The Webcomic and the 21st Century

The Rise of the Internet

(Image Credit: Wikipedia, Matt Brit)

Whereas radio and television dominated as the primary mediums of pop culture in the 20th century, the dawn of the 21st century truly has become the age of the Internet. Despite its humble beginnings in the latter decades of the 20th century as a governmental and military prototype communications tool (see ARPANET and Source 1 below), the Internet has transformed into a seemingly endless web of networks hosting a hodgepodge of websites representing a diverse array of human interests. The overall ease of access, immense and immediate reach to a worldwide audience, popularity and utilitarianism of the Internet as a communication tool promoted a variety of new media formats ranging from blogs to YouTube videos. As a mechanism that provides instantaneous updates and information to a mass audience, the Internet has thus become an important outlet for creative professionals, most notably artists.

The Webcomic

For many artists, the Internet serves as an online, sometimes interactive, gallery where they are allowed to showcase their work via photos or other multimedia projects such as music, movies, etc. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before comic strip artists chose to migrate their strips onto the World Wide Web. Mainstream newspaper comic artists moved first, such as Scott Adams of Dilbert and Bill Amend of Foxtrot. Eventually, young and aspiring, sometimes amateur, artists began to post their own comic strips on individual sites. Many sites gradually attracted a large fanbase, and as a result webcomics evolved into a popular medium that has as many readers as contributors. Several famous webcomics have emerged, such as Penny Arcade, Questionable Content and XKCD, to name a few. Nevertheless, I have been interested by Asian American webcomics and therefore hope to explore them as a popular culture medium through this blog.

Page Sources:

1. The Internet Society: http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml
2. Dilbert: http://www.dilbert.com
3. Foxtrot: http://www.foxtrot.com
4. Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/
5. Questionable Content: http://questionablecontent.net/
6. XKCD: http://xkcd.com/