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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

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.

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?

——————-

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

Oh yes, please keep in mind, I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelors in Biological Sciences, Pre-Med. Enjoy! (and stick it to the Man every chance you get!) I’ll be posting bits and pieces when I’m working on other articles.

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The Art of Webcomics

by Karen KEZ Howard, advised by Dr. Alisia Chase

ABSTRACT:

Since the inception of comics as an art, it has unfairly received the scorn of those in both the literary and artistic fields.  For the past fifty years, the growth of the medium of comics has been controlled by established publishers who regulate content, style and genre, and who have forced this art to become no more than a business tailored to suit a single demographic. With the creation of the internet, independent comic creators can now circumvent the control of the medium by self-publishing webcomics, the digital form of comics.  Webcomics are proving what the medium of comics is capable of accomplishing by harnessing the freedom, accessibility and communication abilities of the internet.

Part I: An Explanation of the Art of Comics

The turn of the millennium ushered in a new age of cellular phones, laptops and high definition television sets. It has brought the time of globally-connected, near-instant communication, where the collective knowledge of mankind is at the fingertips of anyone who has access to the internet. The technology to communicate on the global scale has effected not only to a different pace of life, but also to the beginning of a new type of art: digital art.  Created only through pixels and light, this new art has many forms, but one in particular is known as the “webcomic.” Defined most simply, a webcomic is a comic displayed on the World Wide Web.

Having existed for over two decades now, webcomics, often called “online comics,” have both their proponents and their critics. Some believe that the webcomic is a new art that takes advantage of the constantly evolving technology of this age.  The webcomic, along with its medium, is never the same for long. For example, the software to make digital art is continually upgraded, and in a sense reinvented, every year.  In contrast, there are those who see little difference between a traditional comic and a webcomic, and believe that it is only the mode of dissemination-the internet-which makes it what it is (and this is an understandable point of view, as some webcomics are merely print comics shown on a screen). Yet, it is the internet’s potential for surpassing what mediums have come before it-particularly with regard to its ability to globally distribute materials and information; it is the power of instant communication regardless of distance, nationality or culture; and it is the exchange between creator and reader that make the webcomic exactly what it is: novel, inspiring, and liberating. I myself maintain that webcomics have a far greater potential than any printed comic because of the technology harnessed to make and distribute them.  Webcomics can reach larger audiences faster, they are free, immediate and easily accessible, and they satisfy the need that every artist, and for that matter, every reader, has: the need to communicate with the other-the creator to the reader, and the reader to the creator. In no other medium than the internet is this two-way communication possible to such an extreme extent, and in every other medium, it is found to be sorely lacking.

This comparison between these two art forms-the digital and the printed-is important not only because after only twenty years such works already challenge the dominance of the print industry, but because of the freedom that the digital medium represents from the constraints of the print business.  Like the advent of the weblog or webcast, the webcomic most likely arose because someone, somewhere, could not publish their memoirs, or broadcast their home-made radio show, or syndicate their comic.  But their need to share a vision, to receive validation for it through communication, and to retain all creative rights to their work pushed these people to find another way.  When the internet was created, and the need to publish through an established printing business was completely circumvented, these people did publish their works, for free, retaining all rights; they started a movement that focused not only on a product, but on the person or people behind the product-on the painstaking, creative process, full of emotion and the willingness to share a project often without monetary return. This is the inherent idea of the current evolution webcomic: that it is free, that individuals matter, that anyone may publish, and that there is no control of published work other than one’s own. These unique qualities, coupled with accessibility, global distribution, and instant communication are what make webcomics culturally and historically significant.

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I’m going to post the thesis in its entirety online as soon as I have the time. It’s long, with special formatting, and a lot of images. The next article up will be on the benefits of being part of a webcomic collective.

Also, my thesis adviser is awesome.  Writing this was totally the best part of college.