ComixTalk’s People Of Webcomics List For 2007

And now… the fourth annual People Of Webcomics list! I’ll be the first to admit that this list gets harder and harder to compile as the lines between "webcomics" and just plain "comics" blurs harder than a greasy windshield in the middle of a West Texas downpour. Plus as publishing comics on the web and other digital formats becomes more commonplace it gets harder and harder to find those "firsts" that take comics in new directions whether artistic, technical or businesss-oriented.

Nevertheless webcomics still has a center of gravity distinct from comic books and newspaper comic strips. And the potential of webcomics remains unfettered. Webcomics remain well-positioned as a concept, as an attitude, as a means of distribution, as a medium and as an ethos to overcome any limitation previous forms of comics have imposed on themselves or been trapped in by the expectations of the general public.

As always let’s stipulate right up front that most of you are going to disagree with some or most of the list. In listing 25 "people of webcomics" we attempt to highlight the people, who through art, innovation, business, or just plain presence have cast a big shadow on the webcomics landscape this year. We tried as much as possible to focus on 2007 which helps to explain why some otherwise very influential people are not on this year’s list.

No matter why they’re on the list, we think all of them, in their own ways, were just plain cool to watch this year. So without further fanfare, check out The POW List for 2007 (and be sure to heck out previous editions for comparison: the 2004 list; the 2005 list; and the 2006 list).

And now… the fourth annual People Of Webcomics list! I’ll be the first to admit that this list gets harder and harder to compile as the lines between "webcomics" and just plain "comics" blurs harder than a greasy windshield in the middle of a West Texas downpour. Plus as publishing comics on the web and other digital formats becomes more commonplace it gets harder and harder to find those "firsts" that take comics in new directions whether artistic, technical or businesss-oriented.

Nevertheless webcomics still has a center of gravity distinct from comic books and newspaper comic strips. And the potential of webcomics remains unfettered. Webcomics remain well-positioned as a concept, as an attitude, as a means of distribution, as a medium and as an ethos to overcome any limitation previous forms of comics have imposed on themselves or been trapped in by the expectations of the general public.

As always let’s stipulate right up front that most of you are going to disagree with some or most of the list. In listing 25 "people of webcomics" we attempt to highlight the people, who through art, innovation, business, or just plain presence have cast a big shadow on the webcomics landscape this year. We tried as much as possible to focus on 2007 which helps to explain why some otherwise very influential people are not on this year’s list.

No matter why they’re on the list, we think all of them, in their own ways, were just plain cool to watch this year. So without further fanfare, check out The POW List for 2007 (and be sure to heck out previous editions for comparison: the 2004 list; the 2005 list; and the 2006 list).

 

 

25. Tracey J. Butler

Tracey J. Butler was a big winner at the 2007 WCCAs taking home Best Newcomer, Best Artist, Best Character Rendering, and Best Anthropomorphic Comic for her webcomic Lackadaisy. She has continued to create new installments of the webcomic in 2007, furthering its tale of anthropomorphic cats at the Lackadaisy Speakeasy in the prohibition era of the United States.

One of the strong points of the comic is its artwork — it features a washed-out sepia tone that works well with our preconceptions of the "twenties-era" setting.

This is Tracey J. Butler’s first time on the POW List.

 

24. B. Shur

B. Shur won Outstanding Use of the Medium at the 2007 WCCAs for his webcomic I am a Rocket Builder. An inventive mix of traditional comic panels with animation, and other website-specific enviromental effects, this webcomic may be the first genuinely cohesive and entertaining "experimental" webcomic since Brambletown where the experimental aspects don’t stand out as experimental (or overly showy).

This is B. Shur’s first time on the POW List.

 

23. Josh Neufeld

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld’s account of the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent breaking of the levees in New Orleans is an absolutely engrossing snapshot of this tragic moment in recent American history. Neufeld explains that the comic is a true story with the dialogue taken from direct quotes, and the depictions taken from the real homes of the characters. Because this is a webcomic, Neufeld is easily able to post alongside the comic, research he conducted in assembling the story — from audio and video clips to an entire library of links to additional information on New Orleans today.

This is Josh Neufeld’s first time on the POW List.

 

22. Phil and Kaja Foglio

The Foglios won Outstanding Science Fiction webcomic at the 2007 WCCAs for their webcomic Girl Genius. They were also nominated (but did not win) for Best Digital Comic at the 2007 Eisner Awards. Although Girl Genius originated as a montly comic book, the Foglios were one of the first such established creators to fully transition from the monthly format to regular webcomic updates as their primary initial mode of publication.

This is Phil and Kaja Foglio’s second time on the POW List (#5 on the 2005 POW List).

 

21. Jeph Jacques

Jeph Jacques won several awards at the 2007 WCCAs for his popular webcomic Questionable Content including Best Character Writing, Best Dramatic Writing, Best Romantic comic and Best Slice of life comic.

This is Jeph Jacques’ second time on the POW List (#17 on the 2006 POW List).

 

20. Ryan Estrada

Ryan Estrada has been a presence in webcomics for a few years now – from his ironman extension of the 24 hour comic challenge to week-long marathons to his own multiple serialized comics to his video adventures in India, Mexico and beyond, Estrada has been one of the nicest and most supportive creators and collaborators in the "webcomics community". This year he took on the art duties for the popular poker-themed webcomic Life’s a Bluff and coordinated a day of seemingly doing guest comics for almost every webcomic in existence.

There are times when webcomics doesn’t seem as fun as it did in days gone by but Estrada is a guaranteed antidote to any thoughts of that.

This is Ryan Estrada’s first time on the POW List.

 

19. Ryan North

This may be the first year in recent memory that Ryan North did not roll out a webcomic-related service such as Project Wonderful or OhNoRobot. Nevertheless he did continue to make upgrades and improvements to Project Wonderful, his auction-driven advertising service that seems to be used by just about every webcomic in existence.

And lest we forget — North continued making his popular webcomic Dinosaur Comics which won Best Writer in the 2007 WCCAs.

This is Ryan North’s third time on the POW List (#6 on the 2006 POW List, #15 on the 2005 POW List)

 

18. Kazu Kibuishi

In 2007, Kazu Kibuishi won Outstanding Layout and Outstanding Use of Color at the WCCAs for his webcomic Copper. Kibuishi is also the editor of the popular Flight anthology series which has featured many creators working in webcomics.

This is Kazu Kibuishi‘s fourth time on the POW List (#12 onthe 2006 POW LIst, #9 on the 2005 POW List, #7 on the 2004 POW List).

 

17. Tyler Martin

In 2007, Tyler Martin continued to work on his popular family-friendly webcomic Wally & Osborne, helped launch the all-ages webcomic collective Lunchbox Funnies, and developed additional versions of Comicpress, his webcomic-specific theme for the blogging software WordPress. Comicpress, in particular, really took off in 2007 with a number of well known webcomic sites, including most prominently PvP, switching over to using it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me add that Tyler Martin has done design work for ComixTalk but believe us when we write that had no influence on the decision to include him in this year’s list.

This is Tyler Martin’s first time on the POW List.

 

16. Jon Rosenberg

Two years ago, Jon Rosenberg turned his ambling humor webcomic Goats into a story-of-the-multiverse humor webcomic that seems to be wrapping up its massive storyline just this week. What can one say about Goats: it is a funny, rewarding read that has built a significant audience. Rosenberg has considerably improved his art over the years and with the recent two-year storyline proved he can maintain a much more sophisticated level of narrative work than he had previously attempted.

Rosenberg is also someone who conceivably could have been on this list in years past: he was one of the first webcomic creators to develop a successful merchandise business based on his webcomic, experimented with micropayments and helped to form one of the earliest and longest-running webcomic collectives, Dumbrella.

This is Jon Rosenberg’s first time on the POW List.

 

15. Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett and Brad Guigar

All four of these creators came together to create a new "brand name" called Half Pixel. We wouldn’t quite go so far as to call it a "super group" a la the Traveling Wilburys (although ELO fanatic Kris Straub would probably be besides himself if we did) but it certainly represents a stellar collection of established, veteran webcomic talent under one label.

Besides continuing to work on their various webcomic projects in 2007, collectively the four of them began a very informative podcast on webcomics and are in the midst of working on a book on webcomics, scheduled for publication in 2008.

This is Scott Kurtz’s fourth time on the POW List (#2 on the 2006 POW List, #20 on the 2005 POW List, #1 on the 2004 POW List). This is Dave Kellet’s second time on the POW List (#15 on the 2006 POW List). This is Brad Guigar’s second time on the POW List (#4 on the 2005 POW List). This is Kris Straub’s first time on the POW List.

 

14. Fred Gallagher

Fred Gallagher is the creator of Megatokyo which remains one of the most popular webcomics and continues to do well on the printed page in collections printed by CMX.

This is Fred Gallagher’s third time on the POW List (#14 on the 2006 POW List, #19 on the 2004 POW List).

 

 

13. Tim Buckley

Tim Buckley is the creaor of the long-running and very popular Ctrl+Alt+Del and the animated spin-off CAD: The Animated Series. CAD is a webcomic about videogames and characters who like to play it. Buckley has been creating the webcomic for a number of years and has often been seen as charting a similar territory to Penny Arcade. Fair or not, CAD does deal with many of the same videogame industry topics as PA and employs an art style somewhat similar to the early work of PA artist Mike Krahulik. Nevertheless, CAD has developed much more of a continuity with its core cast of characters than PA and it was also one of the first webcomics to create an animated series based on it. Buckley has legions of fans who admire his work and with the vast numbers of videogame-focused webcomics out there today there are perhaps almost as many influenced by Buckley as by the work of Holkins and Krahulik.

This is Tim Buckley’s first time on the POW List.

 

12. Steve Purcell

Steve Purcell is the creator of the long running characters Sam and Max. The characters were originally created by Purcell for a comic book, translated into an animated television show and a popular videogame, later revived in a new series of videogames and an accompanying webcomic. The two characters are private investigators and the webcomic revolves around their comedic adventures solving crime.

Sam and Max won Best Digital Comic at the 2007 Eisner awards. The webcomic does a wonderful job of conveying the spirit of the games. It offers a slight technical trick with the dialogue balloons and accompanying text appearing only on mouse-over of a panel (with the benefit of providing for an initial unblocked view of the artwork) but otherwise is a straight-forward multiple panel comic.

This is Steve Purcell’s first time on the POW List.

 

11. Chris Onstad

The cult of Chris Onstad’s Achewood continued to grow in 2007. Onstad won Outstanding Online Comic at this year’s Ignatz awards (and did or did not show up in a gorilla suit to accept it.) and was named the Best Graphic Novel of the year by Time Magazine. Let’s just run with Time’s description of Achewood:

A bunch of cats, some robots, a bear and an otter who’s 5 years old, live together in a fictional neighborhood called Achewood, which you might usefully think of as a grown-up, suburban, stoned version of Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood. The alpha and omega of Achewood are Ray Smuckles, a cat who’s incredibly rich and successful at everything he does, but whom you can’t quite hate because he enjoys it so much; and his best friend Roast Beef, who suffers from crippling depression. The art is at times crude, but it rises to moments of extreme lyrical beauty, and the writing has enormous emotional range — from aching sadness to some of the most brilliant, bizarre comedy happening anywhere, in any medium.

For more, check out the A.V. Club’s interview with Onstad.

This is Chris Onstad’s second time on the POW List (#8 on the 2006 POW List).

 

10. Mike Gold

Mike Gold, along with Brian Alvey and Glenn Hauman, started ComicMix in 2006, adding publication of original webcomic material in 2007. GOld has a long history in the comic book industry having previously worked at DC Comics, First Comics and Classics Illustrated. With work from many comic book veterans on the site, ComicMix has presented a fairly strong lineup of webcomics to date.

For more, check out this post at Occasional Superheroine.

This is Mike Gold’s first time on the POW List.

 

9. Dan Buckley

Marvel turned out to be the first of the two big comic book publishers to put its universe of legacy content and characters on the web in a legal way. Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited is a subscription site featuring a significant amount of material from Marvel’s 60 year archives. It remains to be seen if this material will attract a significant audience on the web and what impact, if any, it will have on Marvel’s traditional sales channel in Direct Market retail outlets. Still it’s clearly one more sign that the web has won when you can now access the entire universe of Marvel continuity online.

Business-wise, Marvel’s DCU is plowing through a subscription model many others have used before and for the most part discarded in favor of some form of free plus premium content. But Marvel comes to the web with a dedicated fan base so it’ll be interesting to see if they find different results from forerunners such as Modern Tales.

For more, check out this CBR interview with Marvel President Dan Buckley.

This is Dan Buckley’s first time on the POW List.

 

8. Ron Perazza and Kwanza Johnson

One of the biggest stories of the year was DC Comics launching of Zuda, a webcomics portal with original material. Headed up by Ron Perazza, DC Comics Director of Creative Services and Kwanza Johnson, DC Comics Online Editor, Zuda represents an interesting online strategy for the established monthly comic book publisher. With no content on Zuda from the existing library of DC work nor any new comics based on the existing universe of characters, Zuda instead has solicited new work from creators, primarily in the form of a contest. And so far Zuda has presented a wide range of work well outside the superhero genre DC is well known for.

Although the work-for-hire contracts that Zuda requires of creators for publication are controversial to some, most gave DC some credit for posting the contracts on the website for all to review ahead of time. Many creators were also interested in the fact that Zuda is offering to pay creators of the work it publishes a per-screen rate. Technically, Zuda imposed a 4 to 3 aspect ratio for work published on its site and uses a FLASH-based interface for viewing the comics on its site. Reviews have been mixed on both of these aspects of the site. But regardless of these issues, Zuda has presented some very good work in the webcomics published to date.

This is the first time on the POW List for Ron Perazza and Kwanza Johnson.

 

7. Matt Melvin, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick and Rob Denbleyker

Melvin, Wilson, McEltatrick and Denbleyker are the creators of a webcomic called Cyanide and Happiness as well as the proprietors of the site that hosts it, explosm.net. Explosm.net has a large audience, seemingly right up there in numbers with Penny Arcade and xkcd. As a webcomic, C&H is pretty straightforward — crude stick-figure art coupled with crude jokes. Sometimes fairly funny crude jokes but unsurprisingly consistently crude. And yet that probably explains a great deal of its success — consistently delivering a particular type of comic. Moreover, the creators of C&H have been very aggressive in using social networking and other web 2.0 tools in getting their comic displayed all over the Internet (not just their own website).

For more, checkout our interview with Matt Melvin in this issue of ComixTalk.

This is the first time on the POW List for Matt Melvin, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick and Rob Denbleyker.

 

6. Joey Manley and Josh Roberts

Both Joey Manley and Josh Roberts have been a presence in webcomics for sometime now. Joey Manley has had a hand in numerous projects over the years, starting with his podcast Talkaboutcomics to the Modern Tales subscription sites to the WebcomicsNation webcomic services site. Josh Roberts first created onlinecomics.net and more recently comicspace.com. This year Manley and Roberts announced a merger of their efforts and resources into a new company with outside investors. The new joint venture, named "Comicspace" — with both Manley and Roberts at the helm — should be an exciting venture to watch next year. Unlike other corporate ventures into the webcomic "space", Manley and Roberts have a history of working in partnership with independent creators.

For more, check out Tom Spurgeon’s interview with both Manley and Roberts.

This is Joey Manley’s fourth time on the POW List (#9 on the 2006 List, #2 on the 2005 POW List, #3 on the 2004 POW List) and Josh Roberts second time on the POW List (SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT MENTION: TECHNICAL CATEGORY on the 2006 List).

 

5. Rich Burlew

Rich Burlew is another long time creator and entrepreneur that arguably should have been on this list in years past. His webcomic The Order of the Stick is one of the most widely-read webcomics. In 2007, Burlew’s webcomic TOOTS won the WCCAs for Best Long Form Comic and Best Gaming Comic. Another webcomic with stick-figure art, but Burlew successfully and affectionately parodies table-top gaming and other related activities to great effect in his webcomic.

Burlew also had a hand in launching one of the brightest new webcomics in 2007: Rob Balder’s and Jamie Noguchi’s Erfworld. Erfworld benefitted tremendously from being hosted on Burlew’s website. Time named Erfworld the sixth best Graphic Novel of 2007.

This is Rich Burlew’s first time on the POW List.

 

4. Scott Adams

Perhaps this ultimately is a wrong-headed choice, but it seems worth putting a marker down that 2007 was truly a year that walls between the different rooms of comics really came down in a big way. Scott Adams, the creator of the long-running syndicated newspaper comic strip Dilbert has always made use of technology in promoting and creating his webcomic. He was one of the first creators to put his email address into his printed comic (which led to fans peppering him with ideas for future comics) and more recently he has turned to blogging. Like all other newspaper comics, Dilbert is online, although it’s the rare United States newspaper that doesn’t carry Dilbert in print.

This is Scott Adams’s first time on the POW List.

 

3. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik

What do you say about the juggernaut that is Penny Arcade that hasn’t been said before? One of the most read webcomics ever; multiple books now in print; PAX — the largest convention for videogame enthusiasts; Child’s Play — a charity for children’s hospitals; On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness — a videogame based on the webcomic. Heck both of them have even spawned little ones now (and not asexually!).

For more, check out this recent interview at CBR with Jerry Holkins (part 1 and part 2).

This is Jerry Holkins’ and Mike Krahulik’s fourth time on the POW List (#1 on the 2006 POW List, #1 on the 2005 POW List, #5 on the 2004 POW List)

 

2. Randall Munroe

There is no question that the biggest oversight of last year’s People of Webcomics list was the omission of Randall Munroe, the creator of the webcomic xkcd. But by the end of 2007, there is absolutely no doubt about the explosion of interest in this incredibly smart and wistfully romantic comic. Sure it uses stick figure art, but like so many other well-written comics, the stick figure art seems to work well enough to deliver an entertaining and often insightful comic.

Let’s start first with the numbers. Although tracking the relative audience sizes of various webcomics is a deeply imperfect art these days, it seems pretty clear that xkcd has the largest or very near the largest audience for a webcomic. All of which is more amazing when you consider the relatively recent start to the comic in 2006 which seems to refute the "accepted wisdom" of recent years that only webcomics started in the last century would ever become mega-popular. xkcd‘s audience growth was helped out by a number of "viral" comics that spread across the blog-o-sphere (helped by links from uber-sites like slashdot and boing boing) but it’s consistently funny take on science, obsession and romance (albeit of a slightly nerd/geek variety) seems to have turned many of those visitors into repeat readers.

Numbers like this have allowed Munroe to mess with the very fabric of space and time on the Internet by positing websites and events in comics that his readership in turn has helped to turn from notion to reality. Probably the most prominent examples being this comic leading to an actual "wetriffs.com" and this comic leading to a spontaneous gathering of xkcd fans.

Although xkcd doesn’t seem to have won many comic awards yet it was named the Best Comic in the 2007 Weblog Awards and has shown up on many blogs "best of" lists. For more, check out our interview with Randall Munroe which appeared in our March 2007 issue.

This is Randall Munroes’ first time on the POW List.

 

1. Nicholas Gurewitch

There seems to be little doubt that this was a breakout year for The Perry Bible Fellowship. Nicholas Gurewitch took home Best Comic, Best Comedy Comic and Best Short Form Comic at the 2007 WCCAs; Best Online Comic at the Harveys. His book, The Trial of Colonel Sweeto, (published by Dark Horse) collecting strips from PBF, is one of the fastest-selling graphic novels on Amazon.com this year, with an initial print run of 36,000. Beyond simply garnering more attention from more corners of pop culture, Gurewitch continued to make brillantly simple and subversive comics under the PBF banner.

Having said all of that we can’t pass up revisiting Gurewitch’s part in perhaps the most memorable award ceremony of the year — Gurewitch’s presentation of the Ignatz award for Best Online Comic to Chris Onstad for his webcomic Achewood.

This is Nick Gurewitch’s third time on the POW List (#3 on the 2006 Post List, #6 on the 2005 POW List).