Comic legend Mark Waid on the medium's future

Turnstyle's Noah Nelson interviewed comic book great Mark Waid, longtime creator of adventures for Superman, Batman, Spider-man and The Incredibles. He's now mastering the format's transition to digital media such as the iPad.

“That doesn’t change the image but it completely changes the context of what the story is.”

Take the comic Waid wrote for Marvel’s new “Infinite Comics” line. A hero hurtles through space, a red-orange blur behind him. When the reader swipes the screen, the page doesn’t turn. Instead the image shifts focus. The blur becomes the fiery cosmic Phoenix, the X-Men’s most deadly foe.

“I got news for you, I’ve been doing this for 25 years and this is the hardest writing I’ve ever had to do,” Waid said.

Be sure to play the audio at Noah's article: it's fantastically produced.

• [Jesse K.]

  When Alan Moore was asked in the 80s if the medium had hit a pinnacle with work like Watchmen, etc., he replied that “we haven’t even scratched the surface of what it can do”, I hope that new technology proves that statement right.  But most importantly it’ll come down to hard work to make the truly transformative comics work.

  • [Anton Gully]

     So long as they don’t turn comics into interactive toys or mini-movies…

• [NNelson]

  I’m blushing, Rob.

• [5onthe5]

  I liked Mark Waid’s comic Insufferable on his site, but I don’t really see how this is all that different from ComiXology… and surely the “guided view” tech that ComiXology uses could do the presentational stuff that Waid is trying?