Webcomics Part 5

Webcomics: The Proliferation of Geek Culture and Web 2.0

                With the growth and development of webcomics this rejection for artistic exploration and critique became more apparent, in great part because the fan-culture became the center stage. Webcomics in a way reinforced the ideas of escapism because they were comics that focused on the lives of these geeks who immersed themselves in fantasy. One example of this occurrence is the webcomic Penny Arcade, whose main characters were not only geeks, but alter egos of their creators who were also geeks. (Holkins) These types of comics elated the escapist behavior of fan-culture, and in fact created a new way to live vicariously through these heroes because they were more like themselves. Furthermore, what allowed for the expansion of webcomics into a more mainstream audience was the fact that the word geek had undergone a change in the last couple of decades, and after the fan-culture had developed and erupted into mainstream pop culture the term geek changed. The word geek was in a sense appropriated by the geeks and turned into a badge of pride that decreed them as experts of their own fantasy worlds and who were also at the forefront of the technological movement, but who were nevertheless only amateurs. Henry Jenkins notes that “[t]he concept of the active audience, so controversial two decades ago, is now taken for granted by everyone...” (1) This change in our culture that Jenkins is pointing to suggests that our lives are so full of interaction now thanks to the internet that many of us do not realize that in a sense we have become part of this geek movement, or at least the spirit of the amateur, who is able to participate in discussions of things that without the internet he would not have been able to discuss with others before. This new found approval of fan-culture, or geek culture, allowed for the acceptance of escapism into the mainstream. While in its beginnings comics provided a mild distraction from the mundane, the webcomics of today have exploded into a culture that prizes an almost complete withdrawal from reality and society. The internet has facilitated this in several ways, one as previously mentioned is the fact that it allowed for a wider spread of fan-culture. However, more importantly the accessibility of the internet and advances in technology have paradoxically opened up the world of fan-culture but also allowed for a more secluded, and ego-centric form of enjoying one's fantasies.

                With the growth of the web 2.0, the ability to join online communities has been facilitated even more more. However, advances in technology have also begun to create a society which is all about the individual, where the rest of the world only works as background to their own fantasy. Maasik and Solomon point out that the web of today allows us “to control exactly what information we present to others while online” and “offers us the freedom – even a fantasy of freedom – to be whatever we want to be with others.” (426) This is particularly apparent in webcomics as it allows for the creators to make versions of themselves who they wish they could be and construct the lives they picked out for them. (Holkins) These comics creators are working in the spirit of the “You” culture of the internet because these comics are all about them and their interests. Although many comics creators claim that their readers contribute and can engage in discussion with them, nothing much separates these webcomics from something like a personal blog where the owner discusses their particular opinions on popular culture.
Webcomics creator Danielle Corsetto claims that “'[p]art of the reason...that [they have] become successful is that [they] put a lot of [their] personality directly into the strip...[p]eople want to know a lot about the personal lives of the people who are creating the comic strips...” (qtd. in Elmasry) Webcomics creators seem to be trying to formulate an environment that is inviting for the readers, constructing the illusion that the readers are also part of the community of webcomics. In a certain sense however, this is not far from the truth, but truly there is no real community as each individual is living out their fantasies on their own sites. In a sense this touches upon one of American culture's biggest paradoxes which is how the idea of the “self-reliant individualist” is allowed to run side by side with the “conformist.” (Maasik and Solomon 484) For webcomic creators the idea of community seems to be quite important, but this does not change the fact that the underlying story is all about them. This demonstrates the way in which the internet has fabricated the illusion of individualism by democratizing art, allowing everyone to have a voice, while simultaneously allowing everyone to speak at once. Everyone believes they are being heard individually but in reality they are all heard as a buzz that is vaguely in unison, but nevertheless out of tune. 

                Webcomics are basically representations of someone else's fantasy, which are allowing others to live vicariously through them. They create a dream within a dream, and demonstrate the way in which the internet has perpetuated the desire of the masses to live outside of reality by enveloping them within multiple levels of fantasy. This results in creating the illusion of freedom, while webcomic creators and their fellow fans and co-creators, believe they have been given the key to freedom to be free thinking individuals, in reality they have lost sight of the fact that in being caught up in the latest pop idol drama, or the newest big video game hit, they have lost their freedom to think and criticize analytically the important social and political events that enfold around them.

(Originally Written on December 13, 2011 for Pop Culture English Seminar with Professor Solomon at California State University, Northridge)

Works Cited

Jenkis, Henry. “Convergence Culture.” Sings of Life in the U.S.A. : Readings on Popular Culture for   Writers. 6^thed. Ed. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. Boston: Bedford/St. Matin's 2009. 432 - 445. Print.

Maasik, Sonia and Jack Solomon, eds. Signs of Life in the U.S.A. : Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. 6^thed. Boston: Bedford/St. Matin's 2009. 426 - 430, 484 - 485. Print.

Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers. New York: New York University Press 2006. Print.

Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.

Guigar, Kellett, Kurtz and Kris Straub. How to Make Webcomics. Berkeley: Image Comics, Inc., 2008. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994. Print.

Sabir, Roger. Comics, Comix, & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1996. Print.

Ryce, Walter. “Notes from the Underground.” The Reference Shelf: Graphic Novels and Comic Books. 82.5 (2010): 27-35. Print.

Fenty, Houp, and Laurie Taylor. “Webcomics: The Influence and Continuation of the Comix Revolution.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 1.2 (2004): n. pag. Web. 10 Oct. 2011.

Dotinga, Randy. “Webcomics Attract Spit, Fans.” Wired 18 Jul. 2005. Web 10 Oct. 2011

Baker, Chris. “The Dorks Behind Penny Arcade, and Obscure Webcomic Turned Vidgame Empire.” Wired 21 Aug. 2007. n. pag. Web. 12 Oct. 2011

Elmasry, Faiza. “Sidestepping Newspapers, Comics Go Online.” Voice of America 12 Sep. 2011. n. pag. Web. 12 Oct. 2011

Holkins, Jerry. “Tycho/Jerry.” Penny Arcade Blog 13 Nov. 2009. n. pag. Web. 20 Dec. 2011.

Kurtz, Scott R. “Missed.” PvP10 Oct. 2011. n. pag. Web. 10 Oct. 2011

Watson, Joel. “Leeloo Dallas Multipass.” Hijinks Ensue 8 Aug. 2007. n. pag. Web. 25 Nov. 2011.

Lange, Chris. “bad bad girl gaga.” Capitol Hillbillies 12 Mar. 2010. n. pag. Web. 8 Dec. 2011.

Webcomics Part 4

Comics: The Rise of Geek Culture

                This could further be seen in the fact that the artistic ambitions of the underground would become overshadowed by the rise of what we would now called geek or fan culture in the early eighties. The word “geek” during this time was still considered derisive, and was meant to describe the extremely devoted fans of comic books, science fiction, and technology that immersed themselves in the fictional worlds of comic books. This devotion emerged from the fact that companies like Marvel made their comics specifically to be collected, and fans would create their own massive collections. (Sabir157) A culture soon began to spring up based around this idea of accumulation and soon “marts,”¹and “cons”²began to be organized in order to sell and trade not only comics, but their own fan created magazines called “fanzines,” which discussed and shared knowledge on the subject. The growth of this fan movement along with the need for a new market for comics³, resulted in making the “fan market” into not just another “parallel outlet of little commercial importance” but in making it “the new mainstream.” (Sabir 157) This kind of background is important to keep in mind for two reasons. The first is that it explains the shift in the target audience and shows the way in which it progressed back into an adult market, but continuing to retain those youthful elements that made them so popular in the first place. The second is that it reveals the start of a fan culture that would later expand to create its own empire based on these comics.

                The basic formula in comics was still there, caped, or costumed super hero with nearly inexplicable super powers, but with a new change. The new generation of superheroes were supposedly given psychological depth, and became a sort of mixture between the childhood fantasy world, and the sexually explicit, gritty world, of the underground comix. Some examples of this type of work can been in comics like Alan Moore's Watchmen, and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. These works reshaped the idea of the superhero into one that was meant to be dark and serious, but despite this, and the sex appeal, these comics would still remain inherently fantastical, overshadowing the fact that these new reworkings were trying to comment on society. These graphic novels possessed some kind of social commentary thinly veiled behind their superhero stories, but this was misinterpreted by the fan-base as just a new convention whose realism only worked in making their fantasies more believable, and brought them closer to their world. This attempt to make comics appear more mature to the fan culture would not change anything and comics would continue to be viewed as merely play things that were part of the fan's playground. Fans took to discussing the fantasy world of Batman and the X-Men as if they were real, and even at times would rewrite already established story lines to their own liking and publish them in their fanzines. (Sabir 158) In a sense the fan culture began to control comics, but not in a creative and revolutionary way that would contribute to the development of comics as an art form, and in fact in quite the opposite direction.

                By giving shape to the idea of “Geek Culture,” this fan movement only allowed for the perpetuation of the myth of comics as childish entertainment, only suitable for kids and awkward nerds, who spends their time collecting limited edition comic books. This image of the fan would place them “as marginal to the operations of our culture” and would also result in them being “ridiculed in the media,” as well as becoming “shrouded with social stigma,” which would only help to stifle the literary aspirations of comic creators. (Jenkins 1) Therefore, while the artists themselves did not avoid political and social commentary in their work, the American fans and mainstream was not willing to accept it as a viable way for social commentary because it would shatter their fantasy worlds. The rejection within the fan-base can be seen in the way they took up arms not to explore the serious topics that their favorite comic books might bring up, but to recreate their favorite character's costume to wear at a “con.” Thus, the history of comics presents how there has always been a resistance to dealing with the political in the comics meant for the masses. First, it was social hierarchies which made this distinction, in an attempt to avoid social unrest, but later it would be the masses who would come to prefer and seek fantasy worlds over the harsh reality of the world. The new comics that were making it out to the mainstream preserved the essentially childish element of escapism that they had had as works meant predominately for children, and placed themselves at odds with the thought provoking work of graphic novel artists. Thus it can be seen how American culture not only stepped away from the concept of comics as an art form, but also from any social-political commentary that these might offer opting to view them as secondary aspects of comics, and favoring the fantastical elements.

1Markets

2Conventions

3“The old newsagent market was declining at an alarming rate, but at the same time a more specialized network of 'fan' shops began taking off.” (Sabir 157)

Webcomics Part 3

The Visual of Appeal of Comics: Childish Trash or Political Medium? 

                The visual appeal of comics is particularly important for American comics because the use of comics in newspapers came as a response to Mark Twain's success with his illustrated novels. The idea that books were made more successful thanks to the use of pictures points to the way in which American society took to the childish idea of pictures and text. Americans seemed to prefer their novels to be more like bed time story picture books. It can be said that this preference is due to the fact that pictures in novels provided readers with more tools to immerse themselves within Twain's stories. Scott McCloud suggests that the “cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled...an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm,” and also claims that this is why television cartoons are particularly successful. (36) It can be argued that this idea presents us with a picture of an American society that from its very early history preferred to be submerged into fantasy than to deal with the problems of society. The use of color in comics propelled their success even more, and comics like The Yellow Kid comic strip, became extremely popular. The fantasy world of the comics had become more realistic thus moving readers further into a fantasy world that became more like their own. Readers were not only encouraged to laugh at the funny gag of a comic, but to immerse themselves in a world that was full of laughter and exaggeration outside of their own serious, working class world. In a sense the role of color in comics in the early nineteenth century worked to further the distance between comics and the political, drawing a line between the gray drab world of political news and the fun colorful, careless world of the cartoon. This sense of escapism is one of the inherently childish characteristics that lies at the heart of comics which has magnified itself in the last thirty years and more so thanks to the internet because we can now plunge into our fantasies at any place. By the time comics had made it to America in the nineteenth century the mass produced comic no longer possessed any of the artistic, political, or elite appeal it did in Hogarth's era, and instead began to develop as a purely childish entertainment. It is important to review the extensive history of comics to see that there has always been tension between comics and social-political discourse that ultimately resulted in an alienation between the two.

                Another important aspect to note in order to understand this alienation is the way in which the early comics that were meant as entertainment for adults, became a medium of amusement mainly directed at the youth of America. This began when the humor magazine Puck in 1914 began to change its focus from domestic type humor to humor that would appeal more to a younger audience, and many magazines began to follow suit. This trend would not change until the sixties when counter culture began to use comics as a way of expressing its political ideas. A new movement from the underground erupted, and this new incarnation of comics was dubbed “comix.” These “comix”brought in adult topics that had not been touched on before in the mainstream, such as sex, drugs, and underground/alternative culture. These comix also broke away from regular comic strip, and comic book convention and possessed an artistic flare to them. Comix surfaced in part as a response to the anti-Comics Code that arose in the fifties, which “had stipulated 'no violence', 'no sex', 'no drugs', and 'no social relevance'” (Sabir 92) In the minds of the artists of the underground the Code meant, essentially, that a comic was prevented from saying anything meaningful about the real world, and in defying it they were able to make critiques. Nevertheless, the key word here is “underground,” as this artistic revolution in comics would not be seen in the mainstream. Newspapers comic strips and comic books would retain their status as entertainment for children. This is comparable to what we see today where the “serious” graphic novels have taken a back seat and the childish world of webcomics is what has exploded into the mainstream. Some have argued that “webcomic artists are working within the spirit of the Underground movement” and that this is “reflected in their subversion of comic book conventions and their freedom of expression in content and form.” (Fenty and Houp and Taylor, ImageTexT) However, despite the fact that during our time we have experienced ourselves a controversial war experience parallel to that of the Vietnam war, webcomics have very rarely taken advantage of the freedom that the internet provides to approach head on the problems of the Bush administration, the war on terror, or the current economic crisis that the country is facing. Furthermore, webcomics lack the artistic exploration that the underground comix movement once had because they are devoid of any social commentary and while they may be mash ups of old and new styles of comic art they do not experiment with the same artistic ambition. Their main aim is the entertainment of the masses. This can be seen in the way in which many webcomics will experiment with Flash programs to add limited movement and allow for fan interaction with their webcomics. In other words, the so called “experimental expressions,” which are made possible by the freedom that the internet provides for webcomics, are nothing more than bells and whistles that webcomic creators add to their work.

                Graphic comic artists like award winning Art Spiegelman¹utilized the comics medium during the sixties and seventies to “ 'unselfconsciously [redefine] what comics could be, by smashing formal and stylistic, as well as cultural and political, taboos.' ” ( qtd. in Sabir 118) Nevertheless, we have to be reminded that this movement was completely underground and came about as a response to the mainstream comics that were predominantly infantile and purely for entertainment. In this way we can see that in spite of the cultural impact some artists who were part of the underground comix movement went on to make later, these types of attempts to turn comics into a serious medium for political discussion would remain only within a niche audience of die hard fans, or the scholarly crowd. As Walter Ryce tells us in “1985, Will Eisner published Comics and Sequential Art, a treatise that approached the craft of comics as a serious medium...inviting writers and artists to strive for higher aspirations.” (30) While the creators of graphic novels would strive to push the boundaries of their art their fans would revere their quality but would nonetheless in a way come fetishize their works, and as Sabir points out is that what became the center of attention was not the creators, but the characters they created. In analyzing the fact that the fans lost sight of the fact that these graphic novel creators were looking to be thought of as artists is indicative of the way in which American society was not interested in art, but in the escape that these comics provided.

1Spiegelman received many awards for his work Maus, which depicted his father's struggles during the Holocaust, and among these awards the prestigious Pulitzer. Spiegelman was “the first cartoonist ever to be so honoured” (Sabir 186)

Webcomics Part 2

Beginnings: The Evolution of Sequential Art

                It seems that from its creation comics were destined to be the food of the masses. Although Roger Sabir tells us that, “the comic itself is an invention of the nineteenth century...” he also remarks that “its antecedents date back to the Middle ages.” (10) These antecedents were called broadsheets and were in fact sketches of public executions, such as hangings and burnings, and were made as souvenirs for the public. (Sabir 10) The fact that this type of entertainment was so popular is very telling of the history of comics because it presents them as a sort of crude diversion for the people from its very inception. These broadsheets were not intended to tell a story and did not possess any type of social commentary, and in fact the main aim of the sheets was to “make as much money...for as little outlay as possible.” (Sabir 12) Although webcomics today may not depict hangings, many strips will make use of crude jokes and lack any real commentary on their topic, and in a similar way they too become a souvenir of particular pop cultural event for the masses. This can be seen in the fact that most webcomics are made of image files that can be easily downloaded into one's own computer to keep. One such an instance of this occurring was upon the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, where many webcomics took it upon themselves to relay the news to the world of his death in a comical way.

In a way webcomics parallel the distribution of broadsheets because they show the way in which both of these allowed for an audience to live through private moments vicariously through these images. However, at the same time another thing that webcomics have in common with the phenomenon of broadsheets, is the fact that both broadsheets and webcomics are made for the most profit for the least effort. Webcomics do it in a different way however, where what matters is not necessarily the immediate monetary gain but the traffic that the website will get from strips such as the strip on Jobs. Furthermore, these “pre-comics” were directed at the masses, but more specifically the illiterate uneducated masses. These broadsheets contained rarely any text and were only meant as a diversion, but when publishers decided to go in a different direction and began to market them to the the higher classes this changed. 

                One example of this is the work of William Hogarth, who is considered to be the father of sequential art, the basis of what comics are today. Hogarth brought in a more moralistic element into comics, but he and artists like him, also helped to create more costly versions of these broadsheets that were “designed for a middle-class, monied audience with some knowledge of politics.”(Sabir 12) It can then be said that the division between a comic and a political cartoon has always been set by class and money, a dynamic that would not really change through out the years. Webcomics today rarely step out of their world of comedy and pop culture references to discuss anything serious, let alone do they venture into discussing morality. In a sense thanks to the development of webcomics this line of difference has become even more visible because webcomics are made for the people by the people, where as the political cartoon continues to be created by the expert, schooled, cartoonist and are published in newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker. Despite the fact that there is a comical element to the political cartoon it is its lack of approachability in terms of language and topics which have always posed a problem, while comics have always been meant to be unambiguous and easy to follow. 

               During the early nineteenth century magazines began to circulate and these possessed an element of social commentary in their comics but it was during this time that speech bubbles became a main future in comics. Sabir tells us that these works that were directed at a middle class audience and were far from the sequential art works of Hogarth, and were in fact less ornate and began to “[make] extensive use of word balloons.” (14) It is interesting to note this difference because in Hogarth's art there were but a few phrases below the prints and the moral of the story for the most part was implied by looking at the sequence, which assumed that the elite aristocracy would understand its meaning without much aid. However, when comics became available to the middle class one of the first things to become dominant was the use of the word bubble, suggesting that the lower classes were less likely to comprehend the humor, or the moral of the comic if the meaning was not directly pointed to by the writer. Similarly, one of the main features of webcomics is they are simple to follow, and deal with topics that do not require any type of specialized knowledge, or training, only common knowledge of pop culture.

               The more affordable it was to print paper and make publications the more widely spread magazines became during the nineteenth century. This decrease in cost of production lead to a spread of magazines that involved comics far from just the reach of the aristocracy or the middle class. One example of this is the penny dreadful that later became extremely popular in the late nineteenth century. These “were serialized prose stories...with accompanying pictures, commonly involving tales that glorified criminals, but also anti-aristocratic romances” and were “designed for a working class readership.” (Sabir 14) This shift from a political cartoon or comic that would comment on societal issues into topics that were of a comical nature shows that as the cartoon worked its way down the social latter certain topics were made exclusive and were reserved for the aristocracy, or the higher classes. Works relevant to the lower classes were meant to tell a cautionary tales, while the comics that were available for the higher classes would contain commentary that would bring about an intellectual discussion. The comics that were specifically designed for the working class dealt with the lives of criminals and the evils of the aristocracy, but they no longer possessed the political/social critique that had distinguish them previously. The masses were being discouraged from engaging in the political fervor of their time and were being pushed to lose themselves in a world of laughter and comedy. In American society “the most popular of the early strip genres was the domestic comedy” and also those that were “lightweight, and [placed] an emphasis on slapstick.” (Sabir 24) The majority of Americans in the early twentieth century were not interested in reading comics that dealt with political or social issues, that were serious, or thought provoking, and rather were interested in the laughs and the visual appeal that comics provided.

Webcomics Part 1

 Webcomics: The Shift in American Culture from Productive Critique Into Youthful Oblivion

                The growth of the internet as a source for immediate gratification has led to the expansion of fan created entertainment, where the fan is no longer receiving information top-down, but is finding new ways of engaging with it. The wide access that the internet provides has allowed “fan-culture” to expand in new and inventive ways, one of these being Webcomics. The internet has allowed for the propagation of “amateur” created comics which has created a phenomenon that is based on the idea of convergence culture, a mash up of old media with new media, created not by corporate America but by the consumer. The roots of comics lie within the political cartoon, and William Hogarth's woodcuts which possessed an element of social critique. Traditional comics as we think of them today are a medium of entertainment which has appealed to children, or to an audience that wishes to be taken out of the monotony of their life into a fantasy world far away. Yet, it cannot be ignored that a shift began to occur in comics when they were appropriated by counter culture as a new means of expression of social critique, and which culminated with the creation of the graphic novel in the eighties as a vehicle for discussing socially relevant topics, such as the holocaust or the Islamic revolution in Iran, in an experimental new way. However, the “serious” graphic novels that tried to deal with social topics, or tried to implement social critique into the myth of superheroes like Batman, could not be taken seriously due to the eruption of comic book and participatory fan culture. Comic book culture evolved along with participatory culture, which sprang out of the science fiction community, over the decades to allow for these so called geeks – which refers to persons who are obsessively devoted to comic books, science fiction, and technology – to create an entirely new community that embraced the fantasy worlds of their entertainment into their everyday lives. This community of people who seized upon the idea of living inside a fantasy overshadowed the literary and erudite aspirations that graphic novel artists had sought. Similarly, when webcomics boomed on the net the topics they dealt with were not ground breaking, socially critical or analytic works, and were rather a return to an emphasis on the comical, and once again placed the graphic novel in the background. Although webcomics are not produced by the corporations that control printed comics, they are mass produced in such a way that they can be described as “fast-food” comics, in the sense that they are watered down versions of what the graphic novels have to offer. In other words, because webcomics are abundant, and so readily available, they become the replacement for the thought provoking graphic novels of the eighties and nineties. A culture where entertainment is required to be instantly available at the touch of a button, allows for the amateur to stand in for the expert, or the skilled artist, who cannot produce their art at a sufficiently quick enough pace to serve the demand. Therefore, a society which is built around the idea of immediate gratification that the internet provides, creates a great demand for childish entertainment, that takes a fraction of a second to read. This kind of entertainment that is vacuous and lacks intellectual stimulation is a sign of a society which allows adults to live suspended in fantasy within their own “personalized lifestyle cocoons,” (Maasik/Solomon 485) and to remain in a perpetual Never Never land, where play and fun are all that matter, and adult responsibilities are only secondary.

Webcomics: A Critical Approach

        So far most of the posts I have made on this blog haven't been of a literary nature but in the next few days I will post in parts my essay on webcomics, which I wrote for my Pop Culture graduate seminar in the fall of 2011. I chose webcomics because it is something I read every day but that I never gave much thought to before. I had a really hard time writing this essay not because it was difficult to find information but because my professor, Dr. Solomon, and I clashed a lot on what the essay was suppose to focus on and what tone it should have. I learned a lot about the history of comics and the way in which the pass time of reading newspaper comics has evolved into geek culture and webcomics. I am very attached to these things and it was hard to be critical of a movement that I am part of and Dr. Solomon had warned me of the road blocks I would hit by attempting to go through with this essay. It is definitely an essay worth reading because it is self reflexive and on the personal basis it has allowed me to analyze myself and my role in this culture as well, I think it would have that effect for other people as well. This essay also encouraged me to try and validate this culture that I am so attached to because I realize that there is still a lot of stigma attached to the idea of being a geek, liking comics and immersing yourself in a fantasy world of your choosing.