Available to view on TheNFB
In Oana Suteu Khintirian‘s excellent documentary, Beyond Paper, she looks at why the written word is important, and what’s the method of preserving it. Without pen and paper, all the world is not a stage to chronicle the best of times, and even the worst of times shaped not only literature but also the passing of culture from one generation to another. While that sounds like a very loaded introduction, not every bit of knowledge can be passed down orally. And when it’s a document, will it be easily accessible?
Here, she is not only looking at how to preserve her own Romanian and Armenian heritage, but also humanity’s collective history. It’s not as easy as digitising it to the cloud, a digital version of what some may call the collective consciousness. Some nuances will get lost. For example, calligraphy is a craft few can master, and those studying Chinese style will know there’s a lot to consider when allowing those splashes of ink outside the line to exist! Sometimes examining how that stroke was made is significant.
When considering creating comics involves lettering, even this branched aspect of the literary to sequential art deserves equal preservation as well.
The 
HARVEY by Janice Nadeau (9 min)
