Webcomics

**Webcomics** (also known as **online comics** or **Internet comics**) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or in comic books.

### History

The history of webcomics follows the advances of technology, art, and business of comics on the Internet. The first comics were shared through the Internet in the mid-1980s. Early webcomics were usually derivatives from strips in college newspapers, but when the World Wide Web became widely popular in the mid-1990s, more people started creating comics exclusively for this medium. By the year 2000, various webcomic creators were financially successful and webcomics became more artistically recognized.

In the second half of the 2000s, webcomics became less financially sustainable due to the rise of social media and consumers' disinterest in certain kinds of merchandise. However, crowdsourcing through Kickstarter and Patreon also became popular in this period, allowing readers to donate money to webcomic creators directly. The 2010s also saw the rise of webtoons in South Korea, where the form has become very prominent.

#### The Second Renaissance (2020-31)

**The Second Webcomic Renaissance**, or simply known as **the Second Renaissance** was a period between the years 2020 and 2031, where the Webcomic Community experience a large surge in visitors, fans, and contributors, and a larger recognition of the webcomic community.

In the years 2019 and 2020, CTRL+ALT+DEL, along with many 'mostly disliked' webcomics within the community were cancelled for numerous reasons, this caused a large surge of people looking for new content to follow.

Many small and obscure webcomics were soon visited by curious visitors, where those who liked/loved the content proceeded to share it friends and social media, where the fanbases that were in the tens or hundreds grew to thousands, surprising and delighting many previously obscure artists. Already popular, but not quite widely-recognised, webcomics were also affected, with their already big fanbases growing bigger.

In 2020, many webcomic artists collectively claimed that the community was in a 'Second Renaissance'.

Most of the comics that got popular were story-driven, and of mostly fantasy, sci-fi, and other escapist genres, as the webcomics with no story and more politically-motivated and 'relatable' cores saw only small increases. New Webcomics started to pop up, and several collaborative websites either grew or were founded, with the most popular of them being Online Universe, where several thousand webcomics either migrated to or were linked on the website, with info and reviews being provided to users.

The Culture of Webcomics became very large and influential, with a large unprecedented surge of nostalgia of the 2000's and early 2010's, with many websites changing to a more nostalgic format seen in a period between the years of 2008 and 2012 instead of the bright flashy mid to late 2010's and 20's feel, this would last well into the late 21st Century. Meanwhile, many in the hardcover comic industries, many Marvel and DC fans began to check out Superhero and Action webcomics.

Online Universe, a webcomic-sharing and webcomic-hosting website, opened up in 2031.