Consider this comic time-shifted from Friday. Its as though you had a TiVo for our comic, and rather than viewing it live you decided to watch it today. On the plus side, no commercials!

Let’s continue thinking about this. The importance of seeing a TV show when it airs, or watching a movie when its in theaters, or reading a book when it first comes out is getting less and less important all the time. The sheer amount of media coming out today means that its completely impossible to consume it all, or even a tiny percentage of it. The wheat needs to be filtered from the chaff, and that filtering takes time.

The net effect is the same. We still have incredible things being produced for our amusement on a daily basis, and we can consume them when we want in almost any way we want. The greats will always be great, even if you come to them later.

Take Six Feet Under, a show that Allison and I have recently been obsessed with. This show came out over a decade ago, and neither of us really experienced it when it happened. Through the magic of The Internet (and Amazon Instant Video) we’re enjoying it now, and its still fantastic. There’s no remorse at having missed it when it came out, just happiness at enjoying it now. (Plus, neither of us would have been old enough to really understand it)

There’s probably a lesson in there, for myself as much as anyone else. Popularity at the time of creation helps. It helps a lot. But things that are truly good remain good, and have an infinite chance of discovery.

Thanks,

Philip