The art form of comics is many centuries old, but it’s perceived as a recent invention and suffers the curse of all new media. The curse of being judged by the standards of the old. Ever since the invention of the written word, new media have been misunderstood.
Careful, Jacob! If you keep doing this [writing on tablets], you’ll stop using your memory!
Each new medium begins its life by imitating its predecessors. Many early movies were like filmed stage plays, much early television was like radio with pictures or reduced movies.
Far too many comics creators have no higher goal than to match the achievements of other media, and view any chance to work in other media as a step up. And again, as long as we view comics as a genre of writing or a style of graphic art this attitude may never disappear.
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, 1993, p. 151, describing the influence of new media in the comics realm…quotation without the benefit of graphics.
