| Boy on a Stick and Slither | |
|---|---|
 The Boy and Slither in the 2011 strip "Any Day Now" | |
| Author(s) | Steven L. Cloud |
| Website | http://www.boasas.com/ |
| Current status/schedule | Infrequently updated |
| Launch date | 1998 |
| Genre(s) | Existential Humor |
Boy on a Stick and Slither (Sometimes abbreviated as BOASAS) is a webcomic by Steven L. Cloud. Strips usually feature a short, pithy and sometimes surreal exchange between the title characters. The strip is characterized by dry and cynical humor.
Boy on a Stick and Slither was first uploaded in 1999 and was originally a member of webcomics collective Dumbrella. Though Boy on a Stick and Slither primarily exists on the web, it has also been published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and in Esquire magazine. In April 2007, the webcomic was picked up by United Media, which syndicated the webcomic online at Comics.com until February 2009. [1] Boy on a Stick and Slither has since been hosted on its own website.
Tym Godek of The Webcomics Examiner described Boy on a Stick and Slither as with saying "Nothing in BOASAS stands still. Jittering characters, constantly shifting backgrounds and frequent non-sequiturs proliferate through the webcomic." [2] Cloud's day job in online marketing is apparent in the strip's design, as Boy on a Stick and Slither looks very cognizant of color and layout. Michael Whitney of Comixtalk prompted that "aesthetically, the strip smacks of commercial art: full page ads and catalog layouts." [3] Cloud breaks the mold in composition, frequently experimenting with backgrounds and panel layouts. Cloud noted in an interview that color is very important to him, and he described picking colors for any given strip as "probably my favorite thing to do." For print publications, Cloud draws alternate black-and-white versions of his strips. [4]
Steven Cloud conceptualized the titular "Boy on a Stick" as he was doodling a boy's head one day and didn't want to mess it up with a poorly-drawn body. He drew a simple rectangular shape below the neck, and to his surprise, the design worked out fairly well. He gave him Slither as a friend, because Cloud found snakes to be exceedingly simple to draw. Cloud wanted his characters to become iconic and easily recognizable, like the characters in Peanuts . The Boy on a Stick gradually developed a highly optimistic personality, while Slither became a pessimistic character: Cloud said of the Boy on a Stick and Slither that "the characters allow me to debate myself. They're the best and worst of me." [4] Godek of The Webcomics Examiner described Boy on a Stick as "the voice of innocence and possibility" who is paired with Slither, "the voice of cynicism and negation." However, Godek also described both characters is inherently nihilistic, though the Boy in a more cheerful manner. [2] Whitney of Comixtalk, meanwhile, described the two characters as "icons or stand-ins for any two people." [3]
Other characters in Boy on a Stick and Slither play a very minor role, and were primarily created when Cloud was low on ideas. Two characters, the "Florida Cracker" and "Frickles Mudcat", helped Cloud present political topics during the 2004 presidential election. [4]
Webcomics are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Sprite comics are webcomics that consist primarily of computer sprites from video games. Art assets are ripped from various classic games such as Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog, are edited and combined by amateur cartoonists, and are posted on the internet. Popularized by Bob and George in the early 2000s, the style is considered relatively easy for beginning cartoonists to get involved in, but sprite comics are generally looked down upon for being of low quality.
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 February 1, 2003, although there were earlier prototypes. Dinosaur Comics has also been printed in three collections and in a number of newspapers. The comic centers on three main characters, T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus.
Fetus-X was a weekly romantic horror comic written and drawn by Eric Millikin and Casey Sorrow. Millikin is an American artist and former human anatomy lab embalmer and dissectionist. Sorrow is an internationally known American illustrator and printmaker.
Ozy and Millie is a daily comic strip that ran from 1998 to 2008, created by Dana Simpson and syndicated by North America Syndicate and Andrews McMeel Syndication. It follows the adventures of assorted anthropomorphized animals, centering on Ozy and Millie, two young foxes attending North Harbordale Elementary School in Seattle, contending with everyday elementary school issues such as tests and bullies, as well as more surreal situations.
PartiallyClips is a webcomic, created by Rob Balder, which ran from 2002 to 2015. At the start of 2010, Balder handed authorship of the comic to Tim Crist, the comedy musician behind Worm Quartet.
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. From January 2007 until August 2008 it was syndicated to over 20 United States newspapers, including major daily newspapers like The Detroit News and Houston Chronicle.
The infinite canvas refers to the potentially limitless space that is available to webcomics presented on the World Wide Web. The term was introduced by Scott McCloud in his 2000 book Reinventing Comics, in which he suggested that webcomic creators could make a web page as large as needed to contain a comic page of any conceivable size. This infinite canvas would create an endless amount of storytelling benefits and would allow creators much more freedom in how they present their artwork.
Dorothy Gambrell is a cartoonist who writes and draws the online comic strip Cat and Girl in addition to the blog very small array. Her work has appeared in the literary journal Backwards City Review and the Anton Chekhov anthology The Other Chekhov, and appears regularly in the literary journal Grasslimb. As of 2013, she is a contributing graphics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek.
United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Dayfree Press was an online webcomic syndicate. Each Dayfree member had a special advertisement banner on their webpage that advertised the comics of another member-site. The ad was generated at random every time the page reloaded and sometimes showed an ad for the comics that were on the same webpage.
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible (ALILBTDII) is a webcomic drawn by David Hellman and written by Dale Beran. Ted Rall described 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." David and Dale are the primary characters, although they do not appear in every episode, and there is a small cast of real-life supporting characters, including schoolfriend/mad scientist Paul, Dale's sister Sally, and David's mother, Debby Hellman.
Jeffrey J. Rowland is the author and artist responsible for Wigu and Overcompensating, two popular webcomics. Originally from Locust Grove, Oklahoma, Rowland now lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he continues to work on the two projects, while running TopatoCo, a company which sells merchandise based on his and other artists' comics.
The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a The New York Times column on webcomics in 2005, and have been mentioned as a tool for librarians.
Attitude: The New Subversive Cartoonists 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 have been published to date. A group of cartoonists featured in the Attitude series formed the organization Cartoonists With Attitude in June 2006; the group hosts slideshow and panel events around the country to promote the series and alternative political cartooning. Ted Rall created the compilation with the intention of publishing artists who were hard-up for work or otherwise had difficulties relating to the public.
Bobbins is a webcomic written by John Allison. It ran from 21 September 1998 to 3 June 2002, but shifted into reruns with commentary on 17 May 2002. It has made occasional returns in John Allison's website in between his other comics since 2013. Webcomics portal Keenspot kept the Bobbins archive freely accessible online, but the archives eventually moved to Allison's own site.
Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence art, augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, Internet art, performance art, poetry, post-Internet art, video art, and webcomics. His work is often controversial, with political, romantic, occult, horror and black comedy themes. Awards for Millikin's artwork include the Pulitzer Prize.
Brian McFadden is an American cartoonist who started on GeoCities in 2001, created Big Fat Whale, and became a featured artist at The New York Times in 2011.
Notable events of the late 1990s in webcomics.
 | Wikiquote has quotations related to: Boy on a Stick and Slither |