User Friendly was a webcomic written by J. D. Frazer, also known by his pen name Illiad. Starting in 1997, the strip was one of the earliest webcomics to make its creator a living. The comic is set in a fictional internet service provider and draws humor from dealing with clueless users and geeky subjects. The comic ran seven days a week until 2009, when updates became sporadic, and since 2010 it had been in re-runs only. The webcomic was shut down in late February 2022, after an announcement from Frazer.
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
The Family Circus is a syndicated comic strip created by cartoonist Bil Keane and, since Keane's death in 2011, written, inked and rendered (colored) by his son Jeff Keane. The strip generally uses a single captioned panel with a round border, hence the original name of the series, which was changed following objections from the magazine Family Circle. The series debuted February 29, 1960, and has been in continuous production ever since. According to publisher King Features Syndicate, it is the most widely syndicated cartoon panel in the world, appearing in 1,500 newspapers. Compilations of Family Circus comic strips have sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles, and games to nearly 5,000 newspapers worldwide. King Features Syndicate also produces intellectual properties, develops new content and franchises, like The Cuphead Show!, which it produced with Netflix, and licenses its classic characters and properties.
Lauren Weinstein is an American comic book artist and illustrator. Her first comics appeared as syndicated strips in the Seattle Stranger and Gurl.com, a website aimed at teenagers.
Bruno was a webcomic written and drawn by Christopher Baldwin from 1 January 1996 to 14 February 2007, after initially appearing in print in The Massachusetts Daily Collegian starting 27 January 1994. Its plot concerns the life of an introspective young woman, set in the real world. Her unusual name comes from the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno. In 1998 Peter Zale and Baldwin created the "first Internet comics crossover" between their respective webcomics Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet and Bruno.
Diesel Sweeties is known as 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.
Goats is a popular webcomic written and illustrated by Jonathan Rosenberg. The webcomic started on April 1, 1997. On April 3, 2006, after nine years drawing the strip, Rosenberg became a full-time cartoonist making his living drawing Goats. In 2010, because of work on Scenes from a Multiverse, Goats was put on hiatus. In 2012 Rosenberg raised more than $55,000 via Kickstarter to print Goats Book IV, relaunch the website and finish the story with Goats Book V. On August 19, 2014, 71 comics and all e-books were republished.
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.
Dana Claire Simpson, is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the comic Phoebe and her Unicorn, as well as the long-running webcomic Ozy and Millie. Other works created by Simpson include the political commentary cartoon I Drew This and the alternate reality drama comic Raine Dog.
Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman is a webcomic by Christopher C. Livingston that parodies the first-person shooter video game Half-Life 2. The comic is illustrated with screenshots of characters posed using Garry's Mod, a tool which allows manipulation of the Source engine used by Half-Life 2. The comic ran from May 2005 to November 2006 and had 205 issues.
Little Dee is a webcomic by Christopher Baldwin about a little girl lost in the woods who is befriended by three animals. The animals talk; Dee doesn't.
Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet is a comic strip which was drawn from 1996 through 2005 by American graphics artist Peter Zale. The strip describes 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. It began online in 1996 and was syndicated to newspapers by Tribune Media Services beginning on June 5, 2000, and was removed from syndication after December 25, 2005.
Cul de Sac is an American comic strip created by Richard Thompson. It was distributed by Universal Press Syndicate/Universal Uclick to 150 worldwide newspapers from 2004 to 2012.
Phoebe and Her Unicorn is a daily children's comic strip by American cartoonist Dana Simpson. Originally called Heavenly Nostrils, the strip debuted as a webcomic on April 22, 2012, in Universal Uclick's GoComics website. It was later launched in more than 100 newspapers on March 30, 2015, under the current name.
Notable events of 2004 in webcomics.
The business of webcomics involves creators earning a living through their webcomic, often using a variety of revenue channels. Those channels may include selling merchandise such as t-shirts, jackets, sweatpants, hats, pins, stickers, and toys, based on their work. Some also choose to sell print versions or compilations of their webcomics. Many webcomic creators make use of online advertisements on their websites, and possibly even product placement deals with larger companies. Crowdfunding through websites such as Kickstarter and Patreon are also popular choices for sources of potential income.
Notable events of the late 1990s in webcomics.
