a universe of comics online

It's huge and growing each day, with stories and artwork from disparate creators united by the open nature of web publishing.

Everything from hierogylphs to angst crisscrossing genres is available.

Go look at Demian5's When I Am King , for a look at how this Zurich-based artist approaches developing comics for the web (it's hard to believe that he drew everything with a mouse in Illustrator).

Or head on over to Justine Shaw's Nowhere Girl for a coming of age story with subtle colors.

Daniel Merlin Goodbrey has photo-based comics (for the ungifted wannabes like me) while Brent Wood offers the eclectic Brambletown which allows you to choose a character and then see how the narrative threads progress. Brent Kirk brings the indie feel online, while bubblegum noir stylings are presented by Jason Little.

And apparently the list of new stuff is growing and growing at a fantastic rate (and we're just talking longform comics here - strips are actually more numerous, head on over here for more).

Marco Dimaano is also updating Immacolata, and who knows? Given how things are going, the great migration (transition? evolution?) is nothing to be feared (though of course there is massive resistance - from people like...me, for example - but that was before). There is such a huge pool of young local talent who are not so set in their ways (of printing on paper) and are more likely to create for the web in the first instance.

All of which is good. I'll always love (and prefer) the "realness" of a printed comics, but in the final analysis, a story is a story no matter what medium it utilizes. And believe me, we've only seen the tip of the online comic iceberg in terms of creative use of the tools available.