So, firstly, there’s this long-time digital artist named Kez. Now, this Kez person, she has never really made anything for print. Her main comic cannot even BE printed, because she designed it that way, because it’s meant to be a webcomic only (infinite canvas and all that jazz!).  But, Kez wanted something to sell. How could she go to a comic convention, or in her case an arts festival, AS a comic artist, if she did not have comics to sell or show? (She couldn’t, because then she’d be a poser, and no one buys anything from posers, unless she had a mad-cool digital set up with a projector, which she can’t afford, so that doesn’t matter anyways.)

Well, Kez had this convenient little short-story with which to experiment in print called Not Alone. Not Alone capped out at 49 pages, with a 3 page epilogue. It was grayscale. It was a stand-alone comic that also was related to her other, longer, work, The War of Winds.

So, Kez headed over to Ka-Blam because she wanted an on-demand printing, no minimum. She wanted people who handled COMICS. On a regular basis. Kez got what she asked for!

Enough of the third person.  Overall, I had a very positive experience with Ka-Blam. There were a couple problems starting off though. First, there was some really ODD quirk on the order page. No matter what I ordered, it said I ordered something ELSE. After a day of biting my nails, “Holy heck, do they know what I want? Was I sent the wrong invoice, but they got the right one?” I grabbed hold of myself. Rule one of spending money: you have a right to have your fears allayed.

So I sent in an email asking what was up using their message center. I guess I was the first one to mention this problem, because they had me order everything AGAIN, asked again if I followed their instructions, and then finally they just let me SEND them a message for what I wanted. That whole process took about a week. Since I was on a tight schedule, I began to freak out a bit.  They want 4-5 weeks for normal printing costs, and all the sudden, I was down to THREE. And Kez realized this, and Kez spazzed.  So, if you’re considering your own print run, give yourself a good 6 weeks of room.  Good news, they get back to emails within a day, sometimes multiple times a day. That’s good service at a small company!

But the Ka-Blam folks realized this was their goof, and offered a rushed printing job at no cost to me. Which I appreciated, because I would have asked them if they had not offered. It wasn’t my fault, even if I should have given myself more time in case something went wrong. I assume they have since corrected this ordering goof.

Kez will now admit to some REALLY STUPID GOOFS she made in ordering. First, the order sheet at Ka-Blam. I went for the Trade Paperback, Standard Sized, Perfect Binding. Now, I’ve always had issues filling out paperwork. Ka-Blam was no different.

Okay, I swear I stared at that field for 10 full minutes. By 2-page increments, I took this to mean “sheets.” Okay, number of pages divided by 2= how many sheets of paper you are going to need. Keep in mind that the more paper you need, the more expensive the final order, obviously. But nooooooo. This means actual PAGES.  Numbered pages. Uh duh. The 2-page increment thing REALLY tripped me up (I don’t even want to think about how many emails were sent with me sounding like a dumbass about that!). I would suggest that be changed to an extremely simple “If each page, not counting the covers, were numbered, how many pages would you have?” Obviously if it’s an odd number, the back of that page will still be there, it’ll just be blank. Feel free to ignore me if I’m just being totally dense. Yes, I was one of those kids who always over-thought questions. It’s a habit I’m trying to break. The Ka-blam staff dealt with my idiocy however and refrained from yelling at me. I know they wanted to. I could feel it. I don’t feel too bad though, since I dropped a bucket-load of money off at their place. Dealing with customers, regardless of their intelligence, paranoia or neurotic tendencies, is part of the business. I deal with it myself on a daily basis. If one more person asks me how to insert a link into a post, I swear I will scream.

ANYWAYS.  So, I received my books today! I ordered them June 14, they arrived July 8th. I received a digital proof of the page order and set up on June 24. For 50 paperback books, 56 pages long, color cover with lamination, blank inside covers, Ka-Blam full page ad, and 70# glossy paper inside with grayscale comic pages, the price was $349.43 ($324.25 Printing Cost + $25.18 S&H -$20.00 in credits, I think for the ordering goof, but I’m not going to count that here since I don’t think anyone else would get the credits when they ordered), meaning each book cost me ~$7.00.  I actually had my math wrong before when I was calculating price per book (to sell) on my end. I was going to sell it for $10 even. I may go for $9 now, maybe even $8.50. Not sure!  I still don’t know myself how much people will spend on this little book of mine. I will have to sleep on it.

So how about the quality? It’s….good. Not top quality, but rather good. I’ve heard complaints that pages fall out on perfect bound books. I personally have not had that experience. I own another book from Ka-Blam, Kate Sweet’s Juathuur Vol 1 actually. It is 100+ pages, and all of the pages are in there quite solidly.  I even pulled on a couple to be sure. I could easily see volumes a couple of hundred pages long have that issue, however. I have paperback novels that do that, but only the big ones. Barb Jacobs mentioned that people are much more satisfied with their saddle-stitch comics (staples).

My biggest issue with Ka-Blam is their lamination on the covers. It comes off, starts to peel after a bit. I personally like to play with covers, fiddle with them as I read, so that does not help matters. On Kate  Sweet’s book that I own, the lamination also started to come up a bit around the spine.  This does not affect readability, but it greatly irks me as an artist. I think next time, I will go with hardcover. It is also important to note that upon closer inspection, not all books are the same size, and the trim area can differ between books by a margin of 1/8 inch. So, some books are taller than others, and some are wider. Make sure your bleed area is uniform, or at the very least, that you have no unfinished art IN the bleed area. Sometimes it can show up.

The box I received was also battered to hell. It was basically ROUND when it arrived. No more corners. The top 5 books in the pile all had their spines squished. I guess I’ll keep those as give-aways? However, the books were nicely packed in bubble wrap inside, with some extra shredded paper padding.  Care was obviously taken, though I would have greatly appreciated a sturdier box, or a “do not drop-kick me into an airplane” tag.

In conclusion, for the customer service and quality, Ka-Blam gets an 8/10. They held up their end of the deal, corrected and took responsibility for their goof, dealt with ME, and earned my respect as a great place for the beginner/self-publishing comic creator. I think they still have some real issues to work out with quality, but for their prices and exemplary service, I would highly recommend them.

Here’s a few more important things I learned doing this:

1) Design for print from the beginning if that is your goal. Frankly, I’m one of them “weirdos” who thinks the web has far more to offer a comic creator than print. I had never tailored my pages to print dimensions before.  I didn’t even decide to print Not Alone until I was more than half-way through. This meant I had to REFORMAT all the pages, which took 16 hours a day for 8 days straight. Now, imagine doing that with a longer work. It was quite horrible, and I don’t recommend that.

2) If printing in color, keep in mind the colors will be DARKER in print. Lighten them up a bit from what you see on your screen to get them the right lightness in print.

3) Work between 300-600 dpi. 150 dpi is the so-called minimum, but it will probably look horrible, especially if you’ve got color or gradients of any sort. Gradients look best at 600dpi or above in print or else you’ll get “stepping (visible bands).”

4) Get friends to proof read for you. Sarah Sawyer of The Gods’ Pack was the only one of three to catch a typo I missed myself–after reading the whole thing through about 50 times.

5) Give yourself PLENTY of time in case something goes wrong. If Ka-Blam wants 4-5 weeks, next time I want to be done with 6-8 weeks to spare. Keep in mind the second printing job goes faster if they already have your files though.

6) Read the technical specs VERY carefully to make sure you are doing everything right. Ka-Blam provides templates. Download them. They are invaluable. Pay special attention to the file format they want. Ka-Blam wants LZW-compressed TIFF files in RGB mode. Most places want PDFs in CMYK. Keep this mind!

I’ll be posting a video on youtube tonight that has a bit more about the books, as well as other stuff I’m doing to prepare for the festival. My youtube account is here. If you have any questions, let me know!

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Okay, a short follow-up here. I started sending out my books about a week ago, and have noticed a few issues/received a few complaints. First, I’ve found 2 misprints in my order of 50 books. If each book cost me $7, that $14 down the tube (and I WILL be asking for credits, as these misprints were not my fault).  This misprint was, for example, page 12, blank page, half of page 32 upside-down, blank page, blank page, page 13.  Second, it seems there is an issue with the perfect binding and pages falling out. One reader let me know that because of how he holds the books (thumb in the inside binding) it has caused some splitting. Because of these issues, I’m revising my score of Ka-Blam from 8/10 to 7/10, and highly recommending them for saddle-stitch binding, but only moderately recommending them for perfect binding.

Second, a VERY IMPORTANT TIP FOR PEOPLE AUTOGRAPHING THEIR BOOKS: Do NOT use gel pens. They smear and can ruin a copy. Use sharpies.

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A second follow-up (Dec 2009): I ordered a second batch of books from Ka-Blam, again with short notice, since I seem incapable of planning things out. I used the “reorder” option, and was flabbergasted to find the books were all on the wrong paper! I had to email to find out they could NO LONGER PRINT on the thicker paper stock that I loved in my original order. Not only did they not notify me of their inability to print on the paper that I wanted, but I had to notice this myself and ask for a refund on the price difference–which was sizable. I worry that I might never have received the refund if I had not asked. The Ka-Blam folks are VERY nice and helpful, but seemingly very disorganized. I do not think I will be ordering from them again. I do want to order more books if they can’t print on the right paper for my book.

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If lack of recognition and recompense are major problems in the print industry, so is regulation.  A comic printed on paper and distributed by a publisher is a controlled piece of art; its quality is regulated, but quality in itself is the problem, because in the print business, quality is that it is whatever an editor says it is-usually what turns a profit. Different styles or genres are ignored because they simply are not “quality” as defined by whomever is in charge.  McCloud writes,

In the case of the creator, that failure [in the system] lies in the market’s inability to metabolize any but a fraction of his or her creative vision.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that when money is the driving force of production, creative energy is going to drop like a rock. Many do thrive within the system, either by concentrating on technical proficiency or by finding pockets of editorially sanctioned freedom within which they can express themselves [...] but the high craft impelled by the market machine hides the ever-narrower range of styles, subject matter and themes allowed.[i]

New stories outside of the accepted norm were not even considered for large scale production until about the time when webcomics first appeared, when independent publishers such as Dark Horse Comics and Vertigo began to expand from the superhero genre.[ii] Now “alternative” titles like Pride of Baghdad and The Sandman are seen in such large bookstores as Borders and Barnes and Noble.  There are still so few of these types of comics in print because of the control of the industry by the print giants such as Marvel Comics and DC (Vertigo itself is an off-shoot of DC), but on the internet, there is no restraining hand on content, style, genre, or ability.  There are the worst of the worst and the best of the best, side by side, and quality is determined by readership more than monetary success, and by creator fulfillment more than readership.

Along with this multi-faced freedom, the internet offers instant communication and accessibility. There are few things any artist—visual or verbal—likes better than to connect with those who appreciate his or her work, or even to receive criticism, because even criticism is just another form of attention, and attention leads to fulfillment.  Once again, McCloud’s revolution of digital delivery allows “…a world far more vivid and memorable to the reader than what comics offers now,” and establishes a “…direct, meaningful exchange of ideas and experiences between creator and reader.”[iii] Every single webcomic lists a contact E-mail address in the hopes of receiving letters from readers, either in the form of fan mail, a critique, hate mail, or even just a quick note to say, “On page 13 of chapter 4, you spelled ‘necessary’ wrong in panel 2. PS: I like your comic.” Many comics also feature small, instantaneous chatting areas called shoutboxes or tagboards, where a reader may list contact information and leave a note.  A larger form of the tagboard is the internet forum, where comics with a large enough readership can cultivate an entire community of people that appreciate a creator’s work.

Communication is not the only instantaneous aspect of the internet, accessibility is fairly immediate as well. One does not drive across town or walk up the street to browse through pages on the internet-one sits downs and clicks in the comfort of one’s own home, or perhaps at an internet café or library. There are few homes in America today that do not have a computer and internet access, and there are even fewer people who do not have ability to travel somewhere nearby and connect.  As of September 30, 2007, nearly 20% of the world’s six billion people-over 1 billion-in this world use the internet.  A woman in New Zealand could walk into her home, sit down, and read a comic by a man in Germany.  Accessibility, like the internet itself, is global, and therefore so is webcomic distribution. The number of people that regularly buy and read comic books can hardly be compared.  “No need to dwell on sales,” McCloud jokes in Reinventing Comics after commenting that the only comics one finds in stores are superhero power fantasies.[iv] He does not even touch on global distribution, though it is important to note that imported print comics are far more costly in other countries, and that comic readership is far smaller because of it. For accessibility alone, the potential for an audience on the internet is far, far, greater than the potential for print comics.

A final, rather interesting strength of the internet is its “faceless,” anonymous quality. Due to the nature of how information is shared online, through a screen, on a website, over the internet, the identity of a webcomic creator is often ambiguous, sometimes, intentionally so.  For many webcomickers, the lack of identity-and therefore stereotyping that results from one’s identity-is a strength because one can use this anonymity to gain a larger audience based on merit, not racial or gender classification. Take for example, the plight of woman creators trying to break into the print comics industry, or the “prejudice against female-centered subject matter as inscribed by a woman.  Alisia Chase states in her essay,  “The Necessity of Old-School Feminist Interventions in the World of Comics and Graphic Novels,” on the discussion of the selection of a 15-member, all-male comics panel at the Masters of American Comics exhibition,

It might not be surprising in such an era, then, that as response to the ultimate selection of predominately white, middle-class, male artists who were chosen for the Masters show, some industry bloggers pointed out that there have never been as many women working in comics and graphic novels as there are now. [...] What is too often deduced from such protests is the more insidious falsehood that if women had the talent, desire to succeed, or in this case, the artistic respect of their peers, they’d be breaking right through that glass ceiling or hanging right up on that museum wall too.[v]

The “insidious falsehood” she mentions in the print industry is, unfortunately, often held to be true.  While more women may finally be working in comics, many still face a harder fight than men to find jobs making comics for established publishing houses like DC or Marvel—not due to lack of talent or ambition or even numbers, but because of patriarchal control of the entire industry.  Wolk also mentions the exhibition’s slight to women, blaming it on “antiquated social constructs that are finally starting to go away [...] and because comics take a very long time to draw, and it takes a long time for most cartoonists to hit the peak of their power-there are a lot of men who had a head start.”[vi] I, however, would argue that those same constructs Wolk discusses have not kept women from making comics, but rather have kept them from gaining recognition that should have long-since have been given (especially since the old-school cartoonists on boards that give out such awards are men anyways).  Such prejudice is not only found against women in the comic industry, but also against creators of a different race or sexual orientation. The cause of this prejudice can only be tracked back to the print business itself and its hiring practices, but the ability to freely publish work online, coupled with the faceless quality of the internet, means that anyone, regardless of gender, nationality, religion, etc, can make a webcomic, and that webcomic will succeed or fail based on merit alone.  Many webcomickers will go so far as to use gender-independent handles (internet aliases) so that they do not run the risk of alienating a certain portion of their audience. For example, a female creator may never reveal her true name, or may even use a man’s name, because whether she likes it or not, some men will not read her comic if they discover she is woman, regardless of the “masculinity” of content.  This is an affect of labeling and presumption based on a perceived “face.”  Many of the most popular fantasy webcomics today—Inverloch, Phoenix Requiem, Earthsong, Star Cross’d Destiny, The N00b—are created by women.  It is more than possible—and probable—that other comics are made by women who still rely on a masculine or gender-independent name.  The creators of The Holy Bibble[vii] for instance, recently posted publicly on their site they were women, unlike their handles “Lucas” and “Cannan” suggested. However, this faceless quality of the internet also makes it impossible to know the truth: perhaps Lucas and Cannan are simply plying for attention. Regardless, there is no way for webcomic readers to know the gender of the creator unless they are told, and that is a choice to be made not by a company, business or industry, but by an individual. I myself used the gender non-specific handle of “KEZ” for many years before openly displaying my copyright under the name of Karen “KEZ” Howard. Interestingly enough, many readers still mistake me for a man due to the content of my webcomic, and some readers jump to correct them on the forum or commenting area.

[ii] Reinventing Comics, 116.

[iii] Reinventing Comics, 20.

[iv] 111.

[v] Alisia Grace Chase, “‘Draws Like a Girl’: The Necessity of Old-School Feminist Interventions in the World of Comics and Graphic Novels,” 62-63.

[vi] Wolk, 71.

[vii] holybibble.net

Here is a common question, one you may have asked before: “I make webcomics. So what am I? Do I call myself an illustrator or cartoonist or graphic novelist or a comic creator or simply an artist? Is there a name for what we do?”

The more I make comics to more I realize the importance of WHAT we all call ourselves. This isn’t some self-important, snobbery post, this is something that we all as “people who make comics and display them on the web” need to take a second and seriously consider.

This snippet is taken directly from my college thesis The Art of Webcomics:

…comics as sequential art have a lineage that predates the written word.  Scott McCloud argues that writing forms such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics evolved from pictures representing the environment, and that the first forms of non-verbal communication occurred as sequential, visual characterization, pre-dating any alphabet.[i] Wolk laments that comics have such a lack of published, distinguished history that he does not even have the right words with which to write about comics: “…it’s not a bad idea, exactly, to talk about comics using some of the same language we use to talk about prose and film and non-narrative visual art; sometimes it fits (In fact, we have to, because the language of comics criticism is still young and scrawny—it’s so underdeveloped there’s no good adjective that means ‘comics-ish.’).”[ii]

[ii] Wolk, 16.

I took the liberty of bolding the important passage.  “The language of comics criticism,” (“comics,” referring to shorthand of “the art of comics”), or really, just “the language of comics.” We don’t HAVE the kind of vocabulary we deserve.  I am NOT a cartoonist or a “webcartoonist”—I don’t make cartoons.  The original definition of “cartoon” may include what I do, but the present and connotative one does not.  I am NOT a graphic novelist.   I make a graphic novel, yes, but mine is on the web. Would I then be a “web graphic novelist?” A “graphic webnovelist?” No! *smashes keyboard in frustration* Enough with the titles and the labeling and the “trying to make sound what I do academic and noteworthy!” Comics ARE noteworthy, and so are webcomics!

For the final and last time, I am a webcomicker. That is spelled with a “K,” or else it is said “webcomiser” by English rules.

What I encourage you all as “people who make comics and display them online” is for once and for all decide what to call yourselves.  I encourage this word to be a derivative of WHAT you make (Paint, painting, painter; Webcomic, webcomicking, webcomicker.) WHY I encourage this is because I am tired of people “looking down” on our craft. In academic circles, not only is the “so-called” art of comics  not worthy of attention, but WEBcomics are even worse! (“Holy cow, you mean to say ANYONE can make one?!”) Yes, Hollywood may be increasing the exposure of comics as a whole, but we are not all superhero comics! Marvel and DC are companies—not an art form!  So be proud of what you do. Its work, hard work, often done by a single person.  A webcomicker doesn’t just draw or just script or just letter or just build the website; a webcomicker often does all of the above.

But, and this is also important, a name for ourselves will never stick unless we use it. If people won’t give comics the respect or vocabulary they deserve, force it.

Bah!

Here is a common question, one you may have asked before: “I make webcomics. So what am I? Do I call myself an illustrator or cartoonist or graphic novelist or a comic creator or simply an artist? Is there a name for what we do?”

The more I make comics to more I realize the importance of WHAT we all call ourselves. This isn’t some self-important, snobbery post, this is something that we all as “people who make comics and display them on the web” need to take a second and seriously consider.

This snippet is taken directly from my college thesis The Art of Webcomics:

…comics as sequential art have a lineage that predates the written word.  Scott McCloud argues that writing forms such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics evolved from pictures representing the environment, and that the first forms of non-verbal communication occurred as sequential, visual characterization, pre-dating any alphabet.[i] Wolk laments that comics have such a lack of published, distinguished history that he does not even have the right words with which to write about comics: “…it’s not a bad idea, exactly, to talk about comics using some of the same language we use to talk about prose and film and non-narrative visual art; sometimes it fits (In fact, we have to, because the language of comics criticism is still young and scrawny—it’s so underdeveloped there’s no good adjective that means ‘comics-ish.’).”[ii]

[ii] Wolk, 16.

I took the liberty of bolding the important passage.  “The language of comics criticism,” (“comics,” referring to shorthand of “the art of comics”), or really, just “the language of comics.” We don’t HAVE the kind of vocabulary we deserve.  I am NOT a cartoonist or a “webcartoonist”—I don’t make cartoons.  The original definition of “cartoon” may include what I do, but the present and connotative one does not.  I am NOT a graphic novelist.   I make a graphic novel, yes, but mine is on the web. Would I then be a “web graphic novelist?” A “graphic webnovelist?” No! *smashes keyboard in frustration* Enough with the titles and the labeling and the “trying to make sound what I do academic and noteworthy!” Comics ARE noteworthy, and so are webcomics!

For the final and last time, I am a webcomicker. That is spelled with a “K,” or else it is said “webcomiser” by English rules.

What I encourage you all as “people who make comics and display them online” is for once and for all decide what to call yourselves.  I encourage this word to be a derivative of WHAT you make (Paint, painting, painter; Webcomic, webcomicking, webcomicker.) WHY I encourage this is because I am tired of people “looking down” on our craft. In academic circles, not only is the “so-called” art of comics  not worthy of attention, but WEBcomics are even worse! (“Holy cow, you mean to say ANYONE can make one?!”) Yes, Hollywood may be increasing the exposure of comics as a whole, but we are not all superhero comics! Marvel and DC are companies—not an art form!  So be proud of what you do. Its work, hard work, often done by a single person.  A webcomicker doesn’t just draw or just script or just letter or just build the website; a webcomicker often does all of the above.

But, and this is also important, a name for ourselves will never stick unless we use it. If people won’t give comics the respect or vocabulary they deserve, force it.

Bah!

For an explanation of The Art of Webcomics, my college thesis from 2008, click the “thesis” link in the page menu, sidebar top left.

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Part III: Strengths of the Digital Medium

Outside of the webcomic world—the digital medium—the freedom to create an independent work and display it, regardless of artistic or literary merit, nearly vanishes. I do not contest that one can draw what one likes in one’s own home, but when it comes to sharing that drawing on a large scale, that is where the challenges become nearly insurmountable. The internet destroys the middleman, but the middleman—the publisher, printer, distributor—rules the print business off the internet.  In Reinventing Comics, Scott McCloud discusses twelve revolutions that must take place before comics as an art and business can be revitalized, and a large portion of his book is devoted to one revolution in particular, “the digital delivery.”[i] By publishing online, a comic creator allows his or her work to be delivered digitally as pixels rather than physically as a book or strip, which circumvents the middleman, or middlemen, in this case.  This delivery is instantaneous and free, containing no mark-up for costs of production.  Many webcomickers may desire to have their work printed sometime in the future, but that does not change the fact that their work is foremost displayed through a computer monitor, and secondarily, if at all, available for purchase in a physical format.  The first strength of the digital medium is therefore its inherent freedom-from creative control, and from the price tag.

Independent cartoonists and illustrators seeking publication with established publishing houses soon realize the near hopelessness of ever breaking into the business, and it has only become harder through the years as the print industry continues to decline.  Not only are quality, content, and story regulated in the print world, but so too is the diversity of comic creators themselves, and their creative rights to their work. Apart from McCloud’s digital revolution, he also writes of the need for the print industry to diversify and appeal to, not to mention be authored by, more than middle-class, white men.  He repeatedly states that the only way diverse stories can be made into comics is to hire diverse comic creators, but the industry itself resists the necessary change[ii].  It is not too large of a stretch of the imagination to realize that comics as an industry is declining due to the ubiquitous nature of the superhero comic.  The freedom of the internet, however, circumvents the control of the publishing houses, and no webcomicker need be hired (or not hired) due to gender, creed, race or sexual orientation. If comic creators are diverse, so too will be their works, and no one will have to give up control of content to be selected either on a rack in a comic book shop, or more appropriately in this case, in a list of links on a webpage. In this way, “…digital delivery isn’t just about improving selection, it’s about the elimination of the very idea of selection.”[iii]

Going still further into the notion of freedom on the internet is the webcomicker’s ability to maintain total creative control of his or her work, and receive 100% monetary compensation for sold works.  Yet another of McCloud’s revolutions details the fight for creators’ rights, which often are signed away in return for a publishing deal.  Recent events at this time in history (2008), such as the Writers’ Guild of America strike, prove that these creative individuals are frustrated at having to give away the creative control of their work, receiving little recognition or compensation.  The outcome of the Writers’ strike proves that change is occurring, however, and favoring the creator—not the publishers or producers—of creative work.  “Over the last fifteen years or so…the big American comics companies have realized that…Superman and Spider-Man don’t really sell comics anymore: the lines of Brian Michael Bendis and Joss Whedon and Jim Lee do,”[iv] writes Wolk, citing popular comic creators. But giving credit where credit is due has been slow in coming to all lucrative art forms.  If one considers the reason why reasonable recompense and recognition is not given in exchange for use of a creative work, it is a small step to believe that lack of recognition is a grim marker of how little control artists or writers have maintained over their own creations, and is in my opinion, an issue worthy of much discussion.  Creative control implies that the originator of the work is recompensed and given credit for it.  But, when a creator is not given enough of either, yet is still having his or her creation published without a proper control of what is being drawn, so that the publishing company receives maximum credit and income, that is where, as McCloud puts it, “…screwing the ‘talent’ is practically an American tradition!”[v]

[ii] Reinventing Comics, 96-125.

[iii] Reinventing Comics, 198.

[iv] Wolk, 36.

[v] Reinventing Comics, 58.

Click here for an explanation on the Art of Webcomics.

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Part II: A History of Webcomics

Not surprisingly, the first webcomics were nothing more than print comics scanned into the computer, and then posted online without alteration, or often even coloring.  At the time webcomics first began, the technology that allowed for extensive digital editing had not yet been created, and the first edition of Photoshop, the program de facto for most serious webcomickers, did not even appear until 1990.[i] Therefore, in the beginning, it is not hard to understand how or why webcomics were only of the varieties and styles that already pre-existed in print, without overt experimentation.

I feel at this point it is very important to note that while I will bolster webcomics and simultaneously criticize print comics as this paper progresses, I should here and now recognize that webcomics would not exist in the form they do without the history of comics itself, and secondly, without the form of print, as tested for over two centuries: sequential panels, pages, strips and books.  It is also important to take notice of the distinctions between the existing forms of print comics, as there is a great variety which is worthy of much discussion (and indeed, has already been discussed in many books).  Some comics are made exclusively for newspaper circulation, and are often uncolored, formatted into the horizontal or vertical strip.  For most uninformed comic readers, newspaper “funnies” are often the only form and genre of comics known, which is not only unfortunate—as it propagates the notion that comics is an insignificant art meant only for meager amusement, ultimately destined for the trash-but is a misconception: print comics also exist in the comic book, graphic novel, political cartoon, and “manga” forms, as well as wood cuts, engravings and sequential paintings.  The graphic novel and comic book are found in many styles: colored, dramatically inked in black and white, lined and toned, simply lined, sketched, and more. Graphic novels are also far more costly to produce than strip comics or comic books, are longer, often sold in volumes, and deal with a wide range of genres.  Comic books span universes and superheroes, and could easily be said to have made the art of comics famous. Political cartoons are often single panel works that are heavily inked, hand-lettered, and use no digital means of creation or editing.  Eastern-style comics, most notably Japanese “Manga,” (Korean “Manhwa” is also gaining popularity in the West) are published in multiple volumes, usually uncolored, with a distinctive style and flair most recently adopted by many of the popular American television cartoons, such as Avatar: the Last Airbender. These types of comics, created in purely physical media rather than digitally, were typical of the first webcomics due to an inability to create something more, which was dependent on software and hardware not yet developed.

Despite the variety of comics available in print, many genres and styles of comics could not find a niche within which they could publish their work, and therefore turned to the internet to archive their portfolio, or even go independent and retain complete creative control of their comic (the alternative of which was selling one’s rights in order to be printed).  While there is some contention as to which webcomic was actually created first, 1986 was the first year webcomics first appeared in the internet, which was one year after the internet was opened for public and commercial use.  Argon Zark!,[ii] by Charley Parker, is usually the first webcomic mentioned when discussing webcomic history, though Parker states on his website that his comic was preceded by Where the Buffalo Roam and Dr. Fun, in that order.[iii] Webcomics grew slowly in number until the image editing software was developed that allowed more people publish their own visual works without years of illustration practice and formal education in traditional cartooning practices.  Microsoft Paintbrush (now MS Paint) was one of the first programs developed for digital images, but still is barely useable on a practical or professional level; in its earliest forms, it supported very few image formats and editing tools were severely limited to little more than a hard pixel brush and a paintbucket fill tool.  However, in the early 1990′s, as webcomics quickly began growing in number, style, and genre, so did the technology with which to create and edit them, including the first generation of graphics programs such as Photoshop.

Among the webcomics that appeared in the 1990′s and are still being updated today are Argon Zark!, Kevin and Kell, and Sluggy Freelance. These webcomics are important because they are not only among the first renowned comics of their time, they also continue to set the precedent for how to measure the relative, but also objective, success of a webcomic. All three comics are primarily a hybrid of two genres: humor and fantasy, or humor and science fiction.  Argon Zark! was and still is believed to be far ahead of its time. First published in June of 1995, it features interactive, full-color panels, many of which are partially, if not fully, animated—including sound.  Upon scrolling over a comic page with the cursor, the characters and/or the environment change to reveal a passage of time in a 2D medium, creating the illusion of a three dimensional space as its three characters explore the internet in a virtual reality.

Kevin and Kell, launched in September of 1995[iv] and created by Bill Holbrook, was among the first of the “furry” webcomics, featuring a main cast of anthropomorphic characters.[v] The popularity of Kevin and Kell has spawned a huge genre of “furry” comics with casts of fully-animal characters, half-human/half-animal characters, humanoid animals and everything in-between.  Some of these types of comics delve into the more mature realms of cross-species sex and play to an obsessed fandom that dress as animals, but the great majority have characters far more reminiscent of Disney’s anthropomorphic creations like The Fox and the Hound. It is a misconception that “furry” is firstly, a new genre, and secondly, “animal smut.”[vi]

Sluggy Freelance, started in 1997 by Pete Abrams, has updated seven days a week since its inception. As an epic comedy/fantasy/science fiction that crosses dimensions, time periods and often satirically incorporates popular movies or books (most notably, Harry Potter), the sprawling archives have now been made into multiple print volumes.  Abrams is one of the few who makes his living as a professional webcomicker.[vii]

While these three comics are only a small portion of those that formed the framework of the current webcomic paradigm, they are important because of the precedent they set for maintained success-monetarily and subjectively. Most webcomics currently have nowhere near the success of these; many webcomics garner no income, nor have audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands, such as Sluggy Freelance. All webcomics however, begin with the hope of someday becoming a work comparable to these three. But webcomics as a business model is another discussion entirely, and the significance of webcomics in culture and art is not dependent upon the income generated by the venture, only by the impact on society through the medium. If the success of print comics were judged by income, most would be failures. Luckily, that is not considered the case for either form of comic, as stated previously.

[ii] argonzark.com

[iii] Charlie Parker, “About Argon Zark!,” Argon Zark! <http://zark.com> (April 2008)

[iv] Bill Holbrook, “The Story Behind Kevin and Kell,” Kevin & Kell, <http://kevinandkell.com> (April 2008).

[v] “Anthro” comics feature animal characters with human behaviors, and also often humanoid characteristics, such as walking on two legs or wearing clothing.

[vi] As popularized by a CSI: Las Vegas episode.

[vii] Pete Abrams, Sluggy Freelance, <http://sluggy.com> (April 2008); “List of Self-Sufficient Webcomics,” Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-sufficient_webcomics> (March 2008).

Previous Post – Explanation

While comics like Maus, Palestine, Pride of Baghdad and Persepolis may prove to the anti-comic hardliner that yes, comics not only have the potential of great significance but have found it, the lack of press and knowledge about these types of comics keeps the art form from being recognized as what it is-neither truly visual nor truly literal, but a wonderful, fresh hybrid of both, with the ability to contain messages, satire, revolutionary material just as visual arts and literary arts themselves are able to do alone. But this lack of spotlight in traditional news media is being circumvented by the internet, and those comics for which the audience finds significance, not the establishment, gain popularity by merit alone.  Significance, defined lightly in this paper as causing a reader to stop, think, and perhaps, change either themselves or the environment around them, is found in many things: content, setting and characters, but also in style, reinvention of meaning, and yes, even humor.

When you look at a comic book, you’re not seeing either the world or a direct representation of the world; what you’re seeing is an interpretation or transformation of the world, with aspects that are exaggerated, adapted, or invented.  It’s not just unreal, it’s deliberately constructed [...] But because comics are a narrative and visual form…you do believe they’re real on some level. [...] So the meaning of the comics story within the world we see on the page is different from its meaning within the reader’s world.[i]

If the reader does not find personal significance in a comic, why continue to read it? Even Spider-Man, Wolk argues, is a popular comic because it means something to the reader, because the writer and artist could create a world through which ideas could displayed and understood in a way which had the potential to make the reader think.  In fiction, aspiring writers are advised to create conflicts and characters that are relatable-sympathetic-to the audience, because a connection, a parallel to the reader’s own life, makes the work significant in some way to that reader.  Conversely, readers cannot like or relate to what they do not understand, and significance originates from understanding, even if the experience depicted in a work has never been undergone by the reader.  Wolk writes, “…what all good Spider-Man stories have in common…is their exploration of the relationship between power and the obligation to use it correctly.”[ii] Readers can understand and relate to Spider-Man, even though they themselves have no superpowers, because of the essential conflict of the story: responsibility and obligation. Perhaps, as Wolk also theorizes, one reason why superheroes are such a popular device in comics is because of their ability to represent ideas larger than what regular people or characters are able to, because they are truly superhuman.

[Superhero comics are a] form that intrinsically lends itself to grand metaphors and subjective interpretations of the visual world goes well with characters who have particular allegorical values. Superhero cartoonists can present narratives whose images and incidents are unlike our own sensory experience of the world…but can still be understood as a metaphorical representation of our world. That’s something very easy to do in comics, and very hard to do in any other medium.[iii]

Wolk may use only superhero comics in his example of how comics as an art may function, but many other works far from the superhero genre also take advantage of comics’ unique ability to visually represent a world far different from our world yet still maintain the necessary realism to be understood or appreciated-and be of cultural significance-in the natural world. Colloquially, a comic may be defined as any illustrated story, narrative or joke, and the word applies to Spider-Man as well as to Inverloch,[iv] Garfield and Pride of Baghdad, and also to culturally pertinent political cartoons.  Each of these comics may take advantage of the art form’s ability to metaphorically represent reality, but there is more to comics than this single aspect.  Academically, “comics,” a plural noun denoting the art form, not the physical piece, is far more: comics contain subject matter that is fanciful and serious, mature and asinine, and comics art may be presented on a dynamic spectrum that includes everything from photo-realism to the completely abstract. Though McCloud’s definition of “comics”, and indeed his invention of the word, was scathingly rebuked by certain cartoonists such as Dylan Horrucks[v] in his essay “Inventing Comics,” or doubtfully believed by Wolk,[vi] comics as art form is gaining momentum and recognition.  Every piece of illustrated narrative, be it humor, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, cyberpunk, or “furry,” be it drawn in conventional American (ex, Calvin and Hobbes, X-men, Boondocks), European (ex, Astérix le Gaulois, Tin Tin), or Asian styles (ex, Samurai X, Dragon Ball)-can all fall under the definition of comics, and any of these displayed on the internet are therefore considered webcomics.  And, every single one of these comics has the potential to be significant in their own way, not only in meaning, but also in the pioneering spirit of creating change inside of an industry that often refuses to recognize or even print them.  What allows webcomics to create this change is of course, the merging of a traditional art with technology, specifically, the internet.

[ii] Wolk, 93.

[iii] Wolk, 92-93.

[iv] a five-volume, epic fantasy series by Sarah Ellerton, located at seraph-inn.com.

[v] Hicksville.co.nz.

[vi] Who curiously made note of Horruck’s essay yet used the word himself throughout Reading Comics.

Post 1, Post 2, Post 3

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[sic]

…Webcomics may possess such variety and potential, but webcomics also have a reputation both on and off the internet which causes this new art form to devalue itself.  Webcomics are associated with the image of a scrawny, fourteen-year-old, socially-inept boy who scrawls bad gag comics on lined notebook paper in his basement room. This image is only applicable to a minority of webcomic creators, yet has so pervaded the thought behind the word that it is now indelible. Contrary to this stereotype, polls of webcomic creators[i]—or self-titled “webcomickers”—show that majority of them were adults between the ages 18-24, and were either employed or pursuing higher education. Many of the larger, more established webcomics were created by married individuals with one or two children. Only one-tenth of poll participants were in high school. The fact is, most webcomics are created by talented, young adults who treat webcomicking as a beloved hobby, who enjoy their honing artistic and writing skills, and who are constantly testing the limits of a new art form.

Once one can overcome the stereotypical image of the webcomic creator, then comes the pejorative baggage attached to the word “comic,” which is also carried over to the word “webcomic.” As discussed earlier, comics as sequential art have a lineage that predates the written word.  Scott McCloud argues that writing forms such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics evolved from pictures representing the environment, and that the first forms of non-verbal communication occurred as sequential, visual characterization, pre-dating any alphabet.[ii] Wolk laments that comics have such a lack of published, distinguished history that he does not even have the right words with which to write about comics:

“…it’s not a bad idea, exactly, to talk about comics using some of the same language we use to talk about prose and film and non-narrative visual art; sometimes it fits (In fact, we have to, because the language of comics criticism is still young and scrawny-it’s so underdeveloped there’s no good adjective that means ‘comics-ish.’).”[iii]

Unfortunately to many, a “comic” is merely an illustrated joke, found perhaps on the inner leaf of any newspaper doomed to the recycling bin the following day; it is considered a doodle, meaningless but for a second or two of entertainment and often thought to be of little significance. However, as with the best, most influential, literary works, comics as an art form can incorporate ideas and concepts just as meaningful to either an individual or an entire civilization, perhaps in a manner far more easily assimilated by the reader through the use of images, and far more inviting than a thousand-page work of purely literary greatness, such as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.  The problem as prescribed by McCloud is that comics creators often choose to have subject matter of little cultural significance, believing perhaps that all comics as a form is meant to convey is superhero stories or jokes about the workplace.  This is not to say that mainstream comics have not a large impact on entire generations of youth, simply that there is far more comics can and is exploring, and not all comics are meant for children—as mentioned previously, award-winning comics like Sacco’s Palestine and Spiegelman’s Maus prove that the art form is growing and maturing, even if most people who read comics have never even heard of them.  Ever since comics were recognized as an art form, it has held this stigma that it is worthless, or at best, a corruptor of youth starting in the 1950′s—though it is at least a partial compliment that to be considered a corruptor, comics had to contain new, strange or influential ideas.[iv]

Today, professional comic creators often call themselves illustrators, artists, or graphic novelists rather than cartoonists, and never, ever, comickers. However, even in the 1800′s, some recognized the vast potential a marriage of words and images provided; McCloud quotes Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as chastising Rudolphe Töpffer’s early comics, “If for the future he would choose a less frivolous subject and restrict himself a little, he would produce things beyond all conception.”[v] McCloud himself states in Reinventing Comics, “We can only guess how many potential masters of the form [comics] never put pen to paper because of the utter absence of official recognition.”[vi] Yet, rarely since then has comics dealt with subjects that, in any literary work, would be deemed of note: some of the more recent examples being Persepolis, a graphic novel about a Persian girl and her family living in post-revolution Iran (recently animated into a movie); and Pride of Baghdad, a single volume, graphic novel featuring a main cast of an escaped pride of lions in war-torn Baghdad after the start of the Iraq War.  One must make the distinction here between content, style, and characters, and how they relate to significance; simply because a style is simplistic does not mean the content is not serious; because characters are animals instead of people, does not mean significance of plot, events or contemporary messages are lost. Wolk makes the distinction between “pretty” mainstream art and “competent” art:

But there are also extraordinary cartoonists who don’t fit either of those categories [storytelling and communication]. Gary Panter, for instance, couldn’t even begin to pull off a Wonder Woman or X-Men story, and I can’t imagine him having any interest in trying; his drawings are vehemently unpretty, barbed and gnarled, and he has no aspirations to realism or hyperrealism or conventional narrative. Even so, Jimbo in Purgatory, his fantasia on structure of Dante’s ‘Purgatory,’ is a knockdown masterpiece of cartooning, so clever and complicated and beautifully executed that it takes ages to sink in fully. Shall we call him ‘technically competent,’ then, since he’s able to realize his own vision? (How can we not?)[vii]

Comic art need not be pretty or sexually appealing; all it must do is match and further the content, as Panter’s work was able to do: give us a universal theme rendered in an astonishingly new way.  Again, comics are joined at the hip when discussing art and narrative, and industry standards for what is “good” can be far different than what is meaningful or significant, and true art—visual and literary—should never be judged by how much money it brings at the market.

[ii] Understanding Comics, 10-15, 131, 142.

[iii] Wolk, 16.

[iv] Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics, (New York, NY: Perennial, 2000) 87-88; Wolk, Douglas, 39. 

[v] Understanding Comics, 17.

[vi] Reinventing Comics, 93.

[vii] Wolk, 33.

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If therefore, as stated, comics are a significant art form, therefore so are webcomics, and knowing something about the very long history of comics themselves, the novelty of webcomics is quite apparent in comparison. Comics have had thousands of years to leave their mark on the world, but webcomics only have about twenty years of accumulated history. Webcomics first began to be published in the late 1980′s, usually for entertainment only, sometimes in the hopes of garnering a living, but usually because people found it was the only way to share their stories and art. Most of these first webcomic creators were amateurs who drew only as a hobby: not necessarily because they were trained in the craft, but because they found they liked to draw.  Indeed, today the number of published amateurs on the internet still far outweighs the number of published professionals, and the last census of webcomics showed that only thirty of the tens of thousands of webcomics were successful enough that the creator(s) could live off the revenue generated through sales of merchandise or ad space.[i] Yet, it is often these amateurs, and not print-published professionals, who truly take advantage of the evolving nature of the internet and ever-morphing technology.  It is they who understand and believe that the digital canvas is just as good as the traditional paper canvas, if not better, and they who make little effort to distribute their work off of the internet.  The reasons that these webcomic creators believe this medium is superior are manifold: there are no editorial processes, no standards of quality determined by the dominion and preferences of long-established publishing companies, but instead, the freedom to create and publish a personal artistic vision as the creator sees fit. It is the limitless potential of the digital medium and the unbridled freedom of the internet which make webcomics a respectable and important art form, especially in this century.

[sic]

…It is very hard to appreciate what the internet means to webcomics and their creators until one realizes that many people default to publishing on the internet only after they are rejected from the print comic industry multiple times. Broadly speaking, webcomic creators can be separated into two categories: those who want to be published in print, and those who do not.  The former category includes professional artists or cartoonists who are already published in print but also publish online; talented amateurs who were rejected and now seek to improve their craft, or foster an audience before submitting to a publishing house again; and lastly, those whose comics were rejected without hope of ever being accepted, or also those who never even attempted to submit knowing they would be rejected, but love making comics enough to continue making them nonetheless. The latter of the broad categories, those who have not considered publishing in print, or entertained the thought and rejected it, they make up the largest population of webcomic creators.  Typically, these people create an artistic work and desire to share it with others-and ultimately, the means of sharing is immaterial.  The internet is simply the fastest, easiest and most inexpensive way to make others aware of their work. They reject the print industry, but may also see the internet and digital medium as something inferior to print. Then, there is a very small category of people, a hybrid of sorts that includes all of the above types of webcomic creators, but one that clusters around a central idea: this category believes that the print industry is fading, that webcomics have far more potential than print comics ever had, and that one need not conform to a certain style or format in order to either make a living from comics, or become popular in terms of gaining a devoted and/or wide readership.

Popularity in itself is so subjective on the internet that in webcomics, there is no distinct line between a comic is considered popular and when it is not.  For example, is a webcomic with a hundred highly-interactive readers more or less popular than a webcomic with a one thousand silent readers? Purely from a statistical perspective, one would admit that more readers would indicate a higher level of popularity, but more readers in no way guarantees success on the internet, as it does in print. For a printed comic, the only measurement of popularity is sales, and therefore, income, and income is the only measurement of success. But on the internet, where the product is almost always free, how can these two definitions of popularity coincide? I postulate that they cannot.  For webcomics, popularity is measured by the subjective fulfillment and satisfaction of the webcomic creator; it is not simply measured in dollars or numbers.  That comic creator who has that one hundred-member, vocal audience may be far more pleased than the comic creator with even the ten thousand-member audience who barely says a word.

In the same way the definition of popularity has changed on the internet, once-established aesthetic hierarchies have also become subjective, including the definition of what is “good” and what is “bad.” In the print world, these definitions are contingent on what is marketable; if it sells well, it is therefore “good.” However, what determines whether or not a product sells: the product itself, or the advertising for it? The answer is both, so if a comic does not sell well, is it the fault of the material or the advertising? Thinking about this question in a different way, if a “bad” product sells well, is it not the result of good advertising?

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In order to understand where webcomics are today as an art form, it is important to know from what humble beginnings webcomics came. Before one can discuss that, one must know what comics are and how comics as art are significant. After all, without the comic, there would be no webcomic.

Comics, often more formally defined as “sequential art,” have existed since prehistoric man found he could represent his world with ochre on cave walls.  The term can be applied to the Bayeux tapestry[i]-which depicts the chronological progression of a battle-to the sequential panels of a jumping goat painted on ancient Iranian pottery over 5000 years ago.[ii][iii] Of course, unless one stops and thinks about the very large definition of “comics,” many would not consider such artifacts to be comics, not with the very negative connotation comics carry today. Many believe a comic must contain a punch-line, or is a single panel composition, of little consequence, created to amuse children or, at best, young adults who should be doing something more worthwhile (like reading a book)-and if aimed at adults, the presumption is that they are relatively illiterate and require “pictures” to read and comprehend the story. But, Scott McCloud, in his ground-breaking work Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, succinctly gets to the heart of the matter, taking Will Eisner’s definition of comics as sequential art even further. As he states, comics are “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”[iv]

It is also important to, with finality and confidence, state that yes, comics are an art form. Comic creators must have a mastery of visual and literary fields, a sense of composition, and an understanding of how time flows throughout that composition. They must have strong grasp of story or idea, and have the ability to convey information in a method that can be understood and perceived by a universal audience. To be an illustrator requires years of devotion to one’s craft and to the study of one’s environment and surroundings; it also requires the ability to reproduce a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional canvas in a fashion both aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible to an audience.  To be an author requires years of dedication to language, grammar, narrative, story-telling, character-building, diction, and craft. To be a comic creator, one must be masters of both the visual and written fields, and if being an author or an illustrator is a not only a respectable calling, but one of merit, it is a shame that being a comic creator is not held in the same esteem. Scott McCloud describes comics as “the ‘bastard child’ of words and pictures,” but goes on to say that this view point is self-perpetuated by comic creators themselves, who have yet to understand the true power that comics as a medium possess.[v] Comic critic Douglas Wolk also states in his book Reading Comics:

One numbingly common mistake in the way culture critics address them [comics] is to invoke “the comic book genre.”  As cartoonist and their longtime admirers are getting a little tired of explaining, comics are not a genre; they’re a medium [...] Prose fiction, sculpture, video: those, like comics, are media-forms of expression that have few or no rules regarding their content other than the very broad ones imposed on them by their form.[vi]

Taking into account the length of time that sequential art has existed, the enormous diversity of material comics cover-from Art Spiegelman’s tale of the Holocaust, Maus[vii] to Joe Sacco’s journey through Palestine,[viii] to Peter Parker’s adventures in Spider-Man-and the mediums through which comics are made-paper, painting, carvings, pixels and more-proves they are not only true, fine art, but also of great cultural and historical significance.  We as a species would not have been making sequential art for thousands of years if it were not an important form of art, significant to us in its representation and content.

[ii] Touted as the “first animation” in news, the four panels depicting a goat jumping are displayed side-by-side on the pottery, falling under Eisner’s definition of comics as sequential art.  Animated images are not juxtaposed, but positioned in the same space.

[iii] “CHTHO’s Cultural Blunder and Documentary, Production on World’s Oldest Animation.” The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, Mehr News Agency,<http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=649189> (March 3, 2008).

[iv] Understanding Comics, 9.

[v] Understanding Comics, 47, 18.

[vi] Douglas Wolk, Reading Comic: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, (Da Capo Press, 2007) 11.

[vii] Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1992

[viii] Winner of an American Book Award in 1996