Spring Break
The Scene
Web may win in comic wars as newspapers start to go stale
By Jeff Lambert on 9/22/05
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Will the web replace everything as a medium?
Nicholas Gurewitch, publisher of weekly webcomic "Perry Bible Fellowship," says yes. "It is an unstoppable force," he said. "Like the 'Nothing' in 'The Never-ending Story.'"
In an age where satellite radio is establishing dominance over FM, where newspapers are scrambling to establish a Web presence to avoid extinction and television is continually in the hands of the consumer, the role of the Internet in our media landscape is growing greater with each passing moment. Webcomics, as self-explanatory as they sound, mark another notch in the rise of the Internet as a medium for our media.
Gurewitch's comic is a morbid, punch line-oriented strip that began in his college paper at Syracuse, but has since made the move to the Internet. Gurewitch is like many of his contemporaries in this exploitation of both media, as many artists who publish in daily "funny pages" are establishing online archives of their work. But will webcomics ever replace the funny pages?
"The fact that you can go online whenever you want and a new comic will be up really puts webcomics a step ahead of newspaper comics," said Matt Rumsey, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. "You can enjoy them all the time, and you don't have to pay for a newspaper."
"The comic pages in most newspapers, especially mainstream newspapers, are so stale nowadays," said Ryan North, author of the webcomic "Dinosaur Comics." "It boggles my mind. Comics like "Hagar the Horrible," "Garfield," "B.C." and others have been telling the same old jokes for over 50 years. Until recently it was really difficult to start a daily comic that wasn't family friendly, that didn't pander to the ever-aging crowd that still reads and enjoys jokes about stolen lasagna and how terrible Mondays can be. Webcomics are changing this, at the very least by forcing the comics pages to adapt, or risk becoming more and more irrelevant."
North's "Dinosaur Comics" is a strip where the pictures never change, focusing the attention of the reader on his dialogue, not on the art of the comic. For him, the Internet was a default medium because he wanted to produce a static comic.
"I didn't even consider self-publishing to be an option," North said. "Besides, the Internet offers instant gratification and a much larger audience to connect with."
Joey Comeau, who co-publishes "A Softer World," also chose the Internet for his comic.
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