Webcomics: (Bloomsbury Comics Studies)

**Nominated for the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work** The first critical guide to cover the history, form and key critical issues of the medium, Webcomics helps readers explore the diverse and increasingly popular worlds of online comics. In an accessible and easy-to-navigate format, the book covers such topics as: ·The history of webcomics and how developments in technology from the 1980s onwards presented new opportunities for comics creators and audiences ·Cultural contexts – from the new financial and business models allowed by digital media to social justice causes in contemporary webcomics ·Key texts – from early examples of the form such as Girl Genius and Penny Arcade to popular current titles such as Questionable Content and Dumbing of Age ·Important theoretical and critical approaches to studying webcomics Webcomics includes a glossary of crucial critical terms, annotated guides to further reading, and online resources and discussion questions to help students and readers develop their understanding of the genre and pursue independent study.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Historical Overview Social and Cultural Impact Ubiquity Technology Conflicts with Newspaper Strips Audience Participation Education/Social Causes Formats Financing Key Texts Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques Stand Still. Stay Silent. by Minna Sundberg The Adventures of Gyno-Star by Rebecca Cohen Dumbing of Age by David M. Willis Empathize This by Tak Shiota et al. Critical Uses Discussing Webcomics Webcomics as a Genre? Genres in Webcomics Defining Success Success: Easier or More Difficult? The Negative Side of Creator Access Permanence vs. Etherialness Paratexts Appendix Solution Squad Lesson Plan Glossary Resources

About the Author :
Sean Kleefeld is an independent scholar based in the USA. He is the author of Comic Book Fanthropology (2009) and is a regular columnist and blogger.

Review :
Sean Kleefeld's Webcomics, an entry in the Bloomsbury Comics Studies series, is essential because it remedies the lack of a high-level account of webcomics. It allows the reader to survey the entire field and to see the common threads that link seemingly disparate genres together ... I hope that other future scholarly works, by Kleefeld or others, will complement Kleefeld's perspective by offering more critical and theoretically informed analyses of webcomics. For such works, however, Kleefeld's Webcomics represents an essential starting point. I've always been a great fan of Sean Kleefeld's writing: its clarity, its circumspection, and the measured quality of his tone. Kleefeld is an ideal writer to chronicle the rise of modern webcomics. He patiently explores not just the nascent realities of an industry in flux but all of the roads not taken, all of the false starts and dead ends, with the perspicacity an unformed future demands. In Kleefeld's hands, defining what comics looks like today is less a sorting out process for the ages than a mad crash down a steep hill hoping to scoop up some village's bouncing wheel of cheese set loose on the valley below. By the time you're through, you'll know just what set of circumstances won the day, and what set didn't and what might be yet to come. The longer you take to find and read your own copy is the amount of time I get to be smarter than you.