Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) 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.
Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that anyone with an Internet connection can publish their own webcomic. Readership levels vary widely; many are read only by the creator's immediate friends and family, while some of the most widely read have audiences of well over one million readers. [1] [2] [3] Webcomics range from traditional comic strips and graphic novels to avant garde comics, and cover many genres, styles, and subjects. [4] They sometimes take on the role of a comic blog. [5] The term web cartoonist is sometimes used to refer to someone who creates webcomics.
There are several differences between webcomics and print comics. With webcomics the restrictions of traditional books, newspapers or magazines can be lifted, allowing artists and writers to take advantage of the web's unique capabilities.
The creative freedom webcomics provide allows artists to work in nontraditional styles. Clip art or photo comics (also known as fumetti) are two types of webcomics that do not use traditional artwork. A Softer World , for example, is made by overlaying photographs with strips of typewriter-style text. [6] As in the constrained comics tradition, a few webcomics, such as Dinosaur Comics by Ryan North, are created with most strips having art copied exactly from one (or a handful of) template comics and only the text changing. [7] Pixel art, such as that created by Richard Stevens of Diesel Sweeties , is similar to that of sprite comics but instead uses low-resolution images created by the artist themself. [8] However, it is also common for some artists to use traditional styles, similar to those typically published in newspapers or comic books.
Webcomics that are independently published are not subject to the content restrictions of book publishers or newspaper syndicates, enjoying an artistic freedom similar to underground and alternative comics. Some webcomics stretch the boundaries of taste, taking advantage of the fact that Internet censorship is virtually nonexistent in countries like the United States. [4] The content of webcomics can still cause problems, such as Leisure Town artist Tristan Farnon's legal trouble after creating a profane Dilbert parody, [9] or the Catholic League's protest of artist Eric Millikin's "blasphemous treatment of Jesus." [10]
Webcomic artists use many formats throughout the world. Comic strips, generally consisting of three or four panels, have been a common format for many artists. Other webcomic artists use the format of traditional printed comic books and graphic novels, sometimes with the plan of later publishing books.
Scott McCloud, an early advocate of webcomics since 1998, [11] pioneered the idea of the "infinite canvas" where, rather than being confined to normal print dimensions, artists are free to spread out in any direction indefinitely with their comics. [12] [13] Such a format proved highly successful in South-Korean webcomics when JunKoo Kim implemented an infinite scrolling mechanism in the platform Webtoon in 2004. [14] In 2009, French web cartoonist Balak described Turbomedia, a format for webcomics where a reader only views one panel at a time, in which the reader decides their own reading rhythm by going forward one panel at a time. [15] Some web cartoonists, such as political cartoonist Mark Fiore or Charley Parker with Argon Zark! , incorporate animations or interactive elements into their webcomics. [16]
The first comics to be shared through the Internet were Eric Millikin's Witches and Stitches, which he started uploading on CompuServe in 1985. [17] [18] Services such as CompuServe and Usenet were used before the World Wide Web started to rise in popularity in 1993. Early webcomics were often derivatives from strips in college newspapers,[ citation needed ] but when the Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized. Unique genres and styles became popular during this period.
The 2010s also saw the rise of webtoons in South Korea, where the form has become very prominent. This decade had also seen an increasingly larger number of successful webcomics being adapted into animated series in China and Japan.
In March 1995, artist Bebe Williams launched one of the first webcomics collectives, Art Comics Daily. [19] Newspaper comic strip syndicates also launched websites in the mid-1990s.
Other webcomics collectives followed, with many launching in the next decade. In March 2000, Chris Crosby, Crosby's mother Teri, and other artists founded Keenspot. [20] [21] In July 2000, Austin Osueke launched eigoMANGA, publishing original online manga, referred to as "webmanga".
In 2001, the subscription webcomics site Cool Beans World was launched. Contributors included UK-based comic book creators Pat Mills, Simon Bisley, John Bolton, and Kevin O'Neill, and the author Clive Barker. [22] Serialised content included Scarlet Traces and Marshal Law .
In March 2001, Shannon Denton and Patrick Coyle launched Komikwerks.com serving free strips from comics and animation professionals. The site launched with 9 titles including Steve Conley's Astounding Space Thrills , Jason Kruse's The World of Quest , and Bernie Wrightson's The Nightmare Expeditions.
On March 2, 2002, Joey Manley founded Modern Tales, offering subscription-based webcomics. [23] The Modern Tales spin-off serializer followed in October 2002, then came girlamatic and Graphic Smash in March and September 2003 respectively.
By 2005, webcomics hosting had become a business in its own right, with sites such as Webcomics Nation. [24]
Traditional comic book publishers, such as Marvel Comics and Slave Labour Graphics, did not begin making serious digital efforts until 2006 and 2007. [25] DC Comics launched its web comic imprint, Zuda Comics in October 2007. [26] The site featured user submitted comics in a competition for a professional contract to produce web comics. In July 2010, it was announced that DC was closing down Zuda. [27]
Some creators of webcomics are able to do so professionally through various revenue channels. Webcomic artists may sell merchandise based on their work, such as T-shirts and toys, or they may sell print versions or compilations of their webcomic. [28] Webcomic creators can also sell online advertisements on their websites. [29] In the second half of the 2000s, webcomics became less financially sustainable due to the rise of social media and consumers' disinterest in certain kinds of merchandise. Crowdfunding through Kickstarter and Patreon have also become sources of income for web cartoonists. [30]
Webcomics have been used by some cartoonists as a path towards syndication in newspapers. [31] Since the mid-1990s, Scott McCloud advocated for micropayments systems as a source of income for web cartoonists, but micropayment systems have not been popular with artists or readers. [32]
Many webcomics artists have received honors for their work. In 2006, Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese , originally published as a webcomic on Modern Tales, was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. [33] Don Hertzfeldt's animated film based on his webcomics, Everything Will Be OK, won the 2007 Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, a prize rarely bestowed on an animated film. [34]
Many traditionally print-comics focused organizations have added award categories for comics published on the web. The Eagle Awards established a Favorite Web-based Comic category in 2000, and the Ignatz Awards followed the next year by introducing an Outstanding Online Comic category in 2001. After having nominated webcomics in several of their traditional print-comics categories, the Eisner Awards began awarding comics in the Best Digital Comic category in 2005. In 2006 the Harvey Awards established a Best Online Comics Work category, and in 2007 the Shuster Awards began an Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award. In 2012 the National Cartoonists Society gave their first Reuben Award for "On-line comic strips." [35]
Other awards focus exclusively on webcomics. The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards [36] [37] consist of a number of awards that were handed out annually from 2001 to 2008. The Dutch Clickburg Webcomic Awards (also known as the Clickies) has been handed out four times between 2005 and 2010. The awards require the recipient to be active in the Benelux countries, with the exception of one international award. [38]
Though webcomics are typically published primarily on the World Wide Web, often webcomic creators decide to also print self-published books of their work. In some cases, web cartoonists may get publishing deals in which comic books are created of their work. Sometimes, these books are published by mainstream comics publishers who are traditionally aimed at the direct market of comic books stores. [39] Some web cartoonists may pursue print syndication in established newspapers or magazines.
The traditional audience base for webcomics and print comics are vastly different, and webcomic readers do not necessarily go to bookstores. For some web cartoonists, a print release may be considered the "goal" of a webcomic series, while for others, comic books are "just another way to get the content out." [40] Webcomics have been seen by some artists as a potential new path towards syndication in newspapers. According to Jeph Jacques ( Questionable Content ), "there's no real money" in syndication for webcomic artists. Some artists are not able to syndicate their work in newspapers because their comics are targeted to a specific niche audience and would not be popular with a broader readership. [41]
Many webcomics are published primarily in English, this being a major language in Australia, Canada, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Cultures surrounding non-anglophone webcomics have thrived in countries such as China, France, India, Japan, and South Korea.[ citation needed ]
Webcomics have been a popular medium in India since the early 2000s. Indian webcomics are successful as they reach a large audience for free [43] and they are frequently used by the country's younger generation to spread social awareness on topics such as politics and feminism. These webcomics achieve a large amount of exposure by being spread through social media. [44]
In China, Chinese webcomics have become a popular way to criticize the communist government and politicians in the country. Many webcomics by popular artists get shared around the country thanks to social networks such as Sina Weibo and WeChat. Many titles will often be censored or taken down by the government.[ citation needed ]
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons or comics. Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literary and graphic components of the work as part of their practice.
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.
Modern Tales was a webcomics publisher active from 2002 to 2012, best known for being one of the first profitable subscription models for digital content. Joey Manley was the website's publisher and original editor. The site featured a roster of approximately 30 professional webcomic artists. Shaenon Garrity, one of the site's original artists, took over as the publication's editor in 2006. Other Modern Tales artists included Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, Dorothy Gambrell, Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner.
Keenspot is a webcomics/webtoons portal founded in March 2000 by cartoonist Chris Crosby, Crosby's mother Teri, cartoonist Darren Bleuel, and Nathan Stone.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Zuda Comics was DC Comics' webcomics imprint from 2007 until 2010. Some of the imprints series won awards and nominations from comic industry's Glyph Comics Awards and Harvey Awards. Bayou, Volume 1 was also named one of the 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association.
A comic strip syndicate functions as an agent for cartoonists and comic strip creators, placing the cartoons and strips in as many newspapers as possible on behalf of the artist. A syndicate can annually receive thousands of submissions, from which only two or three might be selected for representation. In some cases, the work will be owned by the syndicate as opposed to the creator. The Guinness World Record for the world's most syndicated strip belongs to Jim Davis' Garfield, which at that point (2002) appeared in 2,570 newspapers, with 263 million readers worldwide.
The Night Owls is a twice weekly webcomic by cartoonists Peter and Bobby Timony which appears every Tuesday and Thursday on DC Comics Zuda imprint. It was selected as Zuda's Instant Winner in December 2007. The Timony brothers have been based out of New Providence, New Jersey, a suburb of New York City.
Uclick LLC was an American corporation selling "digital entertainment content" for the desktop, the web and mobile phones. Uclick operated several consumer websites, including the comic strip and editorial cartoon site GoComics and the puzzle and casual game sites ThePuzzleSociety.com and UclickGames.com.
Andrews McMeel Syndication is an American content syndicate which provides syndication in print, online and on mobile devices for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and cartoons and various other content. Some of its best-known products include Dear Abby, Doonesbury, Ziggy, Garfield, Ann Coulter, Richard Roeper and News of the Weird. A subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, it is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was formed in 2009 and renamed in January 2017.
Although, traditionally, female comics creators have long been a minority in the industry, they have made a notable impact since the very beginning, and more and more female artists are getting recognition along with the maturing of the medium. Women creators have worked in every genre, from superheroes to romance, westerns to war, crime to horror.
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.
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