alt title(s): Webcomic
"They're all about video games, gamernerds, webgeeks, dorknerds, gamewads, nerdgames, webwebs, and elves."
A webcomic is is
exactly what it sounds like, a comic strip on the World Wide Web.
They vary in format from gag-a-day Garfield-style strips, to dramatic, romantic graphic novels, to Japanese-inspired manga-style comics. The most popular webcomics tend to have a
computer game theme, giving an idea of who their key audience are (or, perhaps, where the author is coming from).
The medium as a whole suffers from the same problems as
Fan Fic with regards to
Sturgeons Law: a low barrier to entry means that the entire 90% of crap is visible. While many of the webcomics - particularly those on free community sites like
Drunk Duck
and
Comic Genesis
- are considered low quality, there are many high-quality comics out there. Some have even gained sufficient popular and critical acclaim to earn their creators a living wage from their work (usually via selling
The Merch).
One thing that's worthy of note, however, is that webcomics work on a very different set of standards than other fiction. Almost all webcomic authors are working pretty much entirely alone as they both draw and script their comics and most do not plan any further along than to the end of their current story (sometimes not even that far). Many of them also try to adhere to a schedule they aren't really capable of, resulting in them rushing to meet their "deadline" and making mistakes that should be avoidable. As a result, it should be noted that even many of the 10% not subject to
Sturgeons Law will lack qualities standard in "professional" works because of the lack of editorial input and lack of required lead time. This is not to say that all webcomics suffer from this, though, and even the ones that do can still be interesting.
Growing in popularity in recent years, webcomics use
tropes just like any other media, and thus can be seen cited throughout the wiki. (Ideally anyway. Wink wink, nudge nudge.)