Webcomic
Encyclopedia
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website
. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazine
s, newspaper
s or often in self-published
books.
Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it. In January 2007, there were an estimated 38,000 webcomics being published. Webcomics range from traditional comic strip
s to graphic novel
s and cover many genre
s and subjects. Very few are financially successful.
s to take advantage of the web's unique capabilities. Scott McCloud
, one of the first advocates of webcomics, has pioneered the idea of the infinite canvas
where, rather than being confined to normal print dimensions, artist
s are free to spread out in any direction indefinitely with their comics. Other webcomics, such as Argon Zark!
or the work of political cartoonist Mark Fiore
, incorporate animation
s or even interactive elements
into their comics.
However, the format and style of many, if not most, webcomics is still similar to that of traditional newspaper comic strip
s like Peanuts
consisting of three or four panels. Similar to comic book
s, manga
and graphic novel
s, other webcomics come in a page form rather than a strip form and tend to focus more on story than gags.
Clip art
or photo comics (also known as fumetti
) are types of webcomics that do not use traditional artwork. A Softer World
, for example, is made by overlaying photographs with strips of typewriter-style text. As in the constrained comics
tradition, a few webcomics, such as Dinosaur Comics
by Ryan North
, are created with most strips having art copied exactly from one (or a handful of) template
comics and only the text changing. Pixel art
, such as that created by Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties
, is similar to that of sprite comics but instead uses low-resolution images created by the artist himself.
Webcomic creators often publish print collections when their archive consists of a significant number of strips. However, artists who create webcomics in nonstandard formats may experience difficulties to come up with an adequate page layout
.
s, enjoying an artistic freedom similar to underground and alternative comics
. Some webcomics stretch the boundaries of taste, taking advantage of the fact that internet censorship
is virtually nonexistent in countries like the United States. The content of webcomics can still cause problems, such as W.A.Silverblack's Disco Dom and the RAvE Squad's mock war on the War on Drugs
, Leisure Town artist Tristan Farnon
's legal trouble after creating a homoerotic Dilbert
parody, or the Catholic League
's protest of artist Eric Monster Millikin
s "blasphemous treatment of Jesus."
in 1985. It was followed by T.H.E. Fox
, which was published on CompuServe and Quantum Link
in 1986.
Other online comics followed in the early '90s. Where the Buffalo Roam was published on FTP
and usenet
in 1991, Doctor Fun
was published on the web in September 1993, NetBoy
began publishing on the web in the summer of 1994 and NetComics Weekly from Finnish Comics Society was started in mid 1994. Among the longest-running webcomics, some of which are still being published, are Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan
(a Dutch comic that started in November 1994) The Polymer City Chronicles
(March 1995), Art Comics Daily
(March 1995), Argon Zark!
(June 1995), Kevin and Kell
(September 1995), Slow Wave
(November 1995), and Eric Monster Millikin
(Fall 1995). The term "webcomics" was used as early as April 1995.
The late nineties saw the number of webcomics increase drastically. Melonpool
first published in April 1996. In 1997, Goats
appeared (in April), followed by Sluggy Freelance
(in August), Roomies! (in September), Piled Higher and Deeper
(in October), User Friendly
(in November). Penny Arcade
and Pokey the Penguin
began a year later.
, an online gallery of several webcomics.
In March 2000, Chris Crosby
, Crosby's mother Teri, and Darren Bleuel founded the webcomics portal Keenspot
. Crosby and Bleuel also started a free webcomic hosting service in July 2000, originally called KeenSpace but renamed Comic Genesis
in July 2005.
In July 2000, Austin Osueke
launched eigoMANGA
a web portal that published original online manga "webmanga". Within this year, eigoMANGA brought comic book industry attention to webcomics after being featured in many comic book web magazine articles and later appearing in the March 2001 issue of Wizard Magazine.
In 2001, the subscription webcomics site Cool Beans World
was launched after a high profile publicity campaign including extensive print advertising. It won Internet Magazine's "Site of the Month" award in October 2001. Contributors included, amongst others, UK-based comic book creators Pat Mills
, Simon Bisley
, John Bolton and Kevin O'Neill
, and the author Clive Barker
. Serialised content included Scarlet Traces
and Marshal Law
.
In June 2004, a new marketing and business oriented collective was created to help talented webcomic creators turn a profit on their creations; still going strong, Rampage Network manages over 50 titles from across the globe.
In March 2001, Shannon Denton
and Patrick Coyle launched Komikwerks
.com serving free strips from comics and animation professionals. The site launched with 9 titles including Astounding Space Thrills
by Steve Conley, Buzzboy by John Gallagher, and Johnny Smackpants by Coyle.
On March 2, 2002, Joey Manley
founded Modern Tales
, offering subscription-based webcomics. The Modern Tales spin-off serializer
followed in October 2002, then came girlamatic
and Graphic Smash in March and September 2003 respectively.
By 2005, webcomics hosting had become a business in its own right, with sites such as Comic Genesis
, DrunkDuck, and Webcomics Nation
.
While comic strip syndicates had been present online since the mid 1990s, traditional comic book publishers, such as Marvel Comics
and Slave Labour Graphics, did not begin making serious digital efforts until 2006 and 2007. DC Comics
launched its web comic imprint, Zuda Comics
in October 2007. The site featured user submitted comics in a competition for a professional contract to produce web comics. In July 2010, it was announced that DC was closing down Zuda.
A growing number artists make a full-time living from their businesses and intellectual property, among them Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade
, Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance
, and Randall Munroe
of xkcd
. Where webcomic creators were once considered a distinct group separate from traditional comics artists, this contrivance has blurred as traditional comic creators — such as Warren Ellis, Karl Kerschl, Ramon Perez, Ethan Nicholle, and Doug TenNapel, to name only a handful — began moving online with their own independent work, following the lead of early adopters. Comics online generate revenue from advertising, original art, merchandising, print collections and exploitation of independently owned intellectual property, not dissimilar to avenues of income available to traditional artists.
Several cartoonists like Phil
and Kaja Foglio
of Girl Genius
have stopped publishing traditional comic books and instead serialise their content as a webcomic to reach a larger audience. Often, the webcomic is later published in the form of trade paperback collections.
Some webcomics, such as Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet
, Macanudo
, Van Von Hunter
and Diesel Sweeties
have been syndicated and published on daily newspapers' comics pages. Others such as The Perry Bible Fellowship
and PartiallyClips
have been published in smaller alternative newspapers, or printed in magazines, such as The Order of the Stick
in Dragon Magazine
and Get Your War On
in Rolling Stone
.
, originally published as a webcomic on Modern Tales
, was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award
. Don Hertzfeldt
's animated film based on his webcomics, Everything Will Be OK, won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, a prize rarely bestowed on an animated film.
Many traditionally print-comics focused organizations have added award categories for comics published on the web. The Eagle Awards
established a Favorite Web-based Comic category in 2000, and the Ignatz Awards
followed the next year by introducing an Outstanding Online Comic category in 2001. After having nominated webcomics in several of their traditional print-comics categories, the Eisner Awards began awarding comics in the Best Digital Comic category in 2005. In 2006 the Harvey Awards established a Best Online Comics Work category, and in 2007 the Shuster Awards began an Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award.
Other awards focus exclusively on webcomics. The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards
consist of a number of awards that have been handed out annually from 2001 to 2008. The Clickburg Webcomic Awards (also known as "the Clickies") has been handed out annually since 2005 at the Stripdagen Haarlem comic festival. The awards require the recipient to be active in the Benelux
countries, with the exception of one international award.
's Reinventing Comics
, half of which consisted of a treatise on webcomics, was published. Though sometimes controversial, McCloud was one of the first advocates of digital comics and remains an influential figure in the webcomics field. His theories have sometimes led to debates about where webcomics should go and what, precisely, they are. McCloud's early advocacy of micropayment
s has also been a source of debate.
In June 2006, Universal Press Syndicate editorial cartoonist Ted Rall
focused on webcomics for the third volume of the Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists
series, and included comics such as The Perry Bible Fellowship
, Cat and Girl, and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
.
In 2008, Brad Guigar
, Dave Kellett
, Scott Kurtz, and Kris Straub released How to Make Webcomics, published by Image Comics
. The book covered many practical matters of making money through webcomics, including website design, publishing, and merchandising.
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s or often in self-published
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
books.
Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it. In January 2007, there were an estimated 38,000 webcomics being published. Webcomics range from traditional comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s to graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s and cover many genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s and subjects. Very few are financially successful.
Medium
Format
There are several differences between webcomics and print comics since the formal restrictions of the traditional newspaper or magazine format can be lifted, allowing cartoonistCartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
s to take advantage of the web's unique capabilities. Scott McCloud
Scott McCloud
Scott McCloud is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium...
, one of the first advocates of webcomics, has pioneered the idea of the infinite canvas
Infinite canvas
The infinite canvas is the idea that the size of a digital comics page is theoretically infinite, and that online comics are therefore not limited by conventional page sizes. An artist could conceivably display a complete comics story of indefinite length on a single "page"...
where, rather than being confined to normal print dimensions, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s are free to spread out in any direction indefinitely with their comics. Other webcomics, such as Argon Zark!
Argon Zark!
Argon Zark! is a webcomic, created by cartoonist and web site designer Charley Parker. It is arguably the first true Web comic, i.e. the first continuing comic story created specifically to be distributed on the World Wide Web. The strip first appeared in June 1995...
or the work of political cartoonist Mark Fiore
Mark Fiore
Mark Fiore is an American political cartoonist specializing in Flash-animated editorial cartoons, whom the Wall Street Journal recently called the undisputed guru of the form....
, incorporate animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
s or even interactive elements
Interactivity
In the fields of information science, communication, and industrial design, there is debate over the meaning of interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels:...
into their comics.
However, the format and style of many, if not most, webcomics is still similar to that of traditional newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s like Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
consisting of three or four panels. Similar to comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
and graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s, other webcomics come in a page form rather than a strip form and tend to focus more on story than gags.
Clip art
Clip art
Clip art, in the graphic arts, refers to pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively in both personal and commercial projects, ranging from home-printed greeting cards to commercial candles. Clip art comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However,...
or photo comics (also known as fumetti
Fumetti
Fumetti is an Italian word which refers to all comics. In English, the term refers specifically to photonovels or photographic comics, a genre of comics illustrated with photographs rather than drawings. Italians call these fotoromanzi...
) are types of webcomics that do not use traditional artwork. A Softer World
A Softer World
A Softer World is a thrice weekly webcomic by Canadians Joey Comeau and Emily Horne. It first came online on February 7, 2003. Early comics had been published, intermittently, in zine form. With the launch of the website, the comic has gained wider recognition, most notably when Warren Ellis...
, for example, is made by overlaying photographs with strips of typewriter-style text. As in the constrained comics
Constrained comics
Constrained comics is a form of comics that places some fundamental constraint on form. By adding a constraint, the artist is attempting to produce original art within tightly defined boundaries....
tradition, a few webcomics, such as Dinosaur Comics
Dinosaur Comics
Dinosaur Comics is a constrained webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North. It is also known as "Qwantz", after the site's domain name, "qwantz.com". The first comic was posted on 1 February 2003, though there were earlier prototypes. Dinosaur Comics has also been printed in two collections and in a...
by Ryan North
Ryan North
Ryan M. North is a Canadian writer, computer programmer, and occasional songwriter who is the creator and author of Dinosaur Comics, and co-creator of Whispered Apologies and Happy Dog the Happy Dog....
, are created with most strips having art copied exactly from one (or a handful of) template
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
comics and only the text changing. Pixel art
Pixel art
Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.- History :The term pixel art was first...
, such as that created by Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III . The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com...
, is similar to that of sprite comics but instead uses low-resolution images created by the artist himself.
Webcomic creators often publish print collections when their archive consists of a significant number of strips. However, artists who create webcomics in nonstandard formats may experience difficulties to come up with an adequate page layout
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
.
Content
Webcomics that are independently published are not subject to the content restrictions of book publishers or newspaper syndicatePrint syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
s, enjoying an artistic freedom similar to underground and alternative comics
Alternative comics
Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
. Some webcomics stretch the boundaries of taste, taking advantage of the fact that internet censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
is virtually nonexistent in countries like the United States. The content of webcomics can still cause problems, such as W.A.Silverblack's Disco Dom and the RAvE Squad's mock war on the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
, Leisure Town artist Tristan Farnon
Tristan A. Farnon
Tristan Alexander Farnon is an American webcomic author, creator of Leisure Town, and a member of the web comic Jerkcity.-Leisure Town:...
's legal trouble after creating a homoerotic Dilbert
Dilbert
Dilbert is an American comic strip written and drawn by Scott Adams. First published on April 16, 1989, Dilbert is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office featuring the engineer Dilbert as the title character...
parody, or the Catholic League
Catholic League (U.S.)
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, often shortened to the Catholic League, is an American Catholic anti-defamation and civil rights organization...
's protest of artist Eric Monster Millikin
Eric Monster Millikin
Eric Millikin, also known as Eric Monster Millikin, is an award-winning American artist and former human anatomy lab embalmer and dissectionist...
s "blasphemous treatment of Jesus."
Early webcomics
The first online comic was Witches and Stitches, which was published on CompuServeCompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
in 1985. It was followed by T.H.E. Fox
T.H.E. Fox
T.H.E. Fox is a furry comic strip by Joe Ekaitis which ran from 1986 to 1998. It is among the earliest online comics, predating Where the Buffalo Roam by over five years. T.H.E...
, which was published on CompuServe and Quantum Link
Quantum Link
Quantum Link was a U.S. and Canadian online service for Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated from November 5, 1985 to November 1, 1995. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia. In October 1991 they changed the name to America Online, which continues to...
in 1986.
Other online comics followed in the early '90s. Where the Buffalo Roam was published on FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
and usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
in 1991, Doctor Fun
Doctor Fun
Doctor Fun is a webcomic by David Farley, which ran from September 24, 1993 to June 9, 2006. It was one of the first online comics. It was preceded by Witches and Stitches which was distributed via CompuServe in 1985, and Where the Buffalo Roam which was distributed via Usenet in 1991. Dr...
was published on the web in September 1993, NetBoy
NetBoy
NetBoy is a webcomic created by Stafford Huyler. Publishing began in May, 1994 Drawn as a stick figure, the comic character NetBoy is an Internet innocent with his greatest joy in life being "fast .GIFs,"....
began publishing on the web in the summer of 1994 and NetComics Weekly from Finnish Comics Society was started in mid 1994. Among the longest-running webcomics, some of which are still being published, are Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan
Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan
Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan is a webcomic by Reinder Dijkhuis. It was started in 1991 as a small-press comic in Dutch, entitled De Rovers van Clwyd-Rhan. It had an online incarnation from November 1994 to August 1996, making it one of the first webcomics, and one of the oldest still updating...
(a Dutch comic that started in November 1994) The Polymer City Chronicles
Polymer City Chronicles
The Polymer City Chronicles is a webcomic written and drawn by Chris Morrison. PCC began publishing online in March 1995 as the first video gaming web comic on the World Wide Web, although the strip has been in print since 1992....
(March 1995), Art Comics Daily
Art Comics Daily
Art Comics Daily is a webcomic published since March 1995 by Bebe Williams of Arlington, Va. After Williams' comic strips were repeatedly rejected by newspaper syndicates, he brought them to the Internet where he had more artistic freedom. He also saw in webcomics the possibility to earn money from...
(March 1995), Argon Zark!
Argon Zark!
Argon Zark! is a webcomic, created by cartoonist and web site designer Charley Parker. It is arguably the first true Web comic, i.e. the first continuing comic story created specifically to be distributed on the World Wide Web. The strip first appeared in June 1995...
(June 1995), Kevin and Kell
Kevin and Kell
Kevin and Kell is a furry comedy webcomic strip by syndicated cartoonist Bill Holbrook. The strip began on September 3, 1995. It is one of the oldest continuously running webcomics....
(September 1995), Slow Wave
Slow Wave
Slow Wave is a weekly dream-based comic strip by Jesse Reklaw. It has been syndicated to alternative newspapers around the U.S. since 1995, and also appears online.-Description:...
(November 1995), and Eric Monster Millikin
Eric Monster Millikin
Eric Millikin, also known as Eric Monster Millikin, is an award-winning American artist and former human anatomy lab embalmer and dissectionist...
(Fall 1995). The term "webcomics" was used as early as April 1995.
The late nineties saw the number of webcomics increase drastically. Melonpool
Melonpool
Melonpool is a collection of characters created by Steve Troop whose adventures have been portrayed through both puppetry and in a long-running webcomic. The webcomic is the larger of these two areas and has recently been restarted after a long hiatus....
first published in April 1996. In 1997, Goats
Goats (webcomic)
Goats is a popular webcomic written and illustrated by Jonathan Rosenberg. The webcomic started April 1, 1997. On April 3, 2006, after nine years drawing the strip, Rosenberg became a full-time cartoonist making his living drawing Goats...
appeared (in April), followed by Sluggy Freelance
Sluggy Freelance
Sluggy Freelance is a popular, long-running daily webcomic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The comic has over 100,000 daily readers and premiered on August 25, 1997...
(in August), Roomies! (in September), Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper - Life in Academia , is a newspaper and web comic strip written and drawn by Jorge Cham that follows the lives of several grad students...
(in October), User Friendly
User Friendly
User Friendly is a discontinued daily webcomic about the staff of a small, fictional Internet service provider, Columbia Internet. The strip's humor tends to be centered around technology jokes and geek humour....
(in November). Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...
and Pokey the Penguin
Pokey the Penguin
Pokey the Penguin is a online comic strip created in 1998. It chronicles the adventures of a penguin named Pokey and a large cast of other characters...
began a year later.
Webcomics collectives
In March 1995, Bebe Williams launched the webcomics portal Art Comics DailyArt Comics Daily
Art Comics Daily is a webcomic published since March 1995 by Bebe Williams of Arlington, Va. After Williams' comic strips were repeatedly rejected by newspaper syndicates, he brought them to the Internet where he had more artistic freedom. He also saw in webcomics the possibility to earn money from...
, an online gallery of several webcomics.
In March 2000, Chris Crosby
Chris Crosby
Christopher Charles Crosby is the co-founder of Keenspot along with Darren Bleuel and Nathan Stone. He draws and writes the webcomic Superosity and writes for Sore Thumbs, which Owen Gieni illustrates. He currently resides in Cresbard, SD.-Superosity:Superosity is a daily comic strip by Crosby...
, Crosby's mother Teri, and Darren Bleuel founded the webcomics portal Keenspot
Keenspot
Keenspot is a webcomics portal founded in March 2000 by cartoonist Chris Crosby , Crosby's mother Teri, cartoonist Darren Bleuel , and Nathan Stone.-History:...
. Crosby and Bleuel also started a free webcomic hosting service in July 2000, originally called KeenSpace but renamed Comic Genesis
Comic Genesis
Comic Genesis is a free hosting provider for webcomics. It is a service of Keenspot, which covers hosting costs.- Services :...
in July 2005.
In July 2000, Austin Osueke
Austin Osueke
Austin Osueke is an American comic book artist, publisher, and founder of eigoMANGA. He is best known for contributing to Amerimanga and web comics through his publications Sakura Pakk and Rumble Pak.- Bibliography :- Work with eigoMANGA :...
launched eigoMANGA
Eigomanga
eigoMANGA is a comic book publishing company that produces original Japanese-influenced comics as well as develop business and marketing projects geared towards the anime industry. eigoMANGA has been underway since its conception in 2000...
a web portal that published original online manga "webmanga". Within this year, eigoMANGA brought comic book industry attention to webcomics after being featured in many comic book web magazine articles and later appearing in the March 2001 issue of Wizard Magazine.
In 2001, the subscription webcomics site Cool Beans World
Cool Beans World
Cool Beans World is a, now-defunct, subscription website which published animated or partially animated web comics. It was conceived by Cool Beans Productions, a design, animation and production company based in Sheffield, England. Contributors included, amongst others, UK-based comic book creators...
was launched after a high profile publicity campaign including extensive print advertising. It won Internet Magazine's "Site of the Month" award in October 2001. Contributors included, amongst others, UK-based comic book creators Pat Mills
Pat Mills
Pat Mills, nicknamed 'the godfather of British comics', is a comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since....
, Simon Bisley
Simon Bisley
Simon Bisley is a British comics artist best known for his 1990s work on ABC Warriors, Lobo and Sláine. His style, reliant on paints, acrylics, inks and multiple-mediums, is strongly influenced by Frank Frazetta, Bill Sienkiewicz, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dalí, Egon Schiele, and Richard Corben...
, John Bolton and Kevin O'Neill
Kevin O'Neill (comics)
Kevin O'Neill is an English comic book illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law , and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .-Early career:...
, and the author Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
. Serialised content included Scarlet Traces
Scarlet Traces
Scarlet Traces is a comic story of the Steampunk genre, written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli. It was original published online before being serialised in 2002. A sequel, Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, followed in 2006....
and Marshal Law
Marshal Law (comics)
Marshal Law is an English-language superhero comic book series created by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill. One of the first major creator-owned characters for a major publisher, it was first published by Epic Comics in 1987...
.
In June 2004, a new marketing and business oriented collective was created to help talented webcomic creators turn a profit on their creations; still going strong, Rampage Network manages over 50 titles from across the globe.
In March 2001, Shannon Denton
Shannon Denton
Shannon Eric Denton is a veteran storyteller and artist with credits at Cartoon Network, Warner Bros., Jerry Bruckheimer Films, NBC, Disney, Sony, ToyBiz, Marvel Entertainment, Fox Kids, Paramount, CBS, Dimension Films, DC Comics and Nickelodeon.-Biography:...
and Patrick Coyle launched Komikwerks
Komikwerks
Komikwerks is a comic publisher founded in 2000 by animation professional Shannon Denton and Internet design professional Patrick Coyle.The website, Komikwerks.com went live on March 5, 2001...
.com serving free strips from comics and animation professionals. The site launched with 9 titles including Astounding Space Thrills
Astounding Space Thrills
Astounding Space Thrills was a webcomic by begun in 1997. It is also the title of a comic book series of the same name published by Image Comics....
by Steve Conley, Buzzboy by John Gallagher, and Johnny Smackpants by Coyle.
On March 2, 2002, Joey Manley
Joey Manley
Joey Manley is best known as the founder and publisher of the webcomics site Modern Tales, as well as numerous other web-specific entertainment properties. These properties include the subscription webcomics sites Serializer, Girlamatic, and Graphic Smash, and the webcomics hosting service...
founded Modern Tales
Modern Tales
Modern Tales is a webcomics site launched on March 2, 2002 by Joey Manley, the Modern Tales publisher, and approximately 30 professional cartoonists, such as Dorothy Gambrell, author of the popular webcomic Cat and Girl and James Kochalka, the award-winning creator of Fancy Froglin...
, offering subscription-based webcomics. The Modern Tales spin-off serializer
Serializer
serializer.net is a website featuring many free and subscription-based alternative comics created especially for the web. It was launched in October 2002 by Publisher Joey Manley, Editor Tom Hart, and approximately 20 professional cartoonists...
followed in October 2002, then came girlamatic
Girlamatic
Girlamatic, published by Joey Manley, is a member of the Modern Tales family of subscription-based webcomics anthology sites. Girlamatic publishes comics with a particular appeal for young adult women. The site launched on March 31, 2003 with...
and Graphic Smash in March and September 2003 respectively.
By 2005, webcomics hosting had become a business in its own right, with sites such as Comic Genesis
Comic Genesis
Comic Genesis is a free hosting provider for webcomics. It is a service of Keenspot, which covers hosting costs.- Services :...
, DrunkDuck, and Webcomics Nation
Webcomics Nation
Webcomics Nation is a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley, publisher of the subscription webcomic site Modern Tales. It is a service designed for online cartoonists. Webcomics Nation is not a spinoff of Modern Tales like Graphic Smash, serializer, and...
.
While comic strip syndicates had been present online since the mid 1990s, traditional comic book publishers, such as Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
and Slave Labour Graphics, did not begin making serious digital efforts until 2006 and 2007. DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
launched its web comic imprint, Zuda Comics
Zuda Comics
Zuda Comics was DC Comics' webcomics imprint from 2007 until 2010. It featured comics for Flash player instead of in a web page. Announced in a press release on July 9, 2007 and the first ongoing series and competing comic entries went live October 30, 2007...
in October 2007. The site featured user submitted comics in a competition for a professional contract to produce web comics. In July 2010, it was announced that DC was closing down Zuda.
Business
Penny Arcade (webcomic)
Penny Arcade is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website loonygames.com. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have established their own site, which is typically updated with a new comic...
, Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance
Sluggy Freelance
Sluggy Freelance is a popular, long-running daily webcomic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The comic has over 100,000 daily readers and premiered on August 25, 1997...
, and Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe
Randall Patrick Munroe is an American webcomic author and former NASA roboticist as well as a programmer, best known as the creator of the webcomic xkcd...
of xkcd
Xkcd
xkcd is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." It has been recognized in such mainstream media as The Guardian and The New York Times....
. Where webcomic creators were once considered a distinct group separate from traditional comics artists, this contrivance has blurred as traditional comic creators — such as Warren Ellis, Karl Kerschl, Ramon Perez, Ethan Nicholle, and Doug TenNapel, to name only a handful — began moving online with their own independent work, following the lead of early adopters. Comics online generate revenue from advertising, original art, merchandising, print collections and exploitation of independently owned intellectual property, not dissimilar to avenues of income available to traditional artists.
Several cartoonists like Phil
Phil Foglio
Philip "Phil" Foglio is an American cartoonist and comic book artist best known for his humorous science fiction and fantasy work.-Early life and career:...
and Kaja Foglio
Kaja Foglio
Kaja Foglio is a Seattle-based writer, artist, and publisher. Foglio co-won the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story in 2009 for Girl Genius, Volume 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, and has continued to co-win two Hugo Awards the following years.-Early life and education:Born in...
of Girl Genius
Girl Genius
Girl Genius is an ongoing comic book series turned webcomic, written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio and published by their company, Studio Foglio LLC under the imprint Airship Entertainment...
have stopped publishing traditional comic books and instead serialise their content as a webcomic to reach a larger audience. Often, the webcomic is later published in the form of trade paperback collections.
Some webcomics, such as Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet
Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet
Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet is a comic strip by Peter Zale about a technically adept young woman who works at a technology firm. It was the first comic strip to make the leap from the Internet to newspaper syndication...
, Macanudo
Macanudo
Macanudo is an Argentine daily comic strip by the cartoonist Liniers. It is published in the newspaper La Nación. It appears on the last page of the paper. Just like Liniers' previous strip, Bonjour, Macanudo is very experimental and deals with meta humor...
, Van Von Hunter
Van Von Hunter
Van Von Hunter is a weekly, hand drawn parody-manga begun in 2002 by Cleveland, Ohio-based artists Mike Schwark and Ron Kaulfersch of Pseudomé Studio. It has since been published in newspapers, books, and as a webcomic...
and Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III . The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com...
have been syndicated and published on daily newspapers' comics pages. Others such as The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship is a newspaper comic strip and webcomic by Nicholas Gurewitch. It originated in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange. The comics are usually three or four panels long, and are generally characterized by the juxtaposition of whimsical childlike imagery or...
and PartiallyClips
PartiallyClips
PartiallyClips is a webcomic, created by Rob Balder, which has been running since 2002. At the start of 2010, Balder handed authorship of the comic to Tim Crist, the comedy musician behind Worm Quartet....
have been published in smaller alternative newspapers, or printed in magazines, such as The Order of the Stick
The Order of the Stick
The Order of the Stick is a comedic webcomic that celebrates and satirizes tabletop role-playing games and medieval fantasy through the ongoing tale of the eponymous fellowship of adventuring heroes...
in Dragon Magazine
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
and Get Your War On
Get Your War On
Get Your War On is a series of satirical comic strips by David Rees about political topics — originally the effects of the September 11 attacks on New York City but quickly switching focus to more recent ones, in particular the "War on Terrorism"...
in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
.
Awards
Many webcomics artists have received honors for their work. In 2006, Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born ChineseAmerican Born Chinese
American Born Chinese is a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. Released in 2006 by First Second Books, it was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Awards in the category of Young People's Literature. It won the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award and the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New. It...
, originally published as a webcomic on Modern Tales
Modern Tales
Modern Tales is a webcomics site launched on March 2, 2002 by Joey Manley, the Modern Tales publisher, and approximately 30 professional cartoonists, such as Dorothy Gambrell, author of the popular webcomic Cat and Girl and James Kochalka, the award-winning creator of Fancy Froglin...
, was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
. Don Hertzfeldt
Don Hertzfeldt
Don Hertzfeldt is the creator of many short animated films, including the Academy-Award nominated Rejected and Everything Will Be OK. His animated films have received over 150 awards and have been presented around the world. Before the age of thirty, his films were already the subject of several...
's animated film based on his webcomics, Everything Will Be OK, won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, a prize rarely bestowed on an animated film.
Many traditionally print-comics focused organizations have added award categories for comics published on the web. The Eagle Awards
Eagle Awards
The Eagle Award is a series of awards for comic book titles and creators. They are awarded by UK fan voting for work produced during the previous year. Named after the UK's Eagle comic, the awards were set up by Mike Conroy, Nick Landau, Colin Campbell, Phil Clarke and Richard Burton, and launched...
established a Favorite Web-based Comic category in 2000, and the Ignatz Awards
Ignatz Awards
The Ignatz Awards are intended to recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year since 1997, but skipped a year in 2001 due to the show's cancellation after the September...
followed the next year by introducing an Outstanding Online Comic category in 2001. After having nominated webcomics in several of their traditional print-comics categories, the Eisner Awards began awarding comics in the Best Digital Comic category in 2005. In 2006 the Harvey Awards established a Best Online Comics Work category, and in 2007 the Shuster Awards began an Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award.
Other awards focus exclusively on webcomics. The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards
Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards
The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards are annual awards in which online cartoonists nominate and select outstanding webcomics. The awards have been held since 2001, were featured in a The New York Times column on webcomics in 2005, and have been mentioned as a tool for librarians.The WCCA represent a...
consist of a number of awards that have been handed out annually from 2001 to 2008. The Clickburg Webcomic Awards (also known as "the Clickies") has been handed out annually since 2005 at the Stripdagen Haarlem comic festival. The awards require the recipient to be active in the Benelux
Benelux
The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...
countries, with the exception of one international award.
Books about webcomics
In August 2000, Scott McCloudScott McCloud
Scott McCloud is an American cartoonist and theorist on comics as a distinct literary and artistic medium...
's Reinventing Comics
Reinventing Comics
Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form is a 2000 book written by comic book writer and artist Scott McCloud...
, half of which consisted of a treatise on webcomics, was published. Though sometimes controversial, McCloud was one of the first advocates of digital comics and remains an influential figure in the webcomics field. His theories have sometimes led to debates about where webcomics should go and what, precisely, they are. McCloud's early advocacy of micropayment
Micropayment
A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. PayPal defines a micropayment as a transaction of less than 12 USD while Visa prefers transactions under 20 Australian dollars, and though micropayments were originally envisioned to...
s has also been a source of debate.
In June 2006, Universal Press Syndicate editorial cartoonist Ted Rall
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is an American columnist, syndicated editorial cartoonist, and author. His political cartoons often appear in a multi-panel comic-strip format and frequently blend comic-strip and editorial-cartoon conventions. The cartoons appear in approximately 100 newspapers around the United States...
focused on webcomics for the third volume of the Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists
Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists
The Attitude series of books is a series of anthologies of alternative comics, photos and artists' interviews edited by Universal Press Syndicate editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. The books were designed by J. P. Trostle, news editor of EditorialCartoonists.com. Two sequels and three spin-off titles...
series, and included comics such as The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship
The Perry Bible Fellowship is a newspaper comic strip and webcomic by Nicholas Gurewitch. It originated in the Syracuse University newspaper The Daily Orange. The comics are usually three or four panels long, and are generally characterized by the juxtaposition of whimsical childlike imagery or...
, Cat and Girl, and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible is a webcomic drawn by David Hellman and written by Dale Beran. Ted Rall describes the comic as "explor[ing] the limits of pessimism and fatal consequence in a universe that would be difficult to imagine on the printed page." The comic has been...
.
In 2008, Brad Guigar
Brad Guigar
Brad Guigar is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic Greystone Inn and its sequel Evil Inc. ...and his laugh-Biography:Brad Guigar was the eldest of five children and grew up in Bad Axe, Michigan...
, Dave Kellett
Dave Kellett
Dave Kellett is the creator and cartoonist of two webcomic titles, Sheldon and Drive, and the co-author of How To Make Webcomics. He is one of a small but growing group of webcomic artists who are self-sufficient.-Early Years and education:...
, Scott Kurtz, and Kris Straub released How to Make Webcomics, published by Image Comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
. The book covered many practical matters of making money through webcomics, including website design, publishing, and merchandising.
See also
- Comic book creatorComic book creatorA comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S...
- Digital illustrationDigital illustrationComputer illustration or digital illustration is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a tablet or a mouse. It is distinguished from computer-generated art, which is produced by a computer using mathematical...
- List of webcomics
- Mobile comicMobile comicA mobile comic is a digital comic or cartoon strip that can be purchased, downloaded, read and sometimes edited or shared with friends via mobile phones.- Overview :...
- WebserialWebserialWeb fiction is written work of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet. A common type of web fiction is the webserial. The term comes from old serial stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines...