Real Life is an American webcomic drawn and authored by Maelyn Dean. It began on November 15, 1999, and is still updated, after breaks from December 10, 2015, to September 10, 2018, and again from July 16, 2019, to June 15, 2020, from December 6, 2022 to February 26th, 2024, and most recently, from April 9, 2024, to present. The comic is loosely based around the lives of fictionalized versions of Dean and her friends, including verbatim conversations, as well as fictional aspects including time travel and mecha combat. Characters regularly break the fourth wall. Real Life focuses on humor related to video games and science fiction, and references internet memes.
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.
Brad Guigar is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic Greystone Inn and its sequel Evil Inc.
Girly is a webcomic created by Jaqueline Lesnick which follows the romantic relationship between two girls named Otra and Winter, as well as other citizens of the city of Cute-Town. It ran from 2003 until 2010. The author describes their work as, “a comic that went everywhere and did everything, for better or worse. But all in all it is a comic about 2 gals who love each other very much dawwww. Girly is a comic that helped sexually awaken a generation of readers, as well as (eventually) myself.”
Strong Female Protagonist is a dramatic superhero webcomic series written by Brennan Lee Mulligan and drawn by Molly Ostertag, published online since 2012. It has been on hiatus since 2018.
Portrayals of transgender people in mass media reflect societal attitudes about transgender identity, and have varied and evolved with public perception and understanding. Media representation, culture industry, and social marginalization all hint at popular culture standards and the applicability and significance to mass culture, even though media depictions represent only a minuscule spectrum of the transgender group, which essentially conveys that those that are shown are the only interpretations and ideas society has of them. However, in 2014, the United States reached a "transgender tipping point", according to Time. At this time, the media visibility of transgender people reached a level higher than seen before. Since then, the number of transgender portrayals across TV platforms has stayed elevated. Research has found that viewing multiple transgender TV characters and stories improves viewers' attitudes toward transgender people and related policies.
Nicole Amber Maines is an American actress, writer, and transgender rights activist. Prior to her acting career, she was the anonymous plaintiff in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court case Doe v. Regional School Unit 26, in which she argued her school district could not deny her access to the female bathroom for being transgender. The court ruled in 2014 that barring transgender students from the school bathroom consistent with their gender identity is unlawful, the first such ruling by a state court.
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.
Brandon Sheffield is a video game director and webcomic writer. As the director of Necrosoft Games, Sheffield has created various games for PlayStation Mobile, including Gunsport and Oh Deer!. After going through a breakup in 2014, Sheffield worked together with illustrator Dami Lee to create the webcomic No Girlfriend Comics, which chronicles his experiences of suddenly being single after a two-year relationship.
Notable events of 2013 in webcomics.
Sophie Labelle is a transgender Canadian cartoonist, public speaker, and writer. She is known for her webcomic Assigned Male, which draws upon her experiences as a transgender child. She is an activist in the transgender rights movement, and speaks on the subjects of transgender history and transfeminism.
Assigned Male is a webcomic illustrated and written by Sophie Labelle. It draws upon her experiences as a trans girl and woman. The comic, and series of zines, address issues of gender norms and privilege. It began in October 2014 and is ongoing, published in English and French. The webcomic is released in printed anthologies on Labelle's online store.
Crystal Frasier is an American artist, author and game designer. She is known for her work on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, as well as being the author of the webcomic Venus Envy, which features a trans woman as a protagonist, and the graphic novel Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms.
Sarah's Scribbles is a webcomic by Sarah Andersen started in 2011. Andersen initially published the webcomic on Tumblr, but has since released it on various services, such as Facebook, Instagram, Tapas and her own website. Sarah's Scribbles follows Andersen's experiences as a millennial and focuses on themes such as adulthood and maturity. The comic receives millions of views on the Tapas platform and has won multiple Goodreads Choice Awards and a Ringo Award. Andersen has published four print collections of the webcomic: Adulthood is a Myth; Big Mushy Happy Lump; Herding Cats; and Oddball.
Witchy is a fantasy webcomic by Ariel Slamet Ries that started in 2014. The webcomic follows the young witch Nyneve in a world where magical proficiency is based on the length of one's hair. Though the world of Witchy is culturally and ethnically diverse, its characters are marginalized based on their hair length. Ries uploads one page of the webcomic per week as she is studying animation. Witchy was nominated for an Ignatz award in 2015.
Julia Evelyn Kaye is an American artist, illustrator, and voice actress. Kaye currently works as a storyboard artist and revisionist at Disney Television Animation, and is the creator of the webcomic Up and Out. She has also done work for Maxim, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, GoComics, College Humor, along with other graphic design work. She provided the voice of Snapdragon in the animated series High Guardian Spice.
Rain is a slice-of-life webcomic first published in November 2010 by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick. It follows a teenage trans girl named Rain Flaherty as she attends a private Catholic high school and interacts with the community around her. In 2013, volume one of Rain was published in a book format.
Venus Envy is a webcomic written and designed by a trans woman, and artist, named Crystal Frasier. It was first released in 2001. In addition to dealing with the themes of transgender people and gender transition, the strip also deals with other themes such as adolescence in general, William Shakespeare and women's soccer.
