Daniel Punch

Unlimited Creativity

The Internet removes the costs of printing, distribution, and marketing, so people can, and do, produce online comics that are amazingly creative, radical, and risqué.

The Internet links everyone with everyone: Specialists in various fields with each other, scientists with business people, musicians with their fans, and cartoonists with their audience. Comic strips are one place the Internet has had a large, yet subtle effect. People all over the world produce all kinds of online comics, including one for model railroaders and rail fans (www.toytrunkrailroad.com). Thankfully, there are web pages which just list web comics, some giving rankings of which ones are popular, like http://www.buzzcomix.net/index.php?genr=horror.

Buzzcomix and many similar sites also give warnings when they contain 'Mature content’ (sex, drugs, extreme violence, and profanity). Such warnings are not uncommon since people can produce any comic they like to online and be as risqué or profane as they like. According to Bill Watterson, creator of ‘Calvin and Hobbes’, is how Newspaper comics used to be. Before modern electronic communication put the world at an editor’s fingertips Newspapers all used local reporters who told similar kinds of stories, so a place to be different was the comics. Comic writers were encouraged to stand out, to be radical and inventive. Now, with a few wondrous exceptions like 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'Insanity Steak', I find newspaper comics safe and predictable, and in my opinion, predictable is not funny.

Online, people are producing some radical comics, often purely as a hobby. The Internet removes the need for printing, distribution, and marketing. People like Pete Abrams (http://www.sluggy.com/) offer their work for free, although with ads on the site. True fans of Sluggy can become a ‘Defender of the Nifty’ and support the site with a $25 yearly donation which gets you ad-free viewing. Fans can also buy Sluggy books and merchandise. Or, the most devoted fan can praise the comic to their friends and discuss it for hours all without spending a dime to be able to read it.

After discovering Sluggy I looked around for other online comics. I discovered a few, but the only one I remain devoted to is ‘Freefall’ (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00001.htm). Oddly, I can't find a way to pay for this comic, or even find out who writes it. Aren’t the Internet and the eternal generosity of creative people wonderful?

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