Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are
comics
a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
published on a
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...
or
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in
magazines,
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
s, or comic books.
Webcomics can be compared to
self-published print comics in that anyone with an Internet connection can publish their own webcomic. Readership levels vary widely; many are read only by the creator's immediate friends and family, while some of the largest claim audiences well over one million readers.
Webcomics range from traditional
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...
s and
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s to
avant garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...
comics, and cover many
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other f ...
s,
styles, and subjects.
They sometimes take on the role of a comic
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
. The term
web cartoonist is sometimes used to refer to someone who creates webcomics.
Medium
There are several differences between webcomics and print comics. With webcomics the restrictions of traditional books, newspapers or magazines can be lifted, allowing artists and writers to take advantage of the web's unique capabilities.
Styles
The creative freedom webcomics provide allows artists to work in nontraditional styles.
Clip art
Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...
or
photo
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now crea ...
comics (also known as
fumetti
Photo comics are a form of sequential storytelling that uses photographs rather than illustrations for the images, along with the usual comics conventions of narrative text and word balloons containing dialogue. They are sometimes referred to ...
) are two types of webcomics that do not use traditional artwork. ''
A Softer World'', for example, is made by overlaying photographs with strips of typewriter-style text.
As in the
constrained comics {{Original research, date=September 2007
Constrained comics is a form of comics that places some fundamental constraint on form beyond those inherent to the medium. By adding a constraint, the artist is attempting to produce original art within tig ...
tradition, a few webcomics, such as ''
Dinosaur Comics'' by
Ryan North, are created with most strips having art copied exactly from one (or a handful of)
template
Template may refer to:
Tools
* Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material
* Mold, in a molding process
* Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs
...
comics and only the text changing.
Pixel art, such as that created by
Richard Stevens of ''
Diesel Sweeties'', is similar to that of sprite comics but instead uses low-resolution images created by the artist themself.
However, it is also common for some artists to use traditional styles, similar to those typically published in newspapers or comic books.
Content
Webcomics that are independently published are not subject to the content restrictions of
book publishers or
newspaper syndicates, enjoying an artistic freedom similar to
underground and
alternative comics. Some webcomics stretch the boundaries of taste, taking advantage of the fact that internet
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
is virtually nonexistent in countries like the United States.
The content of webcomics can still cause problems, such as ''
Leisure Town
Tristan Alexander Farnon is an American webcomic author, creator of comic strip ''Leisure Town'', the ''Silent Key'' podcast and Spigot. He is one of the founding creators of the Microsoft Comic Chat-based webcomic Jerkcity, now known as ''Bon ...
'' artist
Tristan Farnon's legal trouble after creating a profane ''
Dilbert'' parody,
or the
Catholic League's protest of artist
Eric Millikin
Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence art, augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, Internet art, performance art, poetry, post ...
's "blasphemous treatment of Jesus."
Format
Webcomic artists use many formats throughout the world.
Comic strips, generally consisting of three or four
panels, have been a common format for many artists. Other webcomic artists use the format of traditional printed
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s and
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s, sometimes with the plan of later publishing books.
Scott McCloud, one of the first advocates of webcomics, pioneered the idea of the "
infinite canvas
The infinite canvas refers to the potentially limitless space that is available to webcomics presented on the World Wide Web. The term was introduced by Scott McCloud in his 2000 book ''Reinventing Comics'', in which he suggested that webcomic cr ...
" where, rather than being confined to normal print dimensions,
artists are free to spread out in any direction indefinitely with their comics.
Such a format proved highly successful in
South-Korean webcomics when JunKoo Kim implemented an infinite scrolling mechanism in the platform
Webtoon
Webtoons (), are a type of digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.
While webtoons were mostly unknown outside of Korea during their inception, there has been a surge in popularity internationally ...
in 2004. In 2009, French web cartoonist
Balak
Balak ( ''Bālāq'') was a king of Moab described in the Book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible, where his dealings with the prophet Balaam are recounted. Balak tried to engage Balaam for the purpose of cursing the migrating Israelite community. On ...
described
Turbomedia
Webcomics in France are usually referred to as either blog BD (comic strip blogs) or BD numérique (digital comic strips). Early webcomics in the late 1990s and early 2000s primarily took on the form of personal blogs, where amateur artists told ...
, a format for webcomics where a reader only views one panel at a time, in which the reader decides their own reading rhythm by going forward one panel at a time.
Some web cartoonists, such as political cartoonist
Mark Fiore or Charley Parker with ''
Argon Zark!
''Argon Zark!'' is a webcomic, created by cartoonist and web site designer Charley Parker. The strip, drawn using a graphics tablet and computer graphics software, first appeared in June 1995. A collection, billed as a "Dead Tree Souvenir Editio ...
'', incorporate
animation
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...
s or
interactive elements into their webcomics.
History
The first comics to be shared through the Internet were
Eric Millikin
Eric Millikin is an American artist and activist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his pioneering work in artificial intelligence art, augmented and virtual reality art, conceptual art, Internet art, performance art, poetry, post ...
's ''Witches and Stitches'', which he started uploading on
CompuServe in 1985.
Services such as CompuServe and
Usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
were used before the
World Wide Web started to rise in popularity in 1993. Early webcomics were often derivatives from strips in
college newspapers, but when the Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized. Unique genres and styles became popular during this period.
The 2010s also saw the rise of
webtoon
Webtoons (), are a type of digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.
While webtoons were mostly unknown outside of Korea during their inception, there has been a surge in popularity internationally ...
s in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
, where the form has become very prominent. This decade has also seen an increasingly larger number of successful webcomics being adapted into
animated series in China and Japan.
Webcomics collectives
In March 1995, artist Bebe Williams launched one of the first webcomics collectives,
Art Comics Daily.
[Peterson, Iver (October 28, 1996). "The Search for the Next 'Doonesbury". '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Pg. D9 Newspaper comic strip syndicates also launched websites in the mid-1990s.
Other webcomics collectives followed, with many launching in the next decade. In March 2000,
Chris Crosby, Crosby's mother Teri, and other artists founded
Keenspot.
[Yim, Roger. (April 2, 2001). "DOT-COMICS: Online cartoons skip traditional syndication and draw loyal fans on the Internet". '']San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...
''. Pg. D1[Newman, Heather. (February 2, 2001). "See You In The Funny Pixels Michigan Cartoonists Draw On Web Sites To Find Readers". '']Detroit Free Press
The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primar ...
''. Pg. 1H In July 2000,
Austin Osueke
Austin Osueke is an American comic book artist, publisher, and founder of the companies eigoMANGA and Comic Distro. He is best known for contributing to Amerimanga and web comics through his publications Sakura Pakk and Rumble Pak
The is a rem ...
launched
eigoMANGA, publishing original online
manga
Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...
, referred to as "webmanga".
In 2001, the subscription webcomics site
Cool Beans World
''Cool Beans World'' was a subscription website which published animated or partially animated webcomics. It was conceived by Cool Beans Productions, a design, animation and production company based in Sheffield, England. Contributors included, amo ...
was launched. Contributors included UK-based comic book creators
Pat Mills,
Simon Bisley
Simon Bisley is a British comic book artist best known for his 1990s work on ''ABC Warriors'', '' Lobo'' and ''Sláine''.
Early life
Simon Bisley began drawing when he was six years old. He is self-taught, with only a short one-year stay at an ...
,
John Bolton, and
Kevin O'Neill, and the author
Clive Barker.
Serialised content included ''
Scarlet Traces
''Scarlet Traces'' is a Steampunk comic series written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by D'Israeli. It was originally published online before being serialised in 2002, in the British anthology ''Judge Dredd Megazine''. A sequel, ''Scarlet Traces: ...
'' and ''
Marshal Law''.
In March 2001,
Shannon Denton
Shannon Eric Denton is an American veteran storyteller and artist with credits at Cartoon Network, Warner Bros., Jerry Bruckheimer Films, NBC, Disney, Sony, ToyBiz, Marvel Entertainment, Fox Kids, Paramount Pictures, CBS, Dimension Films, DC Co ...
and Patrick Coyle launched
Komikwerks {{Short description, Comic publisher
Komikwerks is a comic publisher founded in 2000 by animation professional Shannon Denton and Internet design professional Patrick Coyle.
History
The website Komikwerks.com went live on March 5, 2001. The initi ...
.com serving free strips from comics and animation professionals. The site launched with 9 titles including Steve Conley's ''
Astounding Space Thrills'', Jason Kruse's ''
The World of Quest
''The World of Quest'' is a comic series by Jason T. Kruse shown on the Komikwerks site as a webcomic and later released as a full graphic novel. The last chapter on the site is called "Prison Break". There are currently two volumes of The World o ...
'', and
Bernie Wrightson
Bernard Albert Wrightson (October 27, 1948 – March 18, 2017), sometimes credited as Bernie Wrightson, was an American artist, known for co-creating the Swamp Thing, his adaptation of the novel ''Frankenstein'' illustration work, and for his o ...
's ''The Nightmare Expeditions''.
On March 2, 2002,
Joey Manley founded
Modern Tales, offering subscription-based webcomics.
[Ho, Patricia Jiayi (July 8, 2003). "Online comic artists don't have to play panel games". '']Alameda Times-Star
The ''Alameda Times-Star'' was a newspaper in the city of Alameda, California. It was last owned by Bay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group, who bought the paper in 1986.
The newspaper was scheduled to close down, w ...
(Alameda, CA)'' The Modern Tales spin-off
serializer followed in October 2002, then came
girlamatic and Graphic Smash in March and September 2003 respectively.
By 2005, webcomics hosting had become a business in its own right, with sites such as
Webcomics Nation
Webcomics Nation was a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley. Unlike Manley's previous webcomic sites, Webcomics Nation was based on user-generated content and relied on online advertisement revenue, whic ...
.
[Walker, Leslie (June 16, 2005). "Comics Looking to Spread A Little Laughter on the Web". '']The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'', p. D1.
Traditional comic book publishers, such as
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in ...
and
Slave Labour Graphics, did not begin making serious digital efforts until 2006 and 2007.
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
launched its web comic imprint,
Zuda Comics
Zuda Comics was DC Comics' webcomics imprint from 2007 until 2010. Some of the imprints series won awards and nominations from comic industry's Glyph Comics Awards and Harvey Awards. ''Bayou, Volume 1'' was also named one of the 2010 Great Graphi ...
in October 2007.
The site featured user submitted comics in a competition for a professional contract to produce web comics. In July 2010, it was announced that DC was closing down Zuda.
Business
Some creators of webcomics are able to do so
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and sk ...
ly through various
revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...
channels. Webcomic artists may sell
merchandise based on their work, such as
T-shirts and toys, or they may sell
print versions or compilations of their webcomic.
Webcomic creators can also sell
online advertisements on their
websites.
In the second half of the 2000s, webcomics became less financially sustainable due to the rise of
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
and consumers' disinterest in certain kinds of merchandise.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...
through
Kickstarter and
Patreon have also become sources of income for web cartoonists.
Webcomics have been used by some cartoonists as a path towards
syndication in
newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
. Since the mid-1990s, Scott McCloud advocated for
micropayments systems as a source of income for web cartoonists, but micropayment systems have not been popular with artists or readers.
Awards
Many webcomics artists have received honors for their work. In 2006,
Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel ''
American Born Chinese'', originally published as a webcomic on
Modern Tales, was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
.
[Bosman, Julie. (October 12, 2006). "National Book Award Finalists Chosen". '']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Pg. E2 Don Hertzfeldt's animated film based on his webcomics, ''Everything Will Be OK'', won the 2007
Sundance Film Festival Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, a prize rarely bestowed on an animated film.
[ ]
Many traditionally print-comics focused organizations have added award categories for comics published on the web. The
Eagle Awards established a Favorite Web-based Comic category in 2000, and the
Ignatz Awards
The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a ...
followed the next year by introducing an Outstanding Online Comic category in 2001. After having nominated webcomics in several of their traditional print-comics categories, the
Eisner Awards began awarding comics in the Best Digital Comic category in 2005. In 2006 the
Harvey Awards established a Best Online Comics Work category, and in 2007 the
Shuster Awards began an Outstanding Canadian Web Comic Creator Award. In 2012 the
National Cartoonists Society gave their first Reuben Award for "On-line comic strips."
Other awards focus exclusively on webcomics. The
Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards
The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a ''The New York Times'' column on webco ...
["Attack of the Show"](_blank)
. G4TechTV. Aired August 12, 2005. consist of a number of awards that were handed out annually from 2001 to 2008. The Dutch
Clickburg Webcomic Awards (also known as the Clickies) has been handed out four times between 2005 and 2010. The awards require the recipient to be active in the
Benelux
The Benelux Union ( nl, Benelux Unie; french: Union Benelux; lb, Benelux-Unioun), also known as simply Benelux, is a politico- economic union and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighboring states in western Europe ...
countries, with the exception of one international award.
Webcomics in print
Though webcomics are typically published primarily on the World Wide Web, often webcomic creators decide to also print
self-published books of their work. In some cases, web cartoonists may get
publishing deals in which
comic books are created of their work. Sometimes, these books are published by mainstream comics publishers who are traditionally aimed at the
direct market of comic books stores.
Some web cartoonists may pursue
print syndication
Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing cont ...
in established
newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
or
magazines.
The traditional audience base for webcomics and print comics are vastly different, and webcomic readers do not necessarily go to bookstores. For some web cartoonists, a print release may be considered the "goal" of a webcomic series, while for others, comic books are "just another way to get the content out." Webcomics have been seen by some artists as a potential new path towards syndication in
newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
. According to
Jeph Jacques
Jeffrey Paul "Jeph" Jacques ( ) (born June 17, 1980) is an American cartoonist who writes and draws the webcomics '' Questionable Content'', '' Alice Grove'', and ''DORD'' (and formerly "Indietits").
Personal life
Jacques was born in Rockvil ...
(''
Questionable Content''), "there's no real money" in syndication for webcomic artists. Some artists are not able to syndicate their work in newspapers because their comics are targeted to a specific
niche
Niche may refer to:
Science
*Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development
* Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species
*Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...
audience and wouldn't be popular with a broader readership.
Non-anglophone webcomics
Many webcomics are published primarily in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, this being a major language in Australia, Canada, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Cultures surrounding non-anglophone webcomics have thrived in countries such as China, France, India, Japan, and South Korea.
Webcomics have been a popular medium in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
since the early 2000s.
Indian webcomics are successful as they reach a large audience for free and they are frequently used by the country's younger generation to spread
social awareness on topics such as
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. These webcomics achieve a large amount of exposure by being spread through
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
.
In China,
Chinese webcomics
() are Chinese-language comics produced in China and Taiwan. Whilst Chinese comics and narrated illustrations have existed in China in some shape or form throughout its imperial history, the term first appeared in 1904 in a comic titled ''Cu ...
have become a popular way to criticize the communist government and politicians in the country. Many webcomics by popular artists get shared around the country thanks to social networks such as
Sina Weibo and
WeChat. Many titles will often be censored or taken down by the government.
See also
*
Digital comic
*
Digital illustration
*
List of webcomic creators
*
List of webcomics
*
Web fiction
*
Webtoon
Webtoons (), are a type of digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones.
While webtoons were mostly unknown outside of Korea during their inception, there has been a surge in popularity internationally ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
The Rise of Web ComicsVideo produced by
Off Book (web series)
''Off Book'' is a web series on digital culture and art created for PBS by Kornhaber Brown, a Webby award-winning production studio that creates web series, videos, and motion graphics. The series has been viewed more than six million times, an ...
{{Independent production
Comics formats
New media
New media art
Multimedia
Digital art
Internet art
Internet-based works
Internet culture