New tech cartoons

Among all the flowing tributes to Neil Armstrong, it was a small cartoon from xkcd.Com that best summed up his achievements. Tweeted and retweeted, the comic didnt lament the great mans passing. Instead, it pointed out the number of people to walked on the moon and the depressingly small number who were probably to do so in the future. As obviously as any opinion part, it said weve lost our way. Its no surprise that xkcd managed to do in a single panel see below what most obituaries struggled to do in a thousand words. Geek comics are the tech worlds fairground mirror, presenting a truth thats distorted but still familiar. Theyve been with us since before the internet took its 1st tottering steps, distilling complex issues into some panels and a dozen words. In this feature, we talk to some of todays most prolific tech cartoonists, discussing the difficulties of what they do, how their profession is changing, and the joys of tackling the tech worlds biggest issues. Meet the men holding the pencils. Weekly wisdom Its hard being humorous on a weekly base, particularly in an business where issues tend to be as inflammatory as a footballers tweets. So its testament to John Klossners skill that hes been a professional cartoonist for 25 years, contributing illustrations to The UNIX Haters Handbook and many other publications, before being taken on as Computerworlds inhabitant comic writer. When I started out, I didnt have a computer, less create technology related cartoons, says Klossner. But cartoons and humour arent essentially about the specific topics, theyre about the relationships, human and otherwise, inside those subjects. A caveman having trouble lighting a fire is feeling the same emotions as someone whose computer keeps crashing. Anybody whos ever dealt with a belligerent office printer will understand how apt this image is. Just like the caveman, Klossner claims the black art of being steadily humorous is more hard work than inspiration, particularly in those rare weeks when the tech business forgets to do something amusingly calamitous. I read lots to familiarise myself with many subjects, says Klossner. I find the best procedure for me is to use up a couple of hours sketching and thinking about a subject for a day or two, , then coming up with two to three ideas after sleeping on it. I like to share a couple of possibilities with clients and, after getting their reactions, pick one of the ideas to draw the finished part, which takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to some number of hours. I have a weekly deadline, which certainly helps me. It makes my thoughts flow. If I waited till the perfect joke or idea came along, Id end up doing one cartoon a year , then putting that off till next year, in case I came up with something better. Its a somewhat different story over on GeekCulture.Com, where the wonderfully monikered Nitrozac and Snaggy produce the delight of Tech comic. GeekCulture is an ad supported web site pushed into the black by merchandise sales, giving its artists free rein when it comes to their creations. So long as people keep clicking and purchasing T shirts, the artists can draw whatever they want which is like giving somebody the gift of flight, just so long as they keep flapping their arms. We publish thrice weekly, so the constant deadlines hinder our lives as human beings more than as artists, says Snaggy. We used to publish a new comic every day, which was brutal, but it honed our technical and creative expertise, and our discipline. That was the fire we were forged in. I like to think of it as our Hamburg Period, la The Beatles.

It's a far cry from the early days of the web, when geek comics were dominated by the weekly belittling of Dilbert the office automaton being ordered around by a clueless manager in a shirt and tie. Dilbert resonated with every IT worker whose boss had more desk than brain. These days, its just as probably the boss will be wearing a hoodie as a shirt, and unless hes handling an IPO, hell be far from clueless. consequently, Dilberts imitators, which were ubiquitous in the early 1990s, have disappeared, replaced by comics that take aim at wider issues in the business, rather than the offices they take place in. Sure, just like everything else, comics have changed, says Paul Johnson, who graduated from writing jokes for chat show host David Letterman to drawing comics for ITworld.Com. The audience changed also, but Im not sure theyre more sophisticated than they used to be. Peoples sense of humour changed, related to general changes in society and culture.