Thursday 16 October 2014

An Overview On Original Web Comics

By Patty Goff


Everyone is probably familiar with web comics because of their emergence in the mid eighties. For those who do not know what original web comics are, basically they are comic strips that are published on the internet and not on print like original comic strips are. This brief history will be able to provide an idea on how these strips started and got popular.

Now it was only during the mid eighties that web comics were actually created although they did not become popular yet during this time. The very first one was in fact created by Eric Willikin and was a parody of the Wizard of Oz known as Wizards in Stitches. He made use of a program known as Compuserve to spread his work.

Now sometime during 1991, there was yet another one that came out known as Where the Buffaloes Roam written by Hand Bjordahl. Eventually there was another one that was created by David Farley. This one was named Doctor Fun and came out during 1993.

After the year 1993, there were a lot of internet cartoons that came out because the internet became more popular and accessible to people everywhere. Now the comics that were made during that time were actually black and white and identical to the ones that can be found in the newspaper. Two very popular ones were Nukees and Polymer City Chronicles.

During the year 1996 up to the year 2000, this period was known as the age of Singularity. In this time, it was actually possible now for people to make money out of making internet comics and getting a lot of views. Eventually more trendy styles came out and most of them were based on the drawings of Japanese comics known as Manga.

Now things became really interesting during the start of the year 2001 even up until the year 2006. The reinvention of internet comic strips was during this time where the gaming comic strips as well as the nerdy gag strips made its way into the scene. It was actually during this time that independent artists went from print into the online world.

During the start of the year 2007, webcomics hit its peak of popularity as many more people decided that it is more entertaining to just read short strips online as compared to in print. Of course they eventually made their way to social media. Since social media became a big thing, people used it as a medium to gain popularity.

Nowadays, apps are the latest when it comes to technology. It was because of the popularity of mobile apps that mobile app comics have also gained a lot of popularity as well. Artists have been very flexible over time so that they could gain more popularity and keep afloat in this changing world. One of the modern forms of internet strips are actually memes. In fact, memes are pretty much like comic strips since they make use of pictures and words and is known to be the modern day form of web comics.




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