Matthew Sparkes at The Telegraph:
Google has been awarded a patent for what it humourlessly calls “a system for electronically creating comic strip communications” which can be integrated into social networking websites and apps.
The search giant noticed that many sites were offering an automated way to create short comic strips, allowing users to enter their own text and select from a range of pre-drawn characters, and thought it would be easier for people to share them if the tool could be seamlessly integrated into social network sites.
I’m only excited about this if Google uses the patent to sue Bitstrips into oblivion and then never develops a similar technology.
I’ve seen Bitstrips pop up on facebook several times and frankly it’s awful. It reads like an old school Dick and Jane book. These things strip away everything that makes a good comic so wonderful, being the individual personality. It seems like a robotic gimmick.