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.
John Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. His older brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz. Frank Laumer, their youngest brother, is a historian and writer.
Eric Flint is an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works are alternate history science fiction, but he also writes humorous fantasy adventures. His works have been listed on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Locus Magazine best seller lists. He is a co-founder and editor of the Baen Free Library.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term "genetic engineering". Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award. Her novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award. Her novel Among Others won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel; Among Others is one of only seven novels to have been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and World Fantasy Award.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the hetero-normative.
John Ringo is an American science fiction and military fiction author. He has had several New York Times best sellers. His books range from straightforward science fiction to a mix of military and political thrillers. He has over seven million copies of his books in print, and his works have been translated into seven different languages.
Brandon Sanderson is an American author of epic fantasy and science fiction. He is best known for the Cosmere universe, in which most of his fantasy novels are set. He is also known for finishing Robert Jordan's high fantasy series The Wheel of Time.
Web fiction is written works of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet. A common type of web fiction is the web serial. The term comes from old serial stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines.
Girlamatic was a webcomic subscription service launched by Joey Manley and Lea Hernandez in March 2003. It was the third online magazine Manley established as part of his Modern Tales family of websites. Girlamatic was created as a place where both female artists and readers could feel comfortable and featured a diverse mix of genres. When the site launched, the most recent webcomic pages and strips were free, and the website's archives were available by subscription. The editorial role was held by Hernandez from 2003 until 2006, when it was taken over by Arcana Jayne-creator Lisa Jonté, one of the site's original artists. In 2009, Girlamatic was relaunched as a free digital magazine, this time edited by Spades-creator Diana McQueen. The archives of the webcomics that ran on Girlamatic remained freely available until the website was discontinued in 2013.
NESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. The NESFA Press primarily produces three types of books:
Templar Arizona is a webcomic Art and drawn by Charlie Spike Trotman. It was hosted on Webcomics Nation. Trotman describes Templar, Arizona as "a story about a town, and the people who live there", specifically referring to the city of Templar as a character rather than a setting. The neologism "culture fiction" was coined to describe it.
Clarine Harp is an American voice actress and the Director of Blu-ray, DVD, and video production at Funimation.
Eric Millikin is an American contemporary artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in Internet art, Postinternet art, and webcomics, as well as AI art, augmented and virtual reality art, video art, conceptual art, poetry, performance art and body art, including "artistic drinking projects." His work is often controversial and semi-autobiographical, with political, romantic, occult, horror and black comedy themes. Awards for Millikin's artwork include the Pulitzer Prize.
SFStory was originally a creative fiction writing group on the now-defunct UMNEWS mailing list service. After UMNEWS collapsed, the group was merged in 1991 with the more active Superguy creative fiction writing group and mailing list, with which it shared many active writers.
Sluggy Freelance is a long-running daily webcomic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The comic has over 100,000 daily readers and premiered on August 25, 1997. Abrams is one of the few, and first, webcomic creators successful enough to make a living as an artist.
Homestuck is a webcomic written, illustrated, and animated by American author and artist Andrew Hussie, and it is the fourth overall webcomic published on MS Paint Adventures (MSPA). The webcomic centers on a group of teenagers who unwittingly bring about the end of the world through the installation of a beta copy of an upcoming computer game.
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.
In contrast with mainstream American comics, webcomics are primarily written and drawn by women and gender variant people. Because of the self-published nature of webcomics, the internet has become a successful platform for social commentary, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) expression.
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.
