The History of Online Comics

December 8, 2004 9:40 PM

The History of Online Comics, by T Campbell. A painstakingly annotated eight-part series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] ranging from the first webcomics through the inception of the collectives and on to the present day. A good read, even if he does seem to think that Boulder is in the Midwest. [via Websnark]
posted by Johnny Assay (13 comments total)

A pioneer.
posted by onkelchrispy at 9:47 PM on December 8, 2004

Good post, even though Boulder is in the Midwest.
posted by bingo at 10:42 PM on December 8, 2004

If there are web-comics other than Overcompensating, well gosh, I don't want to hear about it.
posted by Simon! at 11:11 PM on December 8, 2004

YES! this is why the internet was invented. Great Post!
posted by joelf at 12:15 AM on December 9, 2004

[this is very good.]
posted by jb at 12:42 AM on December 9, 2004

Great post! Five years ago, my very long reading list of daily webcomics was my main incentive to get broadband. It was nice to see a bunch of them mentioned in the article, although I don't know how he wrote an eight-part history of webcomics without mentioning the always-filthy-and-offensive Space Moose, or other similarly offensive "mature" comics which you would never see in a daily for-profit newspaper (WARNING: *every* page of the Space Moose link is oh-so-NSFW).
posted by Planter at 2:05 AM on December 9, 2004

Boulder is not in the midwest, technically it's in the mountains (sorta, kinda). The midwest ends when you get to the plains states...

[and: this IS good]
posted by kamylyon at 2:47 AM on December 9, 2004

Bah, on reading MeTa, I wouldn't want to be accused of turning the thread into a Boyzone. I linked to the filthiness because it is a particularly good example of the type of non-mainstream humor that the web can be so useful for distributing since you don't have to worry about the Parent's Campaign to Turn the Whole World into Frigging Romper Room filing complaints with the FCC.

There are all sorts of comics on the web that may not have enough of an audience in a particular geographic area to get published by the local daily, even if the content is family friendly (or at least not purposely offensive), that will do quite well by accessing a larger potential audience on the web. Sluggy Freelance or User Friendly, both mentioned in the article, are good examples of that.
posted by Planter at 3:31 AM on December 9, 2004

Achewood! Goats! Scarygoround! Sinfest! Orneryboy!
posted by Jupiter Jones at 8:25 AM on December 9, 2004

Hey there, Jupiter - How's Titus doin' these days?

Ironically, today of all days, the Achewood archives and other parts of the site other than the front seem to be timing out. So for today only, I can say: Achewood sucks.

Meanwhile, I'm still tickled pink by PBF, which has been posted here a couple times. How can you not love last week's Billy Bunny?
posted by soyjoy at 8:42 AM on December 9, 2004

No Pokey the Penguin? Scandalous!
posted by Frankieist at 3:02 PM on December 9, 2004

The midwest ends when you get to the plains states...


I'm not sure what you mean by 'get to,' but Kansas, which is a plains state if there ever was one, is in the midwest. Google "boulder" and "midwest" together and you'll find all sorts of organizations referring to themselves as midwestern that include people living in Boulder.
posted by bingo at 7:00 PM on December 9, 2004

Titus had that heart attack back in the 60s. Never been the same since.... Mathilda was devastated.

Achewood was up when I accessed it yesterday, and it's still working for me today, showing me the anatomy of a mouse murder entirely in sound and the thoughts of a stuffed bear. And he managed to work The Beatles' "When I'm 64" in there. Nice.
posted by Jupiter Jones at 12:26 PM on December 10, 2004