Editor’s note: This is the first of the Fleen Guest Columns; this came about because we were put in touch with Anne Thalheimer, who has some interesting views on comics, art & suchlike, and was amenable to writing them up for us.

Anne, by the way, has studied comics at the graduate level, written a book on gender/comics issues, has written on comics for Popmatters, and works in that [web]comics-friendly Mecca of Northampton, MA. Want to join in the fun? Throw us a suggestion, we’ll ask you to send us some copy; just like the Op-Ed page, if it doesn’t require too much fixin’ we’ll run it.

Both Natalie Dee’s work (which she calls “comic art�) and Sam Brown’s (which he calls “stick figure art�) are interesting to me for a number of different reasons. I enjoy the similarities in their visual styles; the simple lines, bold colors, and the “cute� feeling they both evoke. I also like the seeming dissonance between this “cute� look and the fact that Dee’s work often as not is peppered with profanity and Brown’s is, well, there’s monsters and fangs and bloody folks. These are not necessarily bad things; as a reader, I actually find the dissonance they create kind of engaging.

Brown’s work is particularly savvy in this sense, as he creates pieces from titles readers email him, and so you click on the title and the image opens, and you’re left to wonder how a certain title sparked the image that you’re seeing. You see the title, and then the picture, and you’re left to make the connection. Dee’s work does something similar when looking through her archives as sometimes the connection between the image and the title is readily apparent, and sometimes the title itself is what makes me laugh, as it provides a new frame through which to view the work, which shifts how I think about what I’m seeing.

That said, in all the times I’ve seen Natalie Dee’s and Sam Brown’s
work appear on this site, there’s always a comment or two asking, either, Are they webcomics? or, what I think might be the real heart of the question, Are they comics?

I for one am voting yes, on both, but I know this answer will spark some interesting debate. It’s debate that, by the sound of it, has been waiting to happen for a while. So let me put down a little groundwork, explain my thinking a little, and then we can get to the opening bell of that much-anticipated first round since I’m interested in what folks have to say on the topic.

However, I want to preface this piece with one simple thing: if you don’t like a site, for whatever reason, you don’t have to read it—the great thing about webcomics is that there’s lots and lots more out there. But if you do like a webcomic, enjoy it. Support it. Buy swanky merch, or subscribe, or tell your friends about it, or send the creator in question something awesome, like a space pen or a finger puppet, and don’t worry too much about the definitions.

Ahem.

These folks state that, basically, webcomics are comics that appear on the internet. I like this definition for two main reasons, even though it at the same time feels maybe too facile.

First, the definition’s inclusive. For a medium that’s still relatively new and somewhat underground though certainly gaining attention, being inclusive feels important, and more in the spirit of the publishing freedom that webcomics affords (more on that in a minute).

Arguably, the more varied stuff is out there, the more likely it is that the increasing numbers of potential readers getting online to look at a site will eventually find something, somewhere that strikes their fancy. Not everyone’s going to like the same stuff, and webcomics with words (like comics with words in general) have a double-whammy; any potential reader’s generally got to like both the writing and the images in order to keep reading. ( I have a more difficult time reading comics that visually don’t appeal to me no matter how spectacular the writing than I do with reading things where the visuals are compelling but the writing’s not so much.)

Caveat: since there can be comics without words, I imagine the same thing should apply to webcomics. In this case I imagine sequentiality would be critical; a single image with no words might not be a comic on its own, whereas a sequence of images with no words could be considered a webcomic. You could potentially have a wordless webcomic where the page would open, you’d see the image, and you’d have to click to see the next image. Technically these would be images in sequence, even though you wouldn’t see multiple panels at the same time.

And I think this might be the primary sticking point for some readers: Natalie Dee’s work and much of Sam Brown’s work are single-panel pieces which folks might call a host of things, but they wouldn’t call them comics because there are not sequential multiple panels.

Hold that thought.

Second, the definition obviously implies that there’s something essential and fundamental for webcomics about publishing on the web even if they do not take advantage of some of the cool hypertext options particular to web-publishing. (This almost begs the question of what to call a webcomic that is collected and re-published, but this time in book or minicomics or — dare I say it? — in the comic strip section of the newspaper? It’s still a webcomic, even though it is now being read offline, yes? No?)

Basically, what webcomic doesn’t take advantage of the most basic bonus of publishing online, which is, simply, the fact that anyone with access to a few tools and a little bit of technical know-how can publish a webcomic? It evokes, in some ways, R. Crumb and S. Clay Wilson, producing their own minicomics and selling them on the street, not just defying the Comics Code Authority but skipping it entirely. (Arguably, webcomics have a wider potential audience than minicomics, as anyone with access to a computer and a connection could get online and click, whereas sometimes it takes a little more work to get a minicomic.)

Natalie Dee’s pieces generally contain words, although sometimes not many, and Sam Brown’s do not always, though I would argue in Brown’s case that the situation I described above — reading a title, then clicking on it to see an image — can potentially be considered sequential. With Natalie Dee’s work, and within the panels of other comics as well, there is sequentiality in visual flow: do you jump to the words first, or the image? Where might reading the title fall in terms of this sequence? How does that change when you look at the archives and see the title first, and, like Exploding Dog, click on it to see the image?

It would be lax of me not to reference Scott McCloud’s work in this discussion. In Understanding Comics he set down a working, if sometimes controversial definition of comics as juxtaposed and other pictorial images arranged in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer (9:5). In Reinventing Comics, in writing about the essence of comics — something seemingly latent in the definition of comics — he uses the term digital comics, which he calls comics that exist as pure information (203: 2) and states that online comics are all digital comics in a technical sense, but many are still no more than repurposed paper at heart (203:7); a particularly interesting statement in thinking about webcomics being syndicated in newspapers, printed in paper collections, or, in some cases, both.

It’s worth noting that I’m thinking of webcomics and online comics as interchangeable terms, which might be not fully accurate. It might also be worth delineating some of the specific differences between the terms webcomics, digital comics, hypertext-based comics, and online comics. They don’t seem to all be fully interchangeable, as later McCloud does state, For the most part, here at the turn of the century, digital comics mean Web comics — and Web comics, for the most part, mean hypertext-based comicsâ€? (230:1-2). It’s an interesting discussion, but, like McCloud, at this point I’m interested more in the essence of the thing — and in favor of inclusion — rather than working out exact definitions. But it doesn’t mean the definitions aren’t valid or interesting. Actually, this is kind of where we started.

So we’re back to the question, Is it comics? And if they’re not, what are they?

… and there’s the bell!

Fleen thanks Anne for her contribution. Get commentating!