Continuing the previous thesis excerpt from Part III: Strengths of the Digital Medium. Please remember this is written for people who have NO IDEA what webcomics are, who makes them, or how comics in general can be considered a true art form.

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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