The last generation of paper

E-books outsold the bound bookstore product last Christmas; their sales are rising on Kindle and iPads. Comic book illustration is done on computers. Eventually comic books will all appear on iPads, too.

Paper will become a memory, along with those funny-looking little bottles of Higgins’ Ink bobbing around on a cluttered taboret alongside pen holders and copper pen points and crow quill pen points fitting snugly into holders to be scraped occasionally to free them of hardened layers of India ink fit snugly between erasers of pink pearl and kneaded rubber.

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Nope, no more paper selected carefully by toothy texture or softness for its effect on the pen, pencil or brush as they glide across a smooth or textured surface for the desired effect of artwork. A humid weather condition of moistened paper will no longer govern your daily progress, requiring the use of a borrowed hair dryer to eliminate the moisture. Feeling? No, none of that. The scent of wood, metal and ink, no more. Drawing board to the attic. Storage, maybe firewood. No more!

Closer views of the paper? Feeling its texture? No more. Now there is a screen. “Slick.� That’s the word. Colors range from here to hell, a rainbow in a box, no experimentation, no mixing, just buttons to be pressed, screens to be matched and no need to wash up afterward. A studio of minimum size, no art storage, clothes free of stain, no ink or pen points, no lead pencil marks. Spotless miniature work areas with all of the colorful life stimulation of a certified public accountant’s office at tax time.

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The computer has arrived and I’m thankful to have preceded its arrival and its abysmal removal of soul from the hand of art, now limited to the fingertips. I’m thankful for not being part of a revolution made possible by the “magic� of new crimes via international access to the private information, worldwide, of millions of people.

Paper once was a tree, part of nature; we are all part of nature. As an artist I feel a sense of pride in being within its last generation. Proudly, sadly, I am the last generation of paper ... thanks a lot, Bill Gates!

Bill Lee lives in New York City and Sharon, and has drawn cartoons for this newspaper, and many other publications of note, for decades.