T Campbell's Blog

The book's foreword is done-- I think. I took it as a chance to address some of the questions about the book as raised by D.J. Coffman and my own sleepless nights. I'm not 100% sure it's the best way to lead, because it does "go negative" a bit before going positive.

So I'm quoting the whole dang thing here for your review. See what you think. (Bear in mind that I want to reach both webcomics people and non-webcomics people with this.)

In case the above isn't clear, comments welcome. Comments begged for!

HISTORY OF WEBCOMICS (2005/2006 edition)

FOREWORD: QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING

The History of Webcomics: Who Cares?

Death tolls are in the millions. Cancer and AIDS continue to ravage our population, oil reserves spiral steadily toward depletion and some people say that 9-11 was the beginning of the end for the civilized world.

Miracles await us. We’ve conquered smallpox and polio, mastered the atom, looked into the stars, seen our own brainwaves. People live longer and healthier lives than ever. And though war and disease still cover the earth, hope remains for an age of peace and prosperity, a fair global economy, justice for all.

These matters should demand our attention. They should consume us.

Yet, here is a book about comics on the World Wide Web.

What right does it have to exist?

This right: The arts matter. Even at their humblest, even if their only goals are cheap thrills or cheap laughs. When the world grows cruel, thrills and laughs can be our most treasured possessions. On our worst of worst days, they can keep us from pulling a trigger.

Even at their humblest, comics give those thrills and laughs to different people with different backgrounds, different experiences, different minds. On the platform of the Web, these thrills and laughs can spread across the planet as never before. And suddenly a systems administrator in Arizona has something in common with a famous Iraqi architect and blogger.[1]

Shared experiences like these affix us to one another like bricks in the building of a better world. And the still image, unlike film, radio or text, can bring ideas across in a single glance. That may make it the fastest-drying “glue” of all.

And comics can have much higher ambitions than this. Award-winning comics have given first-hand accounts of the Holocaust, modern Iran and life with cancer. Comics have given safety instructions for first aid, airplane crashes and terrorist attacks. They have re-imagined the very principles of art and narrated the history of the world.[2]

But their audience can only go as far as their distribution channels. The most long-lasting channel—newspaper syndication—hobbles their size while the most “pure” channel—American comic books’ “direct market”—hobbles their audience, and comics in both channels either conform to a few rigid genres or don’t last very long. The Web offers an alternative where comics can be as large or small as their artists want, free from syndicate interference or publishing costs, and found by anyone in the world with a computer and a connection.

The Web is a blessing for this art—for all the arts, in fact. We need to look at how it works, and has worked, to figure out how to use it best—for the benefit of readers, of artists, of the world.

Planned Obsolescence?

But why a history?

Antarctic Press and I are publishing this book in early 2006, and I finished its last draft in mid-2005. Though a few milestones led up to it, the first true webcomic only launched in 1993.[3] That’s only a dozen years. The first dozen years of newspaper strips only produced a few strips that historians remember today, and almost none that broke out of the restrictions of vaudeville comedy.[4] The “Golden Age” of comic books lasted over twelve years, or longer, depending on whom you ask, but no one had the perspective to call it that until another ten years later.[5]

With these precedents, we might assume that webcomics are still current events. And in some ways they are. Their first wave of pioneers has more or less retired the field, but many of the second wave are still working on the same projects they started seven or eight years ago.

But things move faster these days. The Web has gone from being a noncommercial geek toy to a hurricane of investor dollars to a disgraced, depressed enterprise to a healthy, robust network of businesses and free services, all in the space of twelve years.

Webcomics have likewise grown. In their early days, they were almost all crude single drawings, clearly imitating printed comic strips or television animation. Their creators had some hope that they’d find an audience, but had little idea who their audience would be. A few of them coveted those investor dollars, but most didn’t have any kind of plan for making money without them.

Today “webcartoonists” have developed genres, art styles, business models and a culture all their own, while acclimating a growing wave of immigration from print. The pace of change has been rapid, and as this book nears completion it shows no sign of slowing.

Which begs the question: why a book in the first place? Won’t it go out of date too quickly? Why not a blog, or a wiki, or some other Web-based text format? Indeed, this project started as a series of articles on Comixpedia, a website devoted to covering webcomics. For at least a year after its release, you can find supplementary “patches” at http://www.webcomics.org/webcomics. And the ensuing years may see an updated edition or a “Volume Two.”

Regardless, print has too many benefits to pass up, including portability, a more well-rounded marketplace, easier reading for a work of this length and high-resolution layouts that can better accommodate text and images together. What’s more, it means this book is “flying without a net,” bound by its format to stick to the points that will matter in the long term. Blogs often get caught up in transient matters.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Finally, there’s the question of bias.

Webcomics don’t have much in the way of “outsider commentary.” Its most prominent critics at this writing are probably Scott McCloud, William G and Eric Burns, all of whom have webcomics of their own. I won’t be an outsider, either. I’ve been involved at almost every level: as writer, editor, reporter, community member, letterer and occasional (very bad) artist. I’ve also kept deep ties with the two highest-earning “collectives” of webcomics.

Naturally, this has left me more familiar with some comics than others, even excluding the ones I’ve written myself (which I’ll save for the afterword). At times, the best example I can find comes from a friend, and I may be unaware of another perfectly good one. But I’ve read many new comics for the purpose of this history. I’ve relied not on hearsay or opinion, but on interviews and verifiable quotes and facts. I’ve done my best to balance the account, criticizing even my friends and the companies with which I’ve worked. And I freely invite criticism of this volume, so that the “patches,” and the next volume, can be better still.

This field is too important to do anything less.

The arts matter.

Let’s begin.

[1] Martin Lebl and “Salam Pax.” Information gathered from http://talkinghead.keenspace.com/d/20001207.html, http://dear_raed.blogspot.com, http://www.5z.com/martin/resume and http://slate.msn.com/id/2083847.
[2] Respectively, Maus, Persepolis 1 and 2, Our Cancer Year and Mom’s Cancer, uncopyrighted works found on airlines like US Air and United, The Boy Scout Handbook, http://www.ready.gov, Understanding Comics and the currently incomplete Cartoon History of the Universe. By no means is this list exhaustive: there may be other award-winning Holocaust comics, for instance.
[3] Doctor Fun, as we’ll see.
[4] Frank C. Rizzo, “Seeing ourselves in the funny papers,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 21, 2003.
[5] Mark Evanier, Comic Books And Other Necessities Of Life, 2005; Les Daniels, Superman: The Complete History (1938-1998), 1998; “Golden Age of Comic Books” Wikipedia entry, http://www.answers.com/topic/golden-age-of-comic-books, 2005.