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

———

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

——

[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.

——————-

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