What was your gateway comic?

[EmergencyExit]

The first comic on the web I read was when I was really young called Runamuck but it doesn't seem to exist at all now. I didn't get introduced to the concept of webcomics until highs chool by a friend who showed me Keenspot. I think Sinfest was the first one I read though I don't read it anymore.I basically branched from there. The appeal to me was pretty much the same as Cope, comics that were free . Comics like College Roomies from Hell, It's Walky and Funny Farm are what got me into wanting to do one myself. In that regard is was the complete freedom and the idea that people without top notch art abilities could still do a great comic that gave me the confidence to start my own. I have since had plenty of fans tell me that I was their first introduction to webcomics, which made me happy since it meant that they kept on reading webcomics and I didn't spoil it for them.

[Ti-Phil]

My first link to webcomics was "Awkward Stage" which was made by a fellow OHRer (group who made video games with the OHRRPGCE). Then I tried to draw again the comic I did in high school and place it on my geocities page... then found comic genesis cause geocities' size limit is...scary.

[Evil Jamie!]

Man I don't even know. It was some random comic that I never found again after the one time I read it. When I tried looking for it I found Megatokyo. I'd been drawing comics for like a year in my spear time for fun when finding that page made me realize that I could put the comic online, oh my goodness!

[K-Dawg]

Wendy which lead into Tang's Weekly Comic which lead into Sinfest. I then learned of Keenspot so from there I started looking for more webcomics, I discovered one called Fish and Worm...which I then found out was hosted on some upstart site called "Keenspace".

The rest is history.

[Terotrous]

Ozy and Millie was my first webcomic. I can't remember how I found it, someone probably linked me to it from somewhere. At the time, it was a Keenspot comic, from which I found this place.

My first comic (Philosophy Bites) bears more than a passing resemblance to it in terms of characters, though I think my humour is fairly different.

[VinnieD]

Well I've been drawing comics since early teens at least. Mostly very bad fan comics. After reading a few books on art and improving a bit, i started doing originals (Still very bad). In college I was introduced by a friend to Sluggy Freelance. (this was 1999). By the end of 1999 it dawned on me to try combining this idea of webcomics, with my love of drawing comics myself.

My first attempt was a comic called Ubergeek. It started bad, in fact it was done as a joke, and I only put it online with some encouragement from my friend. It's sort of become an inside joke to my circle of friends. I also experimented in sprite comics, but that too was mostly just an inside joke. It wasn't until 2005 that inspiration struck me, and I got serious with AntiBunny. The fact that I took a year to build it up before launch, just to be sure this was in fact something I was serious about, says something for the idea.

To this day I am still hooked on Sluggy Freelance.

[Lostmind]

My sister showed me one called Sabrina Online, around the time I found Penny Arcade in the Playstation mag. I search for more lead me to find CJ Burgundy's comics, where I learned about "Keenspace."

As for why I started one myself, I had always liked comics and drawing so I decided to give it a try.

[NeuroticThunder]

Horribleville.

Nuff said.

[Randyraven]

What comic was the first webcomic you read? what did you like about it?
What comic inspired you to draw and/or write a webcomic, and why?

I don't remember the first webcomic I ever read. The earliest ones I can remember were just a random assortment of works that had no affiliation with each other other than they were on the web. I can't even remember what they were called but I remember they were always ones that I thought were funny and no one else did.

A comic didn't inspire me to draw my comic. I just had a comic idea, I tested it with some people I knew and the only thing I could do to get it out there was to put in on the net. Then it went down, and I never drew it again. I then had another idea (NTFL), and I'm hoping that I don't stop as quickly as I did with my first.

[Bobadventures]

Well, my comic started a print comic, years ago. Back in the 90's, friends advised me to put my old strips online, but I was net-illiterate in those days and never did. I kick myself for that daily, because if I'd done it back when they suggested it, I would have been one of the official first webcomic artists, and I'd be on all the historical lists today. Poop. (I could been somebody! I coulda been a contendah!)

Anyhow, when I finally did take their advice, I still really wasn't reading webcomics myself, yet. I did follow some newspaper strips online, by which bad example I made my early strip scans much smaller than I probably should have. Mostly I was reading Alley Oop and Arlo & Janis. I still enjoy them, but there's no reason for a webcomic's panels to be as small as a newspaper strip's (especially when you have to contend with limited screen resolution!)

The first actual webcomic I followed was Melonpool by Steve Troop. Melonpool has been basically on hiatus for years now, but every once in a while Steve does produce a few new strips, so it has never officially ended.

[DrakeGrey]

I fully intended to post in this post, about how some key webcomic totally turned me on and tuned me in to trying my hand at it but the fact is, there really wasn't one.

That's not to say I don't have favorite webcomics; at the top of the list are Freefall and Irregular Webcomic! And as far as influences, I think Irregular Webcomic! is probably the greater; if nothing else it really shows well the power of the web to permit metacommentary, to permit the author to augment their work with notes, jokes, comments and asides that don't end up overwhelming the strip itself.

Now I just need to learn how to add text and my own metacomments here. One step at a time, I suppose.

[[geoduck]]

The earliest one I can remember is Argon Zark.