Ecoutez les images (Listen to the pictures)
Comics are rarely out of the news these days, and even here in West Africa there is no escaping comics and their spin-offs. As I write this there are twenty kids behind me watching one of the Spiderman movies (I of course am too busy writing for TNPS to know which one it is).
Bizarrely while we can now stream movies from Netflix and Amazon here in Africa, we can’t download ebooks or e-comics easily. But we can download audio-books. So wouldn’t it be great if someone invented audio-comics?
Say hello to Thomas Pineau, whose work as a sound engineer in the film industry in due course led to podcasts and eventually… audio-comics.
Pineau took the best sound practices from cinema, radio drama and audio-books and applied them to comics, where voice-actors and sound effects replace the images.
Founded in 2016, Audio Picture started with five books and is now looking wider. Originally intended as radio broadcasts, Pineau instead turned to Amazon’s Audible and now the 40 minute audio-comics are available on Amazon and iTunes.
How long before the big comics production studios like Marvel and DC clamber on board? My guess is not long.
Audio-comics.
One more way in which the Global New Renaissance is unfolding.
One more way in which publishers can emerge stronger from the digital transition.
