Wired on Webcomics

San Diego ComiCon has promted Wired News to takes a look at webcomics. It is pretty much your average overview of the field, but with some interesting quotes from various people. The Talk About Comics blog post on the subject has a few comments on a quote made by Scott McCloud.

And apparently someone spat on Scott Kurtz at Comicon.

*update*: Kurtz has commented on the spitting incident on his website

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GiantPanda

11 Comments

  1. I’m not Kurtz’s biggest fan by any means, but someone spitting on another person is simply wrong. That’s something that simply should not be done to another human being. If there’s any time I’d approve of him using his sycophants to deal with someone, that’d be it.

  2. Scott McCloud’s estimate of 4-5000 webcomics, when there are about twice that number of titles on Keenspace alone, is one more datum showing that his conception of the industry fell into a tar pit and was fossilized in late 2000. When’s the last time the guy talked to someone besides his inner circle?

    I don’t think he and reality would be on the same page if it were an infinite canvas.

  3. I can’t tell. Perhaps Keenspace’s got that many titles, but I think most of them are inactive.

  4. I was at a little con in NC this weekend and that same question came up. Apparently, someone there had done some homework and had recently read that the number of webcomics on the Internet is around 20,000 … give or take a 1000 or so. That could include inactive comics. I’m not sure who did this “study”.

  5. Holy crap! They’re spitting on Kurtz? I’d better cancel my appearance at CN Comic Expo next month. If they’re spitting on Kurtz I just know someone is going to bukkake me.

    I’m surprised the guy wasn’t flattened. Kurtz could probably put a lot of kenetic energy into a punch and I know if it had been me I would have been all too quick to demonstrate that unlike the internet, in real life if you do stupid shit like that you are in no means safe from a punch in the nose.

    Then again, I suspect I might have been too flabbergasted to actually do anything. “Did that guy just spit on me? Did that just happen?”

    I wonder if it was Wiley.

  6. Okay, after reading Kurtz’ page (you need to fix the link in the article by the way) I see that it might not have even been an intentional spit in the face, more of a saliva control issue from someone speaking to him.

    From the article I was expecting it was a horked loogie from 20 paces or something with a twist of defiant “Fuck you Kurtz” added to it.

  7. There’s about 1000 people on the webcomicsnation.com waiting list alone — and I think that that’s got to be only the tiniest fraction of webcartoonists out there. I’d be surprised if the actual number was anything less than 20,000. But unlike the person you mentioned, I don’t claim to have any objective basis for that belief …

    Joey
    http://www.moderntales.com

  8. It’s also worth keeping in mind that some people have more than one webcomic going at once. People also put webcomics on free web hosts like Geocities and Tripod. Then there’s people with their own hosting. I would be surprised too if the number’s anything less than 20,000.

    DrunkDuck itself would at the very least take out a good chunk of the 5000 estimate. It’s hard for me to tell how many webcomics are on DD since the list includes webcomic readers. Also, anyone who deletes an account deletes the number assigned to them as well.

  9. Can’t blame Kurtz for wanting to nip this in the bud. Would *you* want to be known as the cartoonist who enjoys getting spat upon at conventions? Didn’t think so …

    Joey
    http://www.moderntales.com

  10. lets not forget that some people mirror their sites both on keen and drunk duck not to metnion their own sites.

    I know Innies and Outies by Leanard is on it’s own site as well as mirrored on Drunk Duck.

    Does anyone know how many webcomics are registered with onlinecomics.net? Giantpanda.com? buzzcomics?

    Anyone know about the level of crossover between these sites?

    -glych

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