List of early webcomics
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Webcomics predate the
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and the commercialization of the
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by a few years, with the first webcomic being published through
CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...
in 1985. Though webcomics require a larger online community to gain widespread popularity through word-of-mouth, various webcomics pioneered the style of self-publishing in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In ''A History of Webcomics'', cartoonist T. Campbell stated that "few strips from this period are remembered. But a few are notable early explorers of the art form."


Webcomics of the 1980s

The earliest known online comic was
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-In ...
's ''Witches and Stitches'', which he started uploading on
CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...
in 1985. By self-publishing on the internet, Millikin was able to share his work without having to worry over censorship and demographics. ''Witches and Stitches'' quickly rose to popularity, inspiring other artists to upload their works as well. Joe Ekaitis' ''
T.H.E. Fox ''T.H.E. Fox'' is a furry comic strip by Joe Ekaitis which ran from 1986 to 1998. It is among the earliest online comics, predating ''Where the Buffalo Roam'' by over five years. ''T.H.E. Fox'' was published on CompuServe, Q-Link and GEnie, ...
'' was a furry webcomic that started in 1986. Initially published on CompuServe, Ekaitis moved on to Q-Link and GEnie as the internet grew. Early strips consisted of one panel each and were drawn as pixel art on a
Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...
KoalaPad, first using KoalaPainter, then Advanced OCP Art Studio. ''T.H.E. Fox'' was eventually renamed ''Thadeus'' and started featuring regularly drawn strips, before Ekaitis stopped updating the comic in 1998.


Webcomics of the 1990s

In the early 1990s, cartoonists at various United States universities produced comics through various Internet protocols. During this period, it was unclear which systems would turn out to be the most successful. Hans Bjordahl, student at the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
at the time, started posting ''
Where the Buffalo Roam ''Where the Buffalo Roam'' is a 1980 American semi-biographical comedy film which loosely depicts author Hunter S. Thompson's rise to fame in the 1970s and his relationship with Chicano attorney and activist Oscar "Zeta" Acosta. The film was p ...
'' on April 15, 1992 on
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, in
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and
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format. Sharing the comic through the Internet, its readership extended through a few states. Even in 1995, cartoonist Dominic White published his comics ''The Internet Explorer Kit for the Macintosh'' and ''Slugs'' through
Gopher Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...
rather than the World Wide Web, despite the latter rapidly gaining popularity. The first strip of Stafford Huyler's ''
NetBoy ''NetBoy'' is a webcomic created by Stafford Huyler. Publishing began in May, 1994. Drawn as a stick figure, the comic character NetBoy is an Internet innocent with his greatest joy in life being "fast .GIFs."Silverman, Dwight. (1994)Internet's p ...
'' was uploaded on the World Wide Web in July 1993. Being described as an early example of nerd humor, the stick figure comic made frequent references to technical topics most people with an Internet connection at the time would have knowledge of. Huyler later started the spin-off comic ''U.Nox'', about system administrator Uri Noxen. Despite the small size of Huyler's early ''NetBoy'' comics (10 kilobytes), the server it was hosted on would crash when the strip got over six visits per second. In response to the webcomic's increasing popularity, Huyler built a stronger server himself. Despite these limitations, Huyler pioneered the concept of
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 cre ...
, uploading strips in shapes and sizes impossible in print. The first strip of David Farley's ''
Doctor Fun ''Doctor Fun'' is a single-panel, gag webcomic by David Farley. It began in September 1993, making it one of the earliest webcomics, and ran until June 2006. ''Doctor Fun'' was part of United Media's website from 1995, but had parted ways by 200 ...
'' was uploaded on September 23, 1993. Campbell described ''Doctor Fun'' as the "first regular web comic", as ''NetBoy'' did not have a regular schedule during its first year. Mike Wean's ''Jax & Co.'' was first uploaded in 1994. Using
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, it was the first webcomic to implement a "page turning" interface that encourages readers to read the comic in order. Soon, this effect was recreated by simple
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
, such as 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 Edition ...
'', which launched in June 1995 and is occasionally listed among the earliest comics to be published on the World Wide Web. Mid-1994, the
Finnish Comics Society The Finnish Comics Society ( fi, Suomen Sarjakuvaseura ry) was founded in 1971. It is the umbrella organization for the cartoon industry in Finland. Its purpose is to increase the appreciation for comics, to promote the knowledge of good comics and ...
launched a collection of webcomics by various authors, initially under the label "NetComics". In November 1994, Reinder Dijkhuis started publishing ''
Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan ''Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan'' is a webcomic by Reinder Dijkhuis. It was started in 1991 as a small-press comic in Dutch, entitled ''De Rovers van Clwyd-Rhan''. It had an online incarnation in Dutch from November 1994 to August 1996, making it one of ...
'' on the World Wide Web. The two of these were the first known webcomic created outside of the United States. The same year, an artist going by the name Eerie created a webcomic on bulletin board systems using ANSI art, titled ''Inspector Dangerfuck''. Webcomics popular on the internet in January 1995 included ''NetBoy'', ''Aaron A. Aardvark'', and ''The Afterlife of Bob''. At this point, fans of traditional comics such as '' Calvin and Hobbes'' started sharing such
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
ed comic strips on the internet. By the end of 1995, there existed hundreds of webcomics, most of which were derived from college newspaper comics, and most were short-lived.


Other firsts

The first major webcomic portal, Big Panda, started in the second half of the 1990s. Big Panda hosted over 770 webcomics, including '' Sluggy Freelance'' and ''
User Friendly Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...
'', which started in 1997. Big Panda's discontinuation resulted in the formation of Keenspot in 2000. In 1995, '' Dilbert'' became the first syndicated comic strip to be officially published through the Internet. Though the genre was popularized by '' PvP'', the first
video game webcomic Many webcomics have been influenced by video games and video game culture. Background Webcomics frequently poke fun at video game logic, the video game industry, and stereotypical behavior of gamers. The earliest video game webcomic was ''Polym ...
was Chris Morisson's ''
Polymer City Chronicles The Polymer City Chronicles (aka PCC) is a webcomic written and drawn by Chris Morrison. PCC began publishing online in March 1995 as the first video gaming webcomic on the World Wide Web,
'', which started being published on the World Wide Web in 1995. Three years later, in 1998, Jay Resop started the first
sprite comic Sprite comics are webcomics that consist primarily of computer sprites from video games. Art assets are ripped from various classic games such as '' Mega Man'' and '' Sonic the Hedgehog'', are edited and combined by amateur cartoonists, and are ...
, ''Neglected Mario Characters''. In August 2000, Sean McGuinness started ''Twisted Kaiju Theater'', which is frequently cited to be the first photographic webcomic.


Timeline

Excluding traditional comic strips such as ''Calvin and Hobbes'' that were uploaded illegally, this is a timeline of cartoons that are known to have been posted on the Internet before 1995:


See also

* 1995–99 in webcomics *
History of webcomics The history of webcomics follows the advances of technology, art, and business of comics on the Internet. The first comics were shared through the Internet in the mid-1980s. Some early webcomics were derivatives from print comics, but when the Wor ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Early webcomics History of comics History of the Internet 20th century-related lists