Webcomics

www.sheldoncomics.com  By Dave Kellett

I am a big fan of webcomics and I think quite a few people of my generation relate to them for similar reasons.

I really became interested in comics in general in 1985. Calvin & Hobbes. Bill Watterson changed my life. C&H had more than just yucks and slapstick. It had depth and warmth and heart. Something that was missing from many other comics of the time. After some huge fights with newspapers and publishers over the way his art was presented, Bill won, no earned the right to draw Calvin & Hobbes however he wanted and they would publish it. They really had to. The fan base was rabid.

And then in 1995, Bill ended Calvin & Hobbes. I cried that day. I still cry today missing him. I have all the books and have read them many times and will never part with them. After he was gone, many artists tried to fill the hole in our collective hearts, but nothing at the time really achieved the same impact. And after a time, the whole format went back to the way it was before.

Little did we know, there were quite a few young artists just as affected by the loss as we were. Then the world started spinning out of control. Needless wars, corporate greed, bank fraud, and more racked the world. The nation if not the world reeled to and fro with great leaps in technology and the ability for horrible news and images to be presented to us faster and faster.

The internet changed us forever. Things far away seemed to impact us more. Many grew more knowledgable of current events and many grew distant from reality. Taco Selfies?

But then something wonderful happened. All those young artists who never in a million years could get published in a "Major" newspaper, found they could distribute online. Just let their ideas and artwork flow out into the world for anyone to see.

They channel their hopes and their despairs. Their philosophical conundrums. They share poetry they like through the characters they create. They tell stories of their lives and of the lives of people they knew, or just read about. They make mental illness funny and approachable. They make sexism and racism uncool. They share points of view that have in them the heart we saw once in a young boy and his tiger as they cried over a baby possum.

They break our hearts and lift them up in small drawings or many page explorations.

They give us the hope that Bill Watterson tried to impart to us in that last comic of Calvin and Hobbes sledding down the hill.

So if you follow or like any webcomic artist, let them know. Share their work on social media. Share with your friends. Write to them. Patronize them if they have a Patreon account. Buy their work.

But That's Just Me...Walk My Mind