26 | July | 2010 | The Webcomic Overlook

Three months ago, Joey Manley — founder and publisher of Modern Tales webcomic site — wrote a piece on his blog called “The Death of Webcomics?” His take: nothing great is coming out of the webcomics field anymore:

I have been thinking about webcomics, though. I’ve been thinking about how less interesting to me the field is now than it was when I started working in it, almost ten years ago. This is not to say that the webcomics themselves are less interesting: far from it. Generally, there are far more great webcomics — and the great ones have raised their game to a far higher level — than was the case ten years ago. No question. When it comes to quality, availability, usability, and awesomeness, webcomics today, the actual webcomics, are much better than they were ten years ago.

But when it comes to the field as a whole, the excitement I used to feel about webcomics-as-a-movement? Eh. I dunno. Things have started to settle down. I don’t see the crazy innovative risk-taking, the sense that anything might happen, and would happen, and if you blinked you might miss it. That feeling that we could go strange new places with this medium, and invent unthinkable new things, just isn’t there. Webcomics have become solid, professional, well-written, beautifully drawn, and, um, well, normal.

That’s what we wanted. Right?

Right?

Then why do I find it so hard to remember to read them with any regularity these days?

Now, he comes back with a new post: “Leapfrog: Direct Market Giants Dominate the New Digital Comics Scene.” This time, he’s saying that webcomics are the outdated formula, and the future is the iPad.

Ten years ago (give or take a few), webcomics were taking maximum advantage of the new comics distribution opportunities afforded by the web, while Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and all the others completely missed the boat. The only decent comics reading experience, in the early days of the web, came from small, scrappy artists and entrepreneurs. The big companies gave us nothing. What happened as a result? A few huge successes, plus a thousand earnest, often talented creators with dayjobs, have come to define the webcomics scene. The entrenched players stayed away, so new voices had a chance to thrive.

On my iPad, the best comics reading experience, bar none, is not from small, scrappy innovators. It’s from the big companies, via Comixology’s apps (the “Comics” one, which includes DC and a lot of other familiar publishers, and the “Marvel” one, which is exactly the same application, but limited in content to Marvel comics only). The deal is this: you buy “issues” of printed comic books, which have been repurposed and re-engineered to be read more easily on the device. Comixology has done a better job than most in the re-engineering department, with intuitive navigation, a “guided view” that puts other comics readers to shame, and a smart and savvy editorial vibe.

…

The point I want to underline, though, is that the big publishers, and the old-school properties, are where all the action is in the iPad digital comics scene. Webcomic entrepreneurs have been as clumsy in taking advantage of this new platform, have seemed (to this observer, anyway) to be as stuck in their ways, as entrenched and established and slow-moving, as print comics publishers were back in the early days of webcomics. That’s something I never would have expected. That’s leapfrog.

Honestly, I’d be the first to yell “Hogwash!” at all this, but there is a very big point in Manley’s favor: Zuda Comics disappearing from the online world entirely. You’d think that if DC Comics and the parent Time Warner Company thought there was any future in webcomics, they’d be in it for the long run … but, nope, they decided that the iPad was the future. Maybe the whole AOL merger left a bitter taste in Time Warner’s mouth, after all.

So what do you, the viewers at home, think? Is the era of the webcomic over?

So San Diego Comic Con is over, and life goes on. I didn’t go, what with our budget being tight and me not really being a convention-goer in general. I have, though, been following quite diligently online, with Todd VanDerWerff’s coverage at the AV Club being my main source. (#Notatcomiccon nation, unite!)

So what was the biggest story coming out of the San Diego Comic Con? This: “Is Comic Con even for comics anymore?” The answer is no, no it is not. My wife, who is not a huge comic fan but is a die-hard Glee fan (or “Gleek,” if you will), had her faith temporary shaken when she realized the Glee crew were at the Comic Con. “Does this mean Glee is for nerds?” she asked me witheringly. She needn’t have worried. There are panels devoted to Community, Sons of Anarchy, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, after all.

There’s a bit of the “nerds getting kicked out their own club by the cool kids” vibe going on, which, perhaps, is the natural order of things. “Know your role and shut your mouth,” as the Rock used to say. But, you know, the fact that this entire spectacle blossomed from the tiny kernel of comic fandom should tell you at least one thing: comic fans are a passionate bunch. Outside of Comic Con, look how much energy we spent reverse engineering Wonder Woman’s new outfit, or how we sneered at JMS for having Superman walk the Earth, or how we geeked out over the new Scott Pilgrim book.

If we lose the spiritual core of Comic Con, I guess us comic fans will have to slink back into the shadows and await the smaller cons, while poring over comic sites, blogs … and, yes, webcomics. While not as prevalent as gaming webcomics, webcomics about comics do exist. I’ve covered them before — the now defunct Year One (reviewed here), No Pink Ponies (reviewed here), and Let’s Be Friends Again (reviewed here). And now we get Comic Critics, written by Sean Whitmore and illustrated by Brandon Hanvey. The comic centers around some of the most irritable, snobby, and unpleasant people in the world: people who review comics.

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