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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor

 

About the Study: Overview

About the Study: Overview

This was a research project that looked over the 25 latest installments of 100 web comics and studied the characters that appeared within.

A character was defined as:

  • Named. A title used as a name was accepted. For example, Captain was considered a name. My captain was not.
  • Appeared in more than one installment.
  • Spoke.

The webcomics had to fit the following parameters:

  • Published exclusively or originally on the web.
  • Currently updating as of mid-April, 2012 at least twice a month.
  • Fifty pages already published.
  • Primarily human cast.
  • Cast stayed largely consistent update to update.
  • No stick figures or such heavily stylized figures that were impossible to tell apart.

How the webcomics were chosen:

  • A list of 500 webcomics that fit the parameters was pulled from http://thewebcomiclist.com and friends’ recommendations.
  • From those 500, 100 were pulled using an online list randomizer (http://www.random.org/lists/). The top 100 after scrambling the list several times were the ones used.
  • This was meant to provide as random of a sampling of webcomics as possible, based on the principle of simple random sampling without replacement, in the hope that this would provide a more accurate representative sample than consciously choosing based on a personal idea of the breakdown of webcomics.
  • List of webcomics in the study

Characters were studied to find:

FAQ

(I decided this needed to be at the top again, so I’m just readjusting order)

technologistrevolution: problemswithwebcomics: About this Comic I’m curious how many of the “gay romances” were written with gay men as the intended audience or if (as I suspect) most were written by women with women as the intended audience. Especially since it is the focus. It’d be nice to have gay characters with the “roundedness” and creativity of straight protagonists (who get to be wizards, or fight as rebels in dystopian futures, or bring down Galactic Empires, or explore space) but was as undeniably gay as those are straight (fetishists aside who will deny anything for their fetish). I totally looked this up after you said this. Actually the 3 comics focused on gay male relationships in the above comic were all written by men, although 1 was then drawn by a woman.  I’m unsure about the intended audience. I see your point though; that does happen a lot. There were an additional 3 comics that had gay male main characters and 2 of those were written by woman and the third’s gender was unknown.I included a short list of comics with well-rounded (in my opinion) gay main characters that do things. (They get to fight as rebels, explore and fight in space, road trip, and be attacked by government agencies respectively.) Artifice: “Smart Guy-on-Guy Sci Fi” (In space! With shootouts!)Goodbye Chains : “Colin Lord is a cheerful Boston Communist, and Banquo White is a cranky half-Mexican with no philosophy beyond hedonism. Somehow they have become partners in crime, spreading a reign of terror and dialectical materialism across the plains of Colorado. Follow their adventures with explosives and ladies—and, possibly, men.” Robots and Racks : “Being a story about girls flying around in space.” The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal : “In the span of a single day, Amal calls off his arranged marriage, comes out to his conservative parents, promptly gets disowned, goes on a bender… and wakes up the next morning to find TJ, a lanky, dreadlocked vagrant, frying eggs and singing Paul Simon in his kitchen. TJ claims that the two have made a drunken pact to drive all the way from Berkeley to Providence. As it happens, Amal promised his sister he’d be there for her graduation from Brown University. And TJ, well… TJ has his own reasons. The agreement is simple: Amal does the driving; TJ pays the way - but a 3500 mile journey leaves plenty of time for things to get complicated.” Love is In the Blood : “When government agencies come to archaeologist Laila McCarthy for assistance, they are unaware her knowledge of dangerous relics was gained first-hand. But ancient enemies remember her as Sumerian demon Lamashtu and the first vampire.”

technologistrevolution:

problemswithwebcomics:

About this Comic

I’m curious how many of the “gay romances” were written with gay men as the intended audience or if (as I suspect) most were written by women with women as the intended audience. Especially since it is the focus.

It’d be nice to have gay characters with the “roundedness” and creativity of straight protagonists (who get to be wizards, or fight as rebels in dystopian futures, or bring down Galactic Empires, or explore space) but was as undeniably gay as those are straight (fetishists aside who will deny anything for their fetish).

I totally looked this up after you said this. Actually the 3 comics focused on gay male relationships in the above comic were all written by men, although 1 was then drawn by a woman.  I’m unsure about the intended audience. I see your point though; that does happen a lot. There were an additional 3 comics that had gay male main characters and 2 of those were written by woman and the third’s gender was unknown.

I included a short list of comics with well-rounded (in my opinion) gay main characters that do things. (They get to fight as rebels, explore and fight in space, road trip, and be attacked by government agencies respectively.)

Artifice: “Smart Guy-on-Guy Sci Fi” (In space! With shootouts!)

Goodbye Chains : “Colin Lord is a cheerful Boston Communist, and Banquo White is a cranky half-Mexican with no philosophy beyond hedonism. Somehow they have become partners in crime, spreading a reign of terror and dialectical materialism across the plains of Colorado. Follow their adventures with explosives and ladies—and, possibly, men.”

Robots and Racks : “Being a story about girls flying around in space.”

The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal : “In the span of a single day, Amal calls off his arranged marriage, comes out to his conservative parents, promptly gets disowned, goes on a bender… and wakes up the next morning to find TJ, a lanky, dreadlocked vagrant, frying eggs and singing Paul Simon in his kitchen.

TJ claims that the two have made a drunken pact to drive all the way from Berkeley to Providence. As it happens, Amal promised his sister he’d be there for her graduation from Brown University. And TJ, well… TJ has his own reasons.

The agreement is simple: Amal does the driving; TJ pays the way - but a 3500 mile journey leaves plenty of time for things to get complicated.”

Love is In the Blood : “When government agencies come to archaeologist Laila McCarthy for assistance, they are unaware her knowledge of dangerous relics was gained first-hand. But ancient enemies remember her as Sumerian demon Lamashtu and the first vampire.”

About the Study: Overview

This was a research project that looked over the 25 latest installments of 100 web comics and studied the characters that appeared within.

A character was defined as:

  • Named. A title used as a name was accepted. For example, Captain was considered a name. My captain was not.
  • Appeared in more than one installment.
  • Spoke.

The webcomics had to fit the following parameters:

  • Published exclusively or originally on the web.
  • Currently updating as of mid-April, 2012 at least twice a month.
  • Fifty pages already published.
  • Primarily human cast.
  • Cast stayed largely consistent update to update.
  • No stick figures or such heavily stylized figures that were impossible to tell apart.

How the webcomics were chosen:

  • A list of 500 webcomics that fit the parameters was pulled from http://thewebcomiclist.com and friends’ recommendations.
  • From those 500, 100 were pulled using an online list randomizer (http://www.random.org/lists/). The top 100 after scrambling the list several times were the ones used.
  • This was meant to provide as random of a sampling of webcomics as possible, based on the principle of simple random sampling without replacement, in the hope that this would provide a more accurate representative sample than consciously choosing based on a personal idea of the breakdown of webcomics.
  • List of webcomics in the study

Characters were studied to find:

FAQ

FAQ

  1. What webcomics were included in the study?
  2. You say there were no trans* characters, but how do you know that for sure? You can’t always tell by appearance.
  3. Popular webcomics weren’t in this study.

Webcomics in the study


1.    Non Adventures of Wonderella
2.    Locus
3.    Misfile
4.    Love is in the Blood
5.    Look Straight Ahead
6.    Family Man
7.    Unsounded
8.    Widdershins
9.    Demonfist
10.    Sam and Fuzzy
11.    Girl Genius
12.    The Academy
13.    The Meek
14.    Gadget Hovel
15.    The Dreamland Chronicles
16.    Distillum
17.    Goodbye Chains
18.    Scandanavia and the World
19.    Meaty Yogurt
20.    Van Von Hunter
21.    Artifice
22.    Multiplex
23.    Geeks Next Door
24.    Blur the Lines
25.    Wasted Talent
26.    Customer Service
27.    Amazing Superpowers
28.    Doomsday, My Dear
29.    Ctrl+Alt+Del
30.    Band Vs. Band
31.    Incubus Tales
32.    Retail
33.    Sorcery 101
34.    Sister Claire
35.    Pokemon XDegree
36.    Scapula
37.    Comic Rantz
38.    Runewood Abbey
39.    Kuro Shouri
40.    Rune
41.    Spinnerette
42.    Rune Hunters
43.    Skeleton Crew
44.    Banana Triangle
45.    Dead Nemo
46.    Ellie Starling’s Very Long Walk
47.    Beyond Good-N-Evil
48.    Character Development
49.    Riddick
50.    Vanguard
51.    Remove R Comic
52.    Weregeek
53.    Erstwhiletales
54.    Arpeggio
55.    Holiday Wars
56.    Dumbing of Age
57.    Does Not Play With Others
58.    Guests in Purgatory
59.    Fans
60.    The Devil’s Panties
61.    Godseeker
62.    Chorus of the Neverborn
63.    Angry Faerie
64.    The Challenges of Zona
65.    Escape From Terra
66.    Garage Raja
67.    Robots and Racks
68.    Observe to Exist
69.    Pebble Version
70.    Of Wolves and Men
71.    Promises Promises
72.    Mage Maiden and the Chop Chop Princess
73.    Nickyitis
74.    The Saucer Seekers
75.    Squid Row
76.    Rusty and Co
77.    Sluggy Freelance
78.    The Dreamer
79.    Strange Quark
80.    Prague Race
81.    Sebastian & the Beast
82.    Tangent of Matter
83.    Who is Lu
84.    PHD Comics
85.    Mangled Stare
86.    Troll Girl
87.    Pilli Adventure
88.    Beret
89.    Skin Horse
90.    Dragonet
91.    Gunnerkrigg
92.    Girls With Slingshots
93.    Sailor Sun
94.    ThunderKid
95.    Slimy Thief
96.    What It Takes
97.    Superosity
98.    C’est La Vie
99.    Johnny Wander
100.    Esca Works


About the Study: Gender

Gender was by far the easiest to discern in the study. Pronouns, appearance, and style of dress were all taken into account.

About the Study: Sexuality

Sexuality in these comics were discovered however possible. Of the 624 characters in the study, only 225 had a sexuality in evidence. Sexuality of characters was discovered using the character pages that so many webcomics have, and the content of the comics. Any mention of sexuality was used as well as any romantic or sexual content shown.

About the Study: Race

Race was the most difficult to discover, but it was done to the best of my ability. Most frequently, race was decided by skin color and the origin of the character’s name. Occasionally there were additional visual cues or contextual clues, but those rarely appeared. Because of this, sometimes race could be decided and sometimes ethnicity was what came up instead.

This is an incrediblysimplified way to find race and not one that would work in real life. However, representation in comics is simplified, sometimes almost to the point of abstraction, and this sometimes made skin color and name the only way to discern race or ethnicity.