics at all. However, as Laura Hudson points out on Boing Boing, there are still some actual comic announcements to be had there.
The one that interested me the most was from paper company Domtar, who created an eight-foot-tall sheet of paper character that people could interact with. Hudson takes great pleasure in making fun of this:
This is what the distant future of superheroes looks like: where the endless hunger for spandex-wearing demigods has exhausted every possible character permutation with monkey-typewriter thoroughness, and all that remains are household objects, possibly wearing capes.
But I find it amusing for a different reason. It’s a sign of the times—a sign that so many comics (and, for that matter, regular books) have migrated to digital that a paper company feels the need to plop down an eight-foot sheet of paper as a reminder to people that they’re still here.
I was going to say that it reminded me of the ad campaign that a paper company launched a few years back to try to get people to “Put It On Paper,” but when I looked up the article I wrote at the time, I found it was actually the same company, Domtar, responsible then as now.
Well, Domtar, go right ahead and try to call people’s attention to your paper products. I don’t think you’re going to be able to hold back the tide, but at least you’ll keep being amusing.
