Sean Kleefeld is an independent researcher whose work has been used by the likes of Marvel Entertainment, Titan Books and 20th Century Fox. He writes the ongoing “Incidental Iconography” column for The Jack Kirby Collector and had weekly “Kleefeld on Webcomics” and "Kleefeld's Fanthropology" columns for MTV Geek. He’s also contributed to Alter Ego, Back Issue and Comic Book Resources. Kleefeld’s 2009 book, Comic Book Fanthropology, addresses the questions of who and what comic fans are. He blogs daily at KleefeldOnComics.com.
Otaku is a loan word from Japanese. The original definition meant "a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills." It's derived...
You know how on newspaper comic strips, you can usually find a copyright notice in the gutters between two of the panels? The syndicates put that in place before they send the art file off to all the...
When I was younger, I was a huge fan of the Fantastic Four. I got a copy of one of their books as an eleven-year-old, and I was absolutely hooked. Naturally, I began buying all the issues I could, and I kept...
Let's say that you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes. You love the character's use of logic and deductive reasoning, and you try to follow his example throughout your life, dismissing unsubstantiated claims of all...
I think I first heard about the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art sometime in the late 1980s, despite it having been around for about a decade, and I recall being amazed that there was a school...
Yesterday, the Library of Congress announced the creation of a "Webcomics Web Archive." As the name suggests, it's intended to be an archive of webcomics to supplement "the Library’s extensive holdings in...
I was talking with David Gallaher over the weekend. We talked about a variety of things, but one thing he said was that he sees some of what I write here about webcomics and recognizes the various trends that...
Generally, when we think of fandoms, they're centered around a broad property like Star Wars or Harry Potter. They can become popular because people become enamored with the world that's been created, and they...
Periodically, I'll stumble across a webcomic that's expressly tied to a site that doesn't seem obviously predisposed to hosting webcomics. Namco ran a series of original video game based webcomics for a few...
There are, of course, thousands of creators out there right now toiling away on their webcomic. Some of them are crap, of course, but many of them are quite good, some downright excellent! But even though...