Post #3923172

Subject: Admiral Wonderboat and webcomics. Illustration: Typical comics from Narbonic, Superosity, and one of the incarnations of Few and Far Between. @admiralwonderboat : Admiral Wonderboat continues to achieve a balance itself. [I'm referring to the subject of the latest comic.] It looks at serious subjects at times but is accessible to all ages and offers productive takes. I think that I've commented to you before. I might not have mentioned that I've followed webcomics in general, a new type of media at the time, since the start with Bob the Angry Flower, Few and Far Between, Superosity, and many others. For the Internet per se, I go back to the 1970s. I think that websites in the 1990s, #webcomics and other personal sites in particular, marked the most important turning point. The Web permitted individuals to have their say. People are concerned that the corporate Web might fade away, to some extent, due to everything that's happening [including so-called "AI"]. My response is, "And?" There would be worse outcomes than to go back to the period when the Web was more of a voluntary collaboration of creative types. I like to tell individuals with projects like yours [another example being @ZLabe with his undoubtedly thankless work on climate visualizations] to keep the faith and to believe that social good is being accomplished. Your lead character wants to be sure of the purpose of his life and whether or not he's headed in the right direction. To make a positive difference is, I think, purpose enough. The most important part is that he thinks about things. You often caution the reader not to fall too far into reflection. But to reflect to some extent makes us real. Unrelated: I've mentioned what stands out to me about Admiral Wonderboat. Upon reflection, some of the early webcomics were striking as well, each in its own way. Few and Far Between was subtle but sometimes bordered on eerie. Superosity was pure insanity with storylines that featured Dan Ackroyd as the ruler of the Galaxy, the creator of ALF as a giant man who lived on the Moon, and Santa Claus as a reformed murderer who'd been raised on 4th Century Mars by a Martian magician. Narbonic and WIGU could be read casually but were epic series collectively and had a dreamlike quality at times. [Narbonic actually included pages that were a tribute to Little Nemo, a newspaper comic of a century ago related to dreams.] People who aren't familiar with the oldest webcomics should check out the archives for those that are still online.