http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=7232

bad signal
ME

The “papernet” — and I suspect the borders of the
definition are already becoming fuzzy — begins from
the stance that paper is still really useful and a nice
thing to have. Written language is the original cultural
virus, because you can pass that fucker around.

You can read this, for some background:

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=6670

The Papernet Stance says that sometimes you
want the internet to spit out a bit of paper. Not
least because it remains a pain in the arse for
every given location to spit out a file to every
mobile device — and, even more importantly, because
not everyone has a mobile device.

Why does this even matter? Well, I don’t know about
you, but I’m in the business of moving ideas around.
So if someone I know fired out a PDF of a single
page that was a broadside, a folded four-page
pamphlet or even, per Elizabeth Genco, an 8pp
minizine

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizabethgenco/sets/72157594276405114/

I’d be interested in that. There can be powerful
reasons why something needs to be experienced
in pages, and there can be useful reasons why I’d
want to leave the house with a printed folded sheet
of paper in my pocket.

And there will always be people who donate time and
toner to running off those things, in locations far
distant from the creator, and giving them away.

Of course, one day, we’ll be able to print them off at
home on indestructible Tyvek, so the only evidence of
human life on this planet in a million years’ time will
be your minicomic of a hobbit cornholing someone
from Battlestar Galactica.

- W