Webcomics: Where the Adventure Begins

I'm stuck on comic strips. Which is weird - for me. In a funny way, I miss 'em, so maybe that's why. Then again, merely thinking about "strippers" at all (see Monday's Special Edition to get the full mind scoop -- 'Dabbler) probably caused some kind of freak brain event. Like Flash Forward last week, without crashing helicopters and kangaroos.

See, I can't recall the last time I read the comics section in the local paper -- hell, in any newspaper. No one I know gets it anymore. Makes me feel sorry for all those out of work paper boys. But hey, toss a netbook on the porch and I'll subscribe to The New York Times. Online edition, of course.

Most people these days can rattle off their domain name hopped up on morphine, but remembering their house number would take a hypnotic miracle. Is that you? It's me, and guess what? We're fine. Comic strips have entered the new millennium, and they're called webcomics.

WHERE I EXPLAIN WEBCOMICS

Webcomics are all the comics you can find - and usually only find -- on the World Wide Web, the good ol' internet, our home away from home. Most webcomics are really web "comic strips" (or webstrips) rather than web "comic books," although you'll find a handful out there resembling the latter. Like the news strips of nostalgia, webcomics tend to be self-contained little vignettes with a regular cast of characters, using all the standard conventions of the traditional comic strip like word-balloons and thought-clouds and such. And the talented folks who create webcomics are every bit as reliable as Bill Watterson or Gary Trudeau was: most artists publish at least one new "issue" on their site every week.

Web comics have a lot of differences from their newspaper counterparts, too. For one thing, internet strips are much more diverse than traditional comic strips. They exist in any category: super hero, horror, comedy, romance, funny animal, science fiction, police drama, noir, slice-of-life. There are webcomics made especially for kids, webcomics that are political or poignant or way over NC-17, and there's webcomics for the LBGT crowd, too.

Better yet, webcomics remove all the frustration of the daily newspaper strips. Remember having to search down the page past Rhymes with Orange, Beetle Bailey, and all the stuff you didn't want to read just to find The Family Circus? The next generation of comics strips says, "No More!" A quick visit to any web comics' homepage with your email address in tow, and nine times out of ten, your favorite strip -- and just your favorite strip -- will arrive in your G-Mail the minute a new installment hits the net. They make for a great mid-day treats at the office, and the next email you spam everybody in your Outlook with will be worry-free.

The best thing about webcomics, though, is also what most readers of those webcomics may overlook: webcomics aren't expensive. Granted, web sites don't always come on the cheap, and for those of us who can't speak foreign languages like C+++++++, designing a website might cost a pretty penny. But on the whole, take it from s a guy with self-publishing aspirations: without the internet, the lion's share of creators who have put their art out into the universe would instead be bagging groceries down at the 'Dixie or blogging about comics from a hosted platform of your choice.

WHERE I UNTANGLE THE WEB

Typing "webcomics" into Google, Yahoo!, or your preferred web browser should get you well on your way to becoming webcomics' newest subscriber. But in the spirit of magic that compels our every effort at abbracadabbling, we wanted to make the transition from newsprint to cyberspace as easy as possible.

As Editor-in-Chief of Webcomics, Brad Guigar has constructed one damn handy and informative source for readers and creators of webcomics alike. The site offers free membership, articles on a variety of comics and webcomics related subjects, member forums, tutorials, videos, links, and even a personals section! Brad, along with some of webcomics top creators (like Scott Kurtz of PVP fame), have also recently begun Webcomics Weekly, a new podcast all about webcomics available on iTunes -- so next time you're shopping for that new Britney Spears single, dabblers, go ahead and download their free podcast, too!

For a webcomics info site that might be a little more friendly to the casual reader, you might want to mouse-click over to The Webcomicker. Gilead maintains his site in a very welcome manner, and his love of webcomics as a fan and also as a creator both shine through. It's a personal touch in an internet that can often be too cool.

PVP: Player Vs Player | 29 September 2009 by Scott Kurtz

The most difficult hurdle to reading webcomics, as you might have already surmised, is just fining them. It's a big world, after all. The following websites are the Dabbler's Top Three picks as the best places to begin any webcrawling adventure.

Comixpedia comes in at #1 and #2 on our short countdown. The site, much like its inspiration Wikipedia, is a great overall resource for many things pertaining to the four-color world of comics, print, web, you name it. For webcomics specifically, Comixpedia offers many avenues to the a greater understanding of the medium. But you'll probably want to try their webcomics directory which classifies current webcomics into 47 different genres . If you know what you like, they'll help you find it in a flash.

Another way Comixpedia can help direct you to your next favorite webcomic is via their directory of webcomics blogs. Just like you get every day here on abbracadabbling, bloggers who blog mainly on the world of webcomics will offer you their expert information, insight, and passion on a regular basis. Definitely a great way to expose yourself to yet another new branch of the comics art form.

Lastly, claiming the Bronze Medal tonight, is one of the internet's best webcomics directories, Hot Web Comics. It's a fun, fast, and colorful place with oodles of information, direct links, and more. You can see everything they've got for you right here.

I usually find at least one new webcomic every time I set out on a webcrawling adventure. My latest discovery are Zach Weiner's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomics. Zach presents some really funny and often odd stuff, using the single panel format that you're familiar with from the newspaper dailies. Think The Far Side meets a cartoony The Twilight Zone.

I thought I'd post two of my SBMC faves for you tonight. If you like 'em, jump on over to Zach's website to see all his great material.

Dinosaurs (SMBC)

Speeding Bullets (SMBC)

I'd love to hear if SMBC struck your funny bone. Write in to Back Issues and tell me all about it. And if you've read a webcomic you really liked, or if you make one of your own, be sure to let me know, because I've got a big mouth. Back Issues is the spot where two-way talk begins!

Dabbler's Note: Keep your eyes -- and your graphic imagination -- peeled. Next time we get artsy, I'll reveal the secret identity of my favorite webcomic...and I think you'll like it just as much I as I do. Stay tuned!

What's with the Strips, Anyway?

Comic books were my daily entertainment long before I started rummaging through mom's morning edition of The Arizona Daily Star to read the comic strips tucked somewhere inside. Garfield, Peanuts, and my favorite, Bill Amend's Fox Trot, usually made the ride to school a little more enjoyable.

Comic strips predated their cousin, the comic book, by several decades in this country. So it makes sense that most of the earliest American comic book readers - primarily children, immigrants, and the poor -- likely came to the new medium because they'd already fallen in love with the stories and characters from the newspapers.

Comic strip stories were simple, humorous, sometimes bold and outrageous, occasionally subversive, and frequently representative. (I'd get a kick out of Fox Trot for the same reason; I often found parts of me inside Amend's panels. Can you tell?)

But maybe the best thing about comic strips was that they were easy reads. No one needed an education to appreciate the jokes inside their balloons, or a membership at the MOMA to enjoy the art work. In most cases, their readers didn't even need to speak English to understand what was going on inside comic strips, or to walk away from them without getting the punch line.

Yeah, comic strips were definitely cool back in the day. Then again, newspaper comics haven't changed all that much since they were first published over a century ago. But nearly everything else has, and comic books especially have come a long way, baby. Today, comic books stand at the threshold of literature, even fine art. 'Mainstream' comics, from Batman to The Amazing Spider-Man and Hell Boy, have produced characters best described as 'cultural icons'; their stories increasingly responsible for Hollywood's most successful films in the US and abroad.

To be fair, some modern comic strips have gained a measure of success their predecessors would never have known. Peanuts, and a few others including Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and Doonesbury, have become enduring 'classics,' finding life beyond the newspapers; The Far Side, Garfield, and Dilbert are notable examples of strips adopted by pop culture; and classic comic strips like Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Zorro, The Lone Ranger, have literally been co-opted by comic books and science fiction movies and television. Buck Rogers, another scifi slash comic book favorite, began as a Penny Dreadful (or dimestore pulp magazine) before becoming a comic strip in 1929, nearly a decade before the first comic book.

History and achievement aside, comics - strips and books - are no longer America's eye candy. Animation, CGI, and especially video gaming are the top picks for Gen Y folks. Younger readers with a taste for illustrated fare most often dine on McDonald's and manga, the Japanese graphic novel. Once popular only to the Japanese demographic, manga has infiltrated the US (and European) book market, greatly outselling American comics in a way that can only be described as phenomenal. Yet while American comic books have found sanctuary -- and a dedicated reading audience -- inside specialty stores (known collectively as the Direct Market) across the country, comic strips feel a little more endangered every day as their newsprint homes disappear from the publishing landscape.

No, comic strips weren't responsible for the comic book addiction I developed thirty-odd years ago. Thankfully, this form of addiction is a chronic, manageable thing. But its lifelong presence does make me wonder: What manner of sorcery transforms an otherwise well-adjusted individual into a comic book reader in today's Age of Astrophysics and Pokemon? What's the hook that makes potential newbies bite... and is it the same thing that reels them in? How does the comic 'bug' spread among the unsuspecting and suspecting alike, and can it be cured?

All sound questions that deserve to be met with bravery, I think. Which is just another way of me saying: You've all been warned...

The Yellow Kid, the first comic with a continuing series and regular characters, was created in 1894 by Richard Fenton Outcault. Outcault was a comics pioneer, and is generally credited as the inventor of the comic strip. After The Yellow Kid lost its fan base in 1901, Outcault introduced readers to a character still recognized by shoe-wearing folk today: Buster Brown.

Rudolph Dirks introduced The Katzenjammer Kids to US newspapers via King Features Syndicate in 1897. Although The Kids arrived on scene after Outcault's Kid, Dirks' strip actually originated many of the conventions which most define the comic strip art form. Using a sequence of panels to tell a story, as well as his use (and that of F.B. Opper's Happy Hooligan) of word balloons to indicate speech, stand at the forefront of his contribution to comic strips.

Here's what Buck Rogers looked like in the comics. Buck, along with Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, jumped away from their Pulp origins and into the comic strip format. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century began publication in 1929 and remained in print until 1967.

And here's Buck Rogers sporting current comic book vogue, with "clothes" by artist John Cassaday. Newly re-imagined at Dynamite Entertainment, this latest comic series to feature Buck and his 25th Century cast of characters began monthly publication last spring. There's rumors in our century that a feature film may soon be in Buck's future.

Lucy is featured on the cover of The Complete Peanuts, Fantagraphics Books second volume collecting Charles Schultz's legendary strip from the years 1953-1954. Peanuts delivered over 50 years of new stories to American comic strips and those the world over.

(This one I don't get. At all. If you do, please leave me a Back Issue. Thanks!) Sailor Moon (accurately translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon) remains one of the most popular Japanese creations from the last two decades to drop anchor on American soil. Created by Naoko Takeuchi, Sailor is the epitome of 'the magical girl' genre, and has grown into a media franchise that includes animated cartoons (or anime), video games, toys and dolls and, of course, manga. The manga series Sailor Moon was first published in 1992.

Superman appears on the cover of the first edition collecting Alex Ross' work for DC Comics. I can't think of a more appropriate word to describe what Superman, Batman, and their super friends have truly become in today's popular culture. Mythology is a beautiful book, and abbracadabbler's can find out all about it inside our Amazon.com store.

And finally, Pokemon's Pikachu. Satoshi Tajiri gave this little yellow critter -- and many, many others of his kind -- life in 1996. Thanks to Nintendo and a great host of other media, even Superman might lose a popularity contest against this formidable foe.

Yeah, I thought I'd begin and end the pictures part of the blog with something yellow. If I like anything as much as I like columns, its gotta be internal consistency. Laters!

I know it's late, thank you

There was a guy in a bar one night that got really drunk. I mean really, really, really drunk. When the bar closed he got up to go somewhere. He probably was going home. As he stumbled out the door, he saw a nun walking on the sidewalk. So he stumbled over to the nun and punched her hard in the face. Well, the nun was really surprised but before she could do or say anything, he slugged her again. This time she fell down and so he stumbled over to her and kicked her in the ass. Then he picked her up and threw her into a wall. And then he kicked her in the ass again. By this time the nun was pretty weak and couldn't move. So then he stumbled over to her, put his face right next to hers and said, "Not very strong tonight, are you, Batman?"

WEDNESDAY CONNECTION: A Notable Twit...er, Tweet

WEDNESDAY CONNECTION

... is it that time again?

Hey, everybody. I'm sitting here with my next door neighbor Raley. She's a ball to hang with, plus she's got good taste in comics, which doesn't hurt at all when it comes to friends. And just because some people out there in this crazy world like to make minor celebrities out of notable bloggers like Perez Hilton or your the 'Dabbler here, allow me to squash the rumor mill right now, folks. Raley's is just a friend who happens to be a girl. Who happens to be sprawled out on my bed as we speak in a pair of my boxers and her boyfriend's T-shirt. Notice the keyword in that last sentence is boyfriend - not sprawled, not bed, and not boxers. Got it?

You're good people. So while Raley gets back to my copy of last week's new Batgirl, we'll get back to your favorite connection and mine -- the Wednesday Connection.

THE SURROGATES ARRIVE FRIDAY

Another comic book-inspired flick hits theaters tomorrow, The Surrogates! It's true, too many of us got burned by Whiteout earlier this month. Now there's a movie that should live up to its name and go erase itself, am I right?

The Surrogates will restore your faith in comic book adaptation movies of the non-superhero fare, trust me. I mean, how can it go wrong? It's got (1) Bruce Willis as FBI Agent Harvey Greer, and you know Bruce always kicks ass (2) robots everywhere - the "surrogates" -- that look just like all the real people in the movie except they're even sexier (3) futuristic special effects plus the whole "conspiracy thing" going on -- one of my favorite plot devices btw (4) scores of underlying messages -- but they're mostly about sex, looking sexy, people's obsession with being sexy with just a little bit of the technological tipping point Malcolm Gladwell stuff thrown in for the more cerebral viewer AND (5) even Greg Rucka's doing promo for the flick tomorrow on Live! With Regis and Kelley!

I really expect Director Jonathan Mostow to do a bang-up job with his adaptation of Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele's critically-acclaimed Surrogates action-thriller comic series, and so I'll definitely be in the front seats tomorrow night. Need more convincing? Mania.com just put a brand-new preview clip from the movie up on their site, and as of this morning, you can read the entire first chapter of The Surrogates graphic novel for free over at Newsarama.com.

MISHKA'S MASTERS

There used to be a time when I didn't leave the house without a baseball cap on my head. I had a look, dig? I don't so much anymore, but I still like to think I haven't lost my eye for fashion.

That's why I noted this trio of new "street-wise" baseball caps from Mishka NYC. All three have been inspired by characters from the classic 1980's toys, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. They definitely make some kind of statement, and are available only through Miska's online shop. Take a peek.

ALL-STAR TWEET POWER

My mobile phone can barely squawk out a text never mind tweet. Yet as much as I'm convinced that Twitter's a passing fad and not one of life's basic necessities, the social networking site's colored me two shades of impressed this week.

WildStorm Comics boss and superstar artist Jim Lee tweeted welcome news last week: fans of Lee's and writer Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder should be reading a new issue of that series before the year is over. And to prove he's not just tweetin' Dixie, his new pencils are up on his Twitter page.

Twitter's amazing. I could fart right now, tweet it, and Comic Book Resources or some such would have the news posted before I made it across the room. I love the people at CBR and the work they do is impressive. I'm just saying Twitter does some %#@*! - up stuff in a very intriguing way.

According to TweeSpeed, over 20,079 tweets will be posted in the next minute. Because that's how many actual tweets posted live-time one minute ago. Frak me.

The take-home "tweet" there is to Tweet good content - and for Pete's sake, don't mis-tweet, especially on purpose. Lord help the mis-tweeter, man.

(Raley's laughing. I guess she thinks this is funny. Raley, I'm deadly serious when it comes to tweeting, okay?)

My Case In Point:

Tim Pocock. I've never heard of Tim Pocock before. With a name like that, right? Anyway, Pocock's a young actor, the same guy who played a gradeschool-aged Cyclops in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the DVD of which hit stores last week, including PM Comics on Amazon - where we make getting a little Pocock, easy.) In my book, he's also a Mean MisTweeter.

Pocock posted a tweet last week that catapulted fans of Marvel Entertainment's X-Men film franchise into a happy frenzy. From major movie news-sites to top comics industry mecca-sites like Newsarama to Pocock's own webpage (which is web-mastered by his "official fan club" aka Pocock's mom, no doubt), word spread like Emma Frost's legs across the web, confirming as truth what before was only X-speculation.

Pocock's post:

currently shooting Australian TV series till February 2010…then X-men first class

[If you haven't been to the comic shop recently, Marvel Comics' X-Men: First Class tells the adventures of Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, and Jean Grey as wild 'n crazy mutant teenagers attending Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Bryan Singer's name has been bandied about as being possibly attached - or attached soon - to direct the project, and a spec script has apparently even been written by the guy who created The O.C. television show.]

Short story long, the tweet was an utter sham. (Of course, so was my bit about Greg Rucka being on Regis and Kelley!) It took maybe two days, but Popcock was back on Twitter Friday, tweeting to a very different tune as he requested that any sites posting his mis-tweeted news retract the fateful tweet. He wrote:

victim of cruel prank.last tweet=NOT me.AM filming Aussie show till2010. no official word on XM:FC but am interested.please post retraction.

Retract they did, too. Lauren Shuler Donner, the woman responsible for producing every X-movie to date, humorously called the whole embarrassing incident 'Pocockgate.' She debunked the tweet, stating there was no truth to it whatsoever, and that the movie, still more concept than reality, has not a single young actor attached to it.

And in case you missed it: someone's out there, it seems, cruelly pranking poor Pocock. This unknown nemesis is even hacking into his Twitter account to make him look bad before all of comics fandom AND Lauren Shuler Donner. Please, my young Cyclops. The X-Men is no place for a MisTweeter.

I think Pocock's days as a mutant are behind him, don't you?