I’m going to skip the rest of the Part II: A History of Webcomics because a history lesson that only goes back 20-something years without any violent conflict is pretty boring (admit it! If there were no gory reenactments, you’d never watch the history channel!) . So, I’m going to dive into Part III, admittedly the crux of the whole thesis!

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.