I had commissions to finish today, and more editing to do otherwise. I WILL get back to useful (AKA, applicable info, instead of food for thought) articles as soon as possible. Until then, enjoy the next little section of my college thesis, completed May 2008.
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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?
[i] It is also quite interesting to note that webcomics as an art form are still so new that such census information is only available to through publicly-editable sources such as Wikipedia. Such information exists no where in books or journals, or on private sites.
