Web Comics

I read a few online comics this week but mainly Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran. What I found is that Web Comics are very similar to the episodic newspaper comic strips, but adapted to the modern audience and with contemporary sensibilities.  They are almost like diary entries that are shared with an audience just like a blog, but with a much more visual aspect behind them. The biggest change though that Web Comics bring to the world of graphic storytelling though, is the power that it gives to the individual. Now individual artists can create their own comics and for very little cost of their own, they can reach millions of readers.

            This form of comics was given birth through the development of new technologies, which include, the World Wide Web, the social network, as well as digital illustration. These technologies have granted the individual the ability to by pass any necessary publisher and bring their material straight to the consumer. The other day I watched a Big Think YouTube video, by Jeremy Rifkin, who explained how the Internet will cause a paradigm shift in world economics.  He explained that with the advancement of digital technologies and the Internet, people have begun to experience a revolution of new products that are being sold with zero marginal cost. As explained by Jeremy Rifkin, “Marginal costs are the costs of producing an additional unit of a good and service after your fixed costs are covered.” This can be seen in the cost of publishing a comic that needs to be distributed to a large audience, but with Internet. Marginal costs are near zero and almost anyone can reach almost any amount of people who are interested in reading their comic. Individuals are now able to do the work of large companies that were vital to the industry just a decade before.

            Also the topics that are discussed in many of these comics, but especially Octopus Pie, are very focused on the individual and the individual’s commentary on society and their views. With web comics we see the ultimate move to individual expressionism in the graphic narrative.