It’s customary for folks to come up with “Best of” lists towards the end of each calendar year. I’m not one to do that myself, but I can mostly understand why people like them. Derik Badman, in trying to come up with his “Best Webcomics of 2011” noted that he found it difficult because there were so many different types of webcomics, and he ultimately winds up following creator blogs, Tumblrs, etc. to see what they’re up to. He doesn’t expressly say so in his post, but there seems to be almost a sense of lamentation about this. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it comes across to me as frustration in having to sort through various venues rather than the ease of having everything pop up in a feed reader.
Badman’s right, of course, with regards to the fragmentation that’s occurred in webcomics. The earliest strips generally fell neatly into either the long-running serial or gag-a-day strip categories. As he notes, there are now “single pages, short projects, excerpts, one-off issues, journal comics, etc.” Indeed, I recently discovered Ulf Andersson’s Portraits, which isn’t really a comic as many would define them, but a series of, well, portraits with some accompanying dialogue from the individual. Despite a somewhat cartoony style, it would take some people a lot of convincing to agree that they’re comics. Regardless, though, it’s hardly the type of thing one would have found on the web when Sluggy Freelance started. Read More...
