A Webcomic Primer

Now that I've had a collection of links to various webcomics up for at least a few months I feel it's time I paused briefly to explain them. And myself for that matter as webcomics can be a bit... oh... peculiar.

I have always enjoyed comics. Not so much the Cathys and Family Circuses of the comic world -- I truly wish they were never shown in the printed press again -- but as a youngin' I loved to read Garfield and Peanuts, and, now that my tastes have become more refined -- or ridiculous depending on your vantage point -- I enjoy many printed comics like Doonesbury, Boondocks, and others. With the Internet has come access to a whole different world of illustrated joke and story telling with which to pass the time. Without the censorship and needs for broad appeal that comes with massive print subscriptions the humor can be much more creative -- and profane as the case may be. As it seems even many who are quite familiar with the Internet are not terribly familiar with its webcomics, however, I decided to share the ones I like with you all. And also so I could have a convenient set of bookmarks for whenever I am not on my own computer -- but hey let's focus on how considerate I am.

So to get a better appreciation of webcomics I feel certain general characteristics should be known. For example the authors of most webcomics tend to be young males in their mid to late twenties with a few in their early thirties. There are some older writers as well in addition to a few women here and there, but mostly it's young guys. The target audience for these comics is similarly also young males in their mid to late twenties probably because, perhaps obviously, young males tend to be the ones who waste the most time on the Internet. Many comics have significant appeal to women as well, and I imagine most aim for gender neutrality in their appeal, but by and large I would gamble the comedy of webcomics is much the comedy of male computer geeks. With these facts in mind it should probably not come as any great surprise then that the characters in many stories are doofy guys and well endowed ladies. Again these are generalizations and there are certainly many webcomics without an inept but lovable male protagonists or any conveniently large breasted women, but pick one at random and you'll see.

After reading a few you'll probably notice a few other common threads. The actual artistic capabilities of most webcomic artists, for example, tends to be lacking. The humor tends to be based largely on the random and ironic most the time though some puns unfortunately do frequently find their way in. And there for whatever reason tends to be a large volume of webcomics with talking animals or robots in them. Is this because nonhuman characters can voice opinions and provide views of ourselves that we would not easily accept if it were to come from another in our species? Probably not. They mostly seem to pull comic relief duties, but, hey, animals can be introspective too.

Before I close I'd like to share two more things. First is that the webcomics I have listed tend to buck much of the trend I've just gone over mainly because it got old reading the same comic with different names over and over again so the more unique ones had more lasting appeal. As such I feel the amount of comics centered around some sort of ridiculous fantasy, sci-fi, or "normal life" are not very well represented. Thank goodness.

And lastly, if you think these comics suck. Check out this guy. He's got issues. Mental issues.