In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artist Will Eisner to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the purpose of graphic storytelling or conveying information. The best-known example of sequential art is comics.
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 Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing reviews of the products of the mainstream comics industry, the magazine promotes the view that comics are a fine art, meriting broader cultural respect, and thus should be evaluated with higher critical standards.
Scott McCloud is an American cartoonist and comics theorist. He is best known for his non-fiction books about comics: Understanding Comics (1993), Reinventing Comics (2000), and Making Comics (2006), all of which also use the medium of comics.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a 1993 non-fiction work of comics by American cartoonist Scott McCloud. It explores formal aspects of comics, the historical development of the medium, its fundamental vocabulary, and various ways in which these elements have been used. It expounds theoretical ideas about comics as an art form and medium of communication, and is itself written in comic book form.
Zot! is a comic book created by Scott McCloud in 1984 and published by Eclipse Comics until 1990 as a lighthearted alternative to the darker and more violent comics that dominated the industry during that period. There were a total of 36 issues, with the first ten in color and the remainder in black and white.
Patrick Sean Farley is a freelance illustrator and Web page designer. Known as a pioneer of webcomics as a medium, Farley works out of Oakland, California.
The infinite canvas is the feeling of available space for a webcomic on the World Wide Web relative to paper. The term was introduced by Scott McCloud in his 2000 book Reinventing Comics, which supposes a web page can grow as large as needed. This infinite canvas gives infinite storytelling features and creators more freedom in how they present their artwork.
Argon Zark! is a webcomic, created by cartoonist and web site designer Charley Parker. The strip, drawn using a graphics tablet and computer graphics software, first appeared in June 1995. A collection, billed as a "Dead Tree Souvenir Edition", was published in December 1997. The strip was last updated in September 2019.
When I Am King is a wordless infinite canvas webcomic by Swiss artist demian5 about an Egyptian king's travels through a desert. It has a characteristic design that makes heavy use of oranges and reds, uses arrows to emphasize horizontal movement, and has occasional GIF animation.
Joe Zabel is a comic book writer and artist living in Cleveland Heights. He is best known for his work illustrating American Splendor, by fellow Clevelander Harvey Pekar. Under the company names Known Associates Press and Amazing Montage Press, Zabel has also published his own series of mystery comics, The Trespassers.
The Creator's Bill of Rights is a document drafted in November 1988 by a number of independent comic book artists, writers, and publishers, designed to protect their rights as creators and publishers and oppose exploitation by corporate work for hire practices and the power of distributors to dictate the means of distribution. Issues covered by the Bill included giving creators proper credit for their characters and stories, profit-sharing, distribution, fair contracts, licensing, and return of original artwork. The signing of the Bill spurred Cerebus creator and self-publisher Dave Sim and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators/self-publishers Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird to sell or continue selling collected volumes of their comics directly to readers via their periodic issues, rather than through direct market distributors selling the collections at comic book specialty shops. Comic book professionals that have commented on the Bill conclude that it had little or no impact on the comic book industry.
Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels is a book by comic book writer and artist Scott McCloud, published by William Morrow Paperbacks in 2006. A study of methods of constructing comics, it is a thematic sequel to McCloud's critically acclaimed books Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics.
Gary Groth is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal, a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books, and founder of the Harvey Awards.
Kim Thompson was an American comic book editor, translator, and publisher, best known as vice president and co-publisher of Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books. Along with co-publisher Gary Groth, Thompson used his position to further the cause of alternative comics in the American market. In addition, Thompson made it his business to bring the work of European cartoonists to American readers.
The history of webcomics follows the advances of technology, art, and business of comics on the Internet. The first comics were shared through the Internet in the mid-1980s. Some early webcomics were derivatives from print comics, but when the World Wide Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By the year 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized.
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.
The Right Number is an infinite canvas webcomic by Scott McCloud. The webcomic makes use of an experimental zooming user interface, where each subsequent panel is nested inside of the panel that comes before it. The Right Number follows a man who discovers that one can figure out someone's character traits based on their phone number, and starts to abuse the patterns he finds to search the perfect girlfriend. The story is focused on obsession and how it is impossible to find the perfect mate. Two of its three parts were published in 2003 through the BitPass micropayment service McCloud was a consultant for at the time. The third part was never released, and when BitPass went under in 2007, McCloud released the two existing parts of The Right Number for free.
