"Girly" is the Epitomic Webcomic

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Due to the mature undertones behind what we'll be talking about, I will NOT be 

providing a link to the following comic...Gotta keep things clean for school, sorry!
Also, there are minor spoilers for the material of discussion, so be aware of that
before you read this.

HERE'S AN IDEA:

Girly is an example of a webcomic done right.

In my article about The Boondocks, I talked about how a simple print comic was able to spark a television series, and more importantly, a lot of controversy and heated discussion among industry experts and viewers alike.  I tend to really enjoy a good comic strip - a well-written comic can speak so much louder than simple words can - this is something I've always believed, and that's coming from a writer.  I have a lot of different avenues I would love to explore in the career of writing, and one of them would definitely be writing for a comic series of some kind.

Let's talk about comics again.  In fact, let's talk about a webcomic - specifically, a series about girls kicking butt.  This is a comic called Girly, and it's probably my favorite comic series to date.  Started by Josh Lesnick in the April of 2003 and ending in September 2010, this was a pretty long project for who is essentially a starving artist wanting to share an idea with the world.  The comic follows a girl named Otra, a superhero who works as a part-time clothing designer.  She has a mess of issues on her mind, going through what can be chalked up to a midlife crisis: she doesn't know what to do with herself, she feels unfulfilled, and she's always cranky and lonely.  This gives her an edgy, moody personality throughout the story.  She meets a girl named Winter who, unlike Otra, is overly optimistic and over-the-top in all she does.  The two decide to team up as a dynamic duo and fight evil.

Here's the first strip of the comic, if you want a basic idea of Otra's sourness in action:

Nonchalant aerospace advances?  Yeah, okay.

A webcomic doesn't usually have any differences from a traditional comic.  The only difference between the two is the format in which they're presented in: traditional comics are usually published in a book or newspaper, and webcomics are posted online.  While there aren't any real differences between the two on the surface, I feel the environment in which they're published in creates a lot of variance in how the comic is written.  The core difference is artistic expression, or as the mainstream tries to pitch it: censorship. 

Guns: The Movie

Otra and Winter get closer and closer during their adventures as hero and sidekick, and eventually declare their love for one another, shifting gears in the comic slightly.  The comic, beforehand, was very much a comical action-style strip, but now that the main characters see each other on this interpersonal level, the comic adds in this theme of devotion and love, while still retaining that action and comedy, of course.  However, no matter how eloquently you phrased this idea to a major publisher, they'd never agree to publishing a story that centrally promotes and lays themes and morals through homosexual tendencies; on top of trying to pitch a brand-new idea and intellectual property, the risk is already too high without taking into account controversy and resultant obscurity. It's sad and pathetic, but as disgusting and horrible as it is, it's still a smart business move on the publisher's part, because they're right.

And strangely enough, this is where Lesnick struck gold with Girly:  he allowed a small, dedicated following to grow with the underground audience of the internet, and as the story paced itself to escalate with the fans he established, he gained a group of open-minded, accepting readers who were okay with their Otra and Winter loving one another.  They feel more connected to the characters as readers, and they still get to indulge in all that action and comedy they originally stuck around for.  He gave his audience what they wanted right up until the end, 758 strips later, while also giving himself the elbow room to express his own ideas at full length.

So why is Girly a webcomic in its most organic, purest form?  It's really for simple reasons that don't take much analytical thought:

• Girly was natively published online during its original running (2003-2010).

• Lesnick took advantage of the no-shackles expression that comes with online publishing - he throws in all of the avant-garde jokes, sexual innuendos, and mature content he wanted.

And,

• The entire comic was met with fair online success and gained a dedicated following; the entire series was eventually published by an indie company that goes by the name of Radio Comix.

Read the comic...!

And with the completion of the comic and his expression toward this idea fully fleshed out, what did Lesnick have to lose by publishing Girly?  On top of it being every comic artist's dream to have their creations picked up on a professional scale, he wasn't contacted partway through the story to be published and take the story in a specific direction - Lesnick's completed creation was what would get published, no matter how crude or offensive it might be to some.  Girly succeeded where The Boondocks failed, to generalize the situation. I have no doubt in my mind that The Boondocks would've been a massive hit without backlash if it started out as a webcomic.

But who's to say that either comic did things more correctly than the other?  For what The Boondocks was trying to do, it could be argued that it outperformed Girly by a landslide.  Aside from being adapted to a four-season TV show, the Boondocks' format of presentation - in newspapers and magazine - was a breeding ground for the general public to read intentionally controversial political views to spark discussion and make people think.  Girly wasn't trying to get a rise out of anyone; it was just trying to tell a sincere story.  As we know, however,  being offensive on purpose and making people feel offended are two different things: Girly never would've been able to start on a mainstream format without being panned by readers and eventually banned by editors.  Girly worked well building an audience and filtering haters, whereas the purpose for The Boondocks was to feed haters with ammunition in order to make them think.  Both comics were moderate successes for their own specific reasons.

What do you think?  Does something as simple as how and where you present a story affect its success and feedback?  Would a bold take on a story like Girly benefit from starting on the internet?  And what do you personally think of this comic?  Let me know in the comments section below.  Personally, I started reading this comic, and I finished the whole series in only four days - it was pretty gripping for me.  It's free to read online, if you're interested.