Talk:List of early webcomics

"List"?

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I truly do believe that a page named "List of ..." SHOULD HAVE A DAMN LIST and not just "selected highlights". CFLeon (talk) 22:05, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

It is not so much "selected highlights", it's more like "I've listed every webcomic that started before 1995 that I could find a source for." It's a decent list in that sense (Witches and Stitches, T.H.E. Fox, Where the Buffalo Roam, Netboy, Doctor Fun, Argon Zark!, Rogues of Clywyd-Rahn, and the "other firsts") – it just gives some extra historic details. Now what I really want is to find a source for the start-date of Dysfunctional Family Circus :s

What I'm trying to get at is that this is definitely not a traditionally encyclopedic article on the early history of webcomics. If anything, it's a Timeline of early webcomics, which would probably also work as a title. ~Mable (chat) 04:52, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

List article missing sections

My earlier edit was intended to partially repair the sections removed from the original list, but I see I have not been clear. As it stands the article is not a list, but it could be restored to a state upon which further useful work could be done. For example, the category shows Early webcomics and then a series or lists by year starting at 2000, but is missing some of the years from 1995 to 1999. I don't care how it's done, but consider the article from the a reader's viewpoint: where is the list? Why must I scroll all the way down there to see any lists? Why are some years missing from the early "list"? Now I do see the beginnings of a restoration of a reader-useful list, and I do hope this makes my intentions clearer. -84user (talk) 18:27, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, 1996-2000 is no longer "early". By 1995, webcomics started to gain significant popularity and hundreds of webcomics were made; there's no point in listing those. The purpose of this list is to define what webcomics pioneered the medium in general. The "other firsts" section lists late-90s webcomics for a reason: they aren't "early webcomics" anymore, but pioneered some major ideas in the 90s. The list was written in prose because context is key. ~Mable (chat) 19:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

For some sources: Campbell describes comics and the internet before 1992 as the "prehistory" and webcomics between 1992 and 1995 as the "stone age". Shaenon Garrity describes these two periods as the "stone age" and the "bronze age" respectively. The "Roundtable" of The Webcomics Examiner started its "artistic history of webcomics" discussion at 1995's Argon Zark. This list is about this period before that point. ~Mable (chat) 19:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

As for spinning these years off in separate lists: I think that's possible and I'd be alright with it. Right now, we have categories for these years, so it's not like the collection would be lost. I don't think there's much things to describe in these yearly lists, though, as there weren't any webcomic awards at the time and there wasn't much "webcomic news". But hey, I'd love to see what people can find! ~Mable (chat) 19:37, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Category:1996 webcomic debuts would be fine if it was included in the navigation templates. The Early webcomics template has 1980s and stops at 1995, while the Webcomics template starts at 2000, making 1996 to 1999 missing to the reader. Are you seeing something different? To repeat, the list article is still not a list in the usual wikipedia sense, and that it is missing those four years. My edit was to partially repair that situation, while your reversion has not made any improvement. -84user (talk) 06:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I may try to do an article on '99 and '98 at some point in the near future, but for now, I've added Category:1990s webcomics to a see also of this article and to the template. I hope that helps somewhat? ~Mable (chat) 11:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, I may experiment with writing a list of webcomics from 1995 to 1999. I have no idea if that works as a grouping, but it could be interesting... ~Mable (chat) 11:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

this is working out pretty well, if I may say so myself. There were no major events during this period, but we can list all webcomics with an article this way. I just need to improve the layout of the list itself EDIT: I've probably moved it to the mainspace by the time you read this ^_^ ~Mable (chat) 14:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Milwaukee Journal is no longer hosted by Google

The Milwaukee Journal is no longer hosted digitally by Google, which had a minor effect on the verifiability of this article (see broken link). The journal should be digitalized again in the future, but through a subscription fee. For what it's worth, I can confirm that the journal talks about NetBoy, Aaron A. Aardvark, The Afterlife of Bob, and Calvin and Hobbes. Source:

• Grabar, Henry (2016-08-24). "Why Milwaukee's Online Newspaper Archive Vanished Overnight". Slate Magazine.

~Mable (chat) 18:54, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Eerie started in 1994

This article had said that Eerie started sometime in the 1980s, with no specific date given. Anyone who is familiar with Eerie's work knows this is wrong, since Eerie didn't start until 1994. I'm not sure what incorrect source is used for the 1980s claim, so if anyone can try to explain that, please do. For those unfamiliar with Eerie, here are some sources I found through Google that should show that 1994 is his correct start date. For example, there's this interview with Eerie at http://ftp.scene.org/mirrors/artpacks/www/mirrors/acheron/interviews/inter-eerie.shtml that says "So, you started out around 1994 if im not mistaking in Imperial, what was the scene like then when you entered it..? Good for a 'newbie' ?" And also this archive of Eerie's work starts at 1994: http://bbs.ninja/~eerie/ And also from Sixteen Colors ANSI Art and ASCII Art Archive https://www.facebook.com/sixteencolors/posts/10153836639036792:0 "Eerie recently released a compilation of all of his ANSI scene work throughout the 90's and early 2000's." So, pretty clearly 1994, but if anyone has a source that says Eerie was creating in the 1980s, can you point to what exactly your sources says about this? If someone can explain where this 1980s information came from, maybe we can figure out why they are wrong. Thanks, Berlin Kitten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Berlinkitten (talk • contribs) 19:21, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

First of all, I'm really happy that I actually get to see Eerie's work! I tried to Google for "Inspector Dangerfuck"+Eerie at the time, but was never able to find much. Most of these sources don't mention the comic(?) referred to in the sources at all. The two sources I had found that mentioned Inspector Dangerfuck were A History of Webcomics by T Campbell, which states "A type artist code-named Eerie used ... ANSI to compose the first known comic on the Internet, Inspector Dangerfuck. When the graphic Net finally came, ASCII and ANSI art had partly primed the audience." Campbell notes that "very little is readily available about the strip," which may indicate he had similar issues finding it as I did. The other source is Everyday Information, which simply refers to it as an "early antecedent of webcomics" but gives no details. Thanks for finding some actual primary sources. Usually, primary sources aren't the best sources to use, but I think it is clear that the two books are simply incorrect. Do you know any specifics about Inspector Dangerfuck, though? ~Mable (chat) 20:27, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it sounds like both of those two books are not good sources at all for this. Huge red flags on both. Neither provide dates, and without dates, descriptions like "first known" or "early antecedent" are meaningless. Yes, Inspector Dangerfuck might be the first one somebody knows if they don't know any of the others, and it is earlier than some others, but there were many others that were earlier than Dangerfuck. If you are asking whether Inspector Dangerfuck was from 1994, yes, for example "Inspector Dangerfuck vs. Dr. Silly" was one of the first that I recall, and it was released late September 1994, which you can confirm here: http://bbs.ninja/pack/rel-0994/?artist=eerie Thanks, Berlinkitten (talk) 00:13, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for setting all of this straight. I'm sure the confusion arose due to Eerie's "low tech" approach, using ANSI art and BBS a few years after the launch of the Web. It'd be easy to expect that he started way earlier; I fell in the same trap. ~Mable (chat) 09:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

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