Computoons: the evolving image of computers in cartoons

摘要

Many people think computers are displacing humans, and this makes them nervous. Humor is one way of coping. Certainly, comic strips and cartoons have also contributed to public perceptions about computers. The early "computoons" often provided a person's first images of what computers were, how they worked and, more significantly, the potentially disturbing social issues they raised. In computoons, we find computers that help us or hurt us, threaten or please, work perfectly or malfunction. Sometimes they hint at unsettling prospects and potentials that our intuition may only tentatively have touched on. They enable us to comprehend the "otherwise publicly unthinkable or outrageous act or belief" that contains a germ of truth.