Some Numbers and Military Dictatorships

Hey Raven,

Sorry I missed my post! Today I will post early so I am sure to remember. I wanted to make one last post (for now) about things I am passionate about. This is one topic I am sure I will talk about a lot on here and I apologize to anyone reading who does not share my love of it. I am talking, of course, about politics. Today I want to talk about how interesting and even enjoyable politics can be. Specifically political history. It doesn't have to be dry or procedural! No really!

I have a particular affinity for the political history of Ecuador, in part because I think it is often overlooked when scholars cast their eyes towards the South in favor of Argentina, Colombia, or Brazil. Though the small country may make US headlines less frequently than other countries, its political history and present day are just as interesting and in many ways just as important to know and understand as the bigger players in South America.

I wanted to begin with a list because, as you may have noticed, I like them. And in this case because the list illustrates an important point.

Ecuadorian Presidents 1996-2006 (Before you read this list try to guess how many names will be on it).

Go ahead. Guess. I'll wait...

Did you guess? No? Well, fine. Spoilsport. Time to find out the answer anyways.

Ecuadorian Presidents From 1996 to 2006 (or more accurately January 2007)

1. August 1996 to February 1997 - Abdala Bucaram

2. February 1997 to August 1998 - Fabian Alarcon (interrupted briefly by Rosalia Arteaga)

3. August 1998  to January 2000 - Jamil Mahuad

4. January 2000 to January 2003 - Gustavo Noboa

5. January 2003 to April 2005 - Lucio Gutierrez 

6. April 2005  to January 2007 - Alfredo Palacio

That's right: 6 (6.5 really including Arteaga) in 10 years! That's an average of one and a half years per president for a whole decade. That period is someone's entire childhood! Do you see the point this list was making? Ecuadorian history is complex, rich, and sometimes a little bit crazy. For goodness sake Bucaram nicknamed himself "El Loco"!

Here are some other numbers that may surprise you.
- 5 of the 6 former presidents were arrested or charged with a major crime relating to their time in power from embezzlement to treason
- 0 out of 6 completed a full 4 year presidential term (some were removed from office, the rest completed the removed presidents term, but did not get elected on their own)
- 3 out of 6 were removed from power by the congress or by force
- 1 out of 6 was party to a failed military coup of an earlier president has been implicated in other attempts to overthrow the government since his own removal from the presidency
- 3 years was the longest continuous presidential term during these 10 years
- 2 days was the shortest term, held by Arteaga when she challenged Alarcon's legitimacy (he had already been president for a whopping 3 days when he stepped aside for her challenge)

Pretty interesting 10 years of political history right there, yeah? Still not convinced? Okay, but I'm convinced you didn't read any of those wikipedia links. Or do further googling. Seriously, Abdala Bucaram's life reads like the best book! Or the worst... depending on your taste.

Well, I'll convince you, somehow. Let's stay in Ecuador, but go back a ways to visit the life of one of my favorite politicians: Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, a man who would be president five times (and only complete one of those five terms).

Who wouldn't want to know more about this dapper dude?

Credit to Wikipedia for the image

Ibarra was born into the country's capital city, Quito, in 1893. His father, a civil engineer by trade, was involved in conservative political activism during the years of liberal dictatorship begun by Eloy Alfaro in 1895, and ending in 1912 when Alfaro himself was violently murdered then burned in effigy. (Sound interesting? Good thing my next post will be all about it!) Anyways, back to our future president Velasco Ibarra... He earned a doctorate in law from the Central University of Ecuador.

His first run was in 1933 and he won with a record setting 80% of the popular vote, but he did not finish his first term. A military coup (which will become a theme in Ibarra's life) ousted him and he ran to Colombia to escape. He lived in exile in both Colombia and Argentina, working in both countries as a university professor. 

But eventually he returned to his home country and in 1940 he stood for election again, this time against Carlos Arroyo Del Rio, who ended up defeating Ibarra (supposedly by fraudulent means as Del Rio did not have the popular support that Ibarra did). Ibarra planned to overthrow Del Rio and take the presidency, but he was discovered and for the second time sent into exile.

Fortunately for Ibarra, though perhaps not for Ecuador at large, Del Rio lost a war, attempted to set up a police state, and was overthrown clearing the way for Ibarra to take control again in early 1944. Any guesses what happens next? If you guessed military power grab that gets Ibarra exiled for a third time you are right! You smartie.

The man who overthrew Ibarra lasted only ten days, but a quick succession of other presidents (including Ibarra's former VP) eventually led to the election of Galo Plaza, who remained in power until 1952. Guess who shows up for his third run as President of Ecuador? Did you guess Ibarra? Cause you're right again! Hmmm. Maybe you should be writing this blog post, huh?

So  Ibarra is in power. He's the president. The big boss. El jefe. Who has some guesses about where our story goes next? Exile? Military detention? Dictatorship? No. Nope. Uh-uh. Ibarra actually serves a full term. Four years. And here's another surprise: he gets a lot done. During these 4 years Ibarra's love of infrastructure become clear and apparent. There are more than 300 new schools completed with over 100 more being built across the country by 1956. More than 1300 kilometers of road are built and over 1000 kilometers are improved or repaired during that same time. Ibarra's term ends and a new president is elected. Who's been counting terms? Is Ibarra coming back?

You bet he is! Four short years and one president later Ibarra is president again. This time he makes some not so good choices, like getting rid of an important agreement between Ecuador and their on again off again enemies to the south, Peru. This leads to all sorts of disagreements and warring down the road for the two countries. Not such a stellar political move. Ibarra's term doesn't even last two years this time. He's removed from power before the end of 1961. Again by the military (and a coalition of politicians who support Castro way more than Ibarra is willing to).

His last term runs from 1968 to 1972, ending in another military (but non-violent) coup. That's four military coups in one president's history! I'd give up at this point and retire to a nice quiet life away from the armed services. Ibarra is basically forced to do just that. He "retires" (read: is exiled) to Argentina and lives there until 1979, a month before his death, when he returns to Ecuador - presumably to make another go at the presidency before injuries from falling off a bus catch up to him (actually he only came back so he could die in his home country).

Ibarra's legacy is far from being all rainbows and sunshine. He did not always respect the rule of law and tried to declare himself dictator, imprisoned those who disagreed with him, and often suppressed a free press who wouldn't parrot his beliefs. But he also placed a high premium on infrastructure, something desperately needed in Ecuador during Ibarra's time. He mandated days off for workers each week and kept unemployment low with his many public works projects. He also championed land reform and higher wages. 

By the end of it all Ibarra had been president of Ecuador a cumulative 13 years, a record still held today for longest serving Ecuadorian president. He left behind a legacy as a hugely charismatic popular figure who once famously quipped, "Give me a balcony and I will become president." Though there is scholarly dispute about Ibarra's status as a true "populist" leader, having held support from wealthy elite as well as the common man, he will always be, to me, a sign of the power of words and personality in the Ecuadorian political machine. He is also a great example of how unpredictable and dynamic politics can be. 

There you have it! An extra long post to make up for my missed one, I guess. Sorry on both counts! Next post I will talk a little bit about Aloy Alfaro and maybe some modern Ecuadorian politics as the man who holds the reigns in Ecuador today is, in many ways, a philosophical successor to Alfaro. 

Best wishes!

Owl

On Saddling Up and Taking the Stage

Hi Owl,

You missed yesterday's post! Now we're even. In your defense, you missed it part because we were having such a great time hanging out and cooking meals for this week that you lost track of time, so that's a pretty decent reason to miss a post. Your challenge is forthcoming.

I enjoyed your post on musicals yesterday, and it encapsulated many feelings I share on the subject. This is something that I tend to forget we have in common, since neither of us are active in the theater scene these days, however, we both do share a common history in that regard.

Unlike Owl, my high school did not have a particularly strong theater department. Fortunately, this did not matter much for me. I started taking theater classes at a local community theater when I was very young---I want to say I started in 1st grade, though I'm not positive. I continued through my senior year of high school, and was active both on and off stage. I loved being part of the back-stage crew, and in fact favored it over being on stage, but I wanted to take this post to talk about acting specifically, and why I decided to start.

For me, acting was the most terrifying undertaking I could imagine. I was a painfully shy child, incredibly soft-spoken, and generally ill at ease addressing even one person, let alone a roomful. This was made all the worse by a speech impediment that, when I was young, was fairly pronounced. I had trouble pronouncing certain sounds, and struggled especially with words that had "R" or "W" sounds in them. I spoke way too fast and my words often ran together, and I got flustered when I couldn't be understood. Normally I didn't talk in public to avoid this frustration. Social situations terrified me.
Theater classes forced me to open up. In the beginning, I dreaded going to them. Even the warm-ups frightened me, because they generally involved improvisation or creative movement, neither of which I was remotely comfortable with. I had trouble making friends, and being an introvert in a class of extroverts meant that I was often overlooked by my peers, and occasionally by the instructors. Nevertheless, I persevered, and gradually, my confidence began to grow, both on and off stage.
The first time I truly felt passionate about acting was the first time I was given a monologue to read. I don't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was a passage from The Diary of Anne Frank. I had struggled with dialog in acting up to that point because I never could quite get the hang of the natural flow of a conversation, even in real life. Give-and-take dialog between two characters on stage seemed so unnatural to me because people don't talk like that, and I was struggling enough to figure out how people really did talk. But when I was given a monolog and told to recite it, all on my own, it was an immensely liberating experience. For once, I had the stage. Just me. I had this piece---an incredibly moving piece, one that spoke deeply to me even at a young age---that I could make my own, and I had the guarantee that nobody was going to interrupt me or talk over me before the speech was done. Suddenly, it was easy to speak clearly. I could pace myself. I could even enunciate.
I am sure I did not do a wonderful job with this monolog, but when I was done, I felt so proud. I was generally a laconic child in public (though I would rarely shut up around my family and a few close friends) so I think my theater classmates heard me speak more during that monolog than at any other point in the year combined.

As much as I wish I could say I went on to be an incredible actor, I did not. Don't get me wrong, I was okay. I certainly had my moments---I was great at Shakespeare, for instance, because I knew what all of the words meant and was good with memorizing long speeches. I was cast in several plays, both at the community theater and in school (and on one memorable occasion, both at once) and had some really fun parts to play around with. I stayed with my community theater for twelve years, acted on stage, chaired the props crew on numerous occasions, helped build sets, ran lighting, and helped with costumes and make-up. I had enough experience by 8th grade that when my middle school put on a production of The Sound of Music I was asked to be the assistant stage manager, though I think that was at least in part because my choir director wanted to prevent me from auditioning. (I do not have a good singing voice, but I was stubborn and loved musicals.) I worked as an office assistant at my community theater and later as a teaching assistant. I studied stage combat, Shakespeare, improvisation, and playwrighting. I even got competent enough to be cast in several plays, and culminated my acting career by playing an anthropomorphic lamb who befriends a lion and a blind girl in James Still's Hush: An Interview with America. And yes, this is when I learned that I could not "bah" like a sheep. My friends and family still delight in mocking me about it to this day. Ask me about it sometime; it's a fun story. I made friends and role models, I wrote a few plays, and my found my first boyfriend there. I thrived in the dark wings where the props crew waited for their cues, and in the shop where we built the skeletons of the sets that would later be rooms and houses and trees and (on one memorable and awesome occasion) dragons. I embraced each character I played with open arms and learned through each of them how to be more comfortable in myself. I fell in love with the stories that are best told on stage and with the way we tell them.

 I could quote a line about how "courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway" or "courage is not the absence of fear; it is acting in spite of it," and I guess I just did. (Thanks, John Wayne and Mark Twain.) But as clichéd as the sentiment has become, it really does ring true. At least, it did for my six-year-old self. I found what scared me most, and I put all of my energy towards becoming really good at it. Okay, I put some of my energy towards becoming decent at it, but that doesn't sound as poetic. And it may be a small accomplishment, and I may not have much to show for it now, but damn it, I'm proud of six-year-old me.

So: To my past self, thank you. You may not have been very good at what you did but you tried very hard to do it, and that counts for a lot. And to my future self, find what scares you most and own it.
Owl, to answer your question, I have many favorite productions, and many favorite songs. I meant to talk about musicals in this post but I got side-tracked a bit.

Ever meet a fella by the name of Hill?

Hi Owl,

Your blog post about musicals was wonderful, and it gave me a lot to think about. In fact, it gave me so much to think about that I wrote an entire blog post on a tangent, and did not address your questions, which I wanted to do. So sometime this week, you will get the tangent I wrote, but for now, let's talk some more about musicals!

I will be brief tonight, as I got so absorbed writing my tangent that it's 11:49 and I have 11 minutes to finish up before my deadline and also I need to sleep.

I also have a deep love of musicals, though my utter inability to carry a tune does come with a tad of resentment towards those who can. I think that musical numbers are equal parts silly and moving as a medium, and to me the best musical is one that straddles that line.

So, tonight (with my ten minutes left) seems like a list night.

Raven's Top 10 Musicals

1. Oliver! (The first play I ever auditioned for. Also I adore Fagin and all of his songs.)
2. The Fiddler on the Roof (Makes the Jewish historian in me happy. And also sad, because have you seen it?)
3. The Newsies
4. South Pacific
5. Spamalot!  (Because of course.)
6. Les Miserables
7. Rent
8. Wicked (Witches. Wizards. Talking animals. Duh?)
9. The Sound of Music (The first, and only, musical I sang in.)
10. The Music Man (This will always hold a special place in my heart since I was assistant stage manager for a middle school production of this.)

Ask me again tomorrow and I will certainly have changes to that list. I know I'm forgetting some major additions here! But I love a musical that can weave a good story, and so many of these can. And some of them are just plain fun.

Owl, I look forward to hearing more about your love of musicals soon. 

Every Story Is a Love Story

Hey Raven,

Light and air have not been our friends this week. Someday life will be as easy for you in the outside world as it would be inside a hermetically sealed bubble. Someday soon I hope. In the meantime enjoy another post about things I like (read: another way to tell stories).

This way to tell stories comes accompanied by music making it, in my opinion, one of the most fun ways to tell a great story. I love music, poetry, and theater so of course my favorite medium would be a combination of all three: the musical.

Time for some Owl history. I grew up in a school district that prized the arts and my high school took theater and choir both very seriously. I estimate we had 5 different choirs by the time I graduated, each specialized in a different type of music (from gospel to international folk to more traditional choir music). Even more amazing than that was our theater department, which managed to put on more than 10 different productions every year (for those keeping track at home that's more than one production staged every month from September to June). We also played host to a summer theater camp that mounted a musical every summer. From my freshman year on I worked behind the scenes on a lot of different productions in a lot of different capacities. It was one of the most enjoyable parts of my high school experience. It's also where my love for musical really developed because in addition to the summer musical my school usually at least 2 musicals during the regular school year. And during my time there we put on shows that have become some of my favorites including, Kiss Me Kate, Les Miserables, My Fair Lady, Little Shop of Horrors, Into the Woods, and West Side Story.

Since high school my love for musicals has expanded though I did not have as much direct access to awesome on stage productions. Fortunately movies have obliged my deep love of the medium allowing me access to great adapted musicals or movie musicals like, Singing in the Rain, Rent,  Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, Sound of Music, Hairspray, Phantom of the Opera, Oliver!, and so many others I can't even list them all.

I love that musicals can bring a fun, lively face to a comic love story or push one more heartrending moment into a tale of tragedy. In a good musical the songs should deepen both the story and the emotions while sustaining the mood for the audience. It's a tricky business and can sometimes be disastrous (if you've never watched a musical take shape from behind the scenes just believe me when I tell you that every magical musical performance you have ever seen was made up of a lot of less than magical moments during production). But when everything comes together the end result can be truly transformative and memorable. I can still remember the face of the actor who played Jean Valjean in Les Miserables as he confronted Javert and claimed his numerical identity - damning himself to a life on the run. *Potential Spoilers Ahead* When I listen to "Every Story is a Love Story" I remember the theater lights dimming around me as two lovers are entombed to face a slow death together, captured but not defeated.

I wonder if those experiences would have hit me as hard without the music that came with them. I wonder if I would remember the productions anywhere near as well if I didn't have youtube to jog my memory of my favorite song or moment. Probably yes. After all, theater will always be a great love of mine - music or no.

Do you have favorite productions or songs, Raven? Next post I think I'll list my top 5 of each.

See you soon and can't wait to read more tomorrow!

Lights are dangerous

Hi Owl,

This will be a short post since I have been battling severe dizziness all day and want to curl up in a ball and sleep for like, a month.

I've been noticing that I get dizzy spells frequently in grocery stores. Really intense, debilitating dizzy spells, sometimes. This happened again today, first in the mall where Owl works and then while getting groceries.

My hunch, when I thought about it some more, was that the florescent lighting might be an issue. Historically, the rapid flickering of florescent lights has caused any number of issues, including seizures and vertigo. After a quick Google search, which will be backed by significant more research soon, this seems like a real potential.

Rarely are these dizzy spells quite so severe, but today is not a Good Day. So, I apologize, but this is the best post I can muster at the moment.

Lights are a silly thing to be sickened by. I don't recommend it.

Talk to you soon, hopefully with a more exciting post.

The Voices In Which They Were Told

Hey Raven,

Sorry you're feeling so sick today. Everyone reading this send Raven happy, non-sick thoughts. Today I wanted to get back to talking about the things in life that are awesome and make life worth living. One of the chief sources of awesome in my life is books. As you may have noticed I like stories. And as you may have noticed in my posts about dance and poetry I can and do search out the story in everything and latch onto every method of storytelling available.

While I love every possible medium for storytelling there is I am particularly partial to books. They were the first means of storytelling available to me - my mother read me stories every night and I am undyingly grateful for that. I remember a long list of children's books we read together, often with my mother discovering the words, stories and worlds for the first time right along with me. There was something magical in that pre-bedtime haze of fantasy and my mother's voice that has carried into my adulthood strong and untarnished. To this day when I read books to my charges as they drift off, or when I revisit books that were read to me I read them as I imagine (or as I remember) my mother reading them. I hear her in Charlotte's Web, one of my all time favorites and I try to give the stories of Frog and Toad her unique cadence.

As I got older, my sister invited me to share in her love of the fantastic and otherworldly and I did. I fell madly in love with the fantastical worlds of Tamora Pierce, Philip Pullman, T.A. Barron, Brian Jacques, J.K. Rowling, and Madeleine L'Engle. Then later came Mercedes Lackey, J.R.R. Tolkien, Garth Nix, Ursula K. Le Guin, and many others. The fantastical has always been my favorite corner of the book world and I visit it often.

As I get older and start to think about teaching literature I think about how important these stories were to forming the person I am. But when I think about my mother's voice, my sister's battered copy of Sabriel, and my own well loved (and marked) copies of Pierce's Immortals quartet I realize books are more than just a means of shaping your future. They are a permanent anchor holding scraps of your past.

In that spirit I will share 5 books that I think shaped me and what pieces of my past they hold.

Starbright, Meditations for Children by Maureen Garth - I am not an easy sleeper. It takes me hours to drift off. As a child I was even worse. My mother discovered this book and it saved us both a lot of restless nights. To this day when I have trouble falling asleep I can hear her voice reciting the introduction and feel myself relaxing, if not falling asleep. This is the definitive bedtime story for me and I can still recite most of the stories from memory.

Frindle by Andrew Clements - I think everyone from my generation remembers this book. I remember hiding out in my elementary school library during lunch and recess trying to finish the book and find out what happens to everyone. This book, while it's story has faded over time, still sticks in my memory as one of the first books I picked out for myself and fell in love with. Frindle was the moment I fell in love with reading books and when I think of it I can't help thinking of stained green carpeting, solid light wooden chairs, row upon row of children's books, and a growling stomach.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - One of my early introductions to the fantasy genre and the series that got me hooked on many things - chapter books, young adult books, stories told in series, and writing my own works. The Goblet of Fire particularly sticks out to me and holds some of the strongest memories. I can feel the couch I sat on to read it and remember how my legs cramped and my neck ached after staying up late to finish the book. It was also the first of many signs that I just might be a bit of a nerd someday. (Spoilers I am now I huge nerd.)

Night by Elie Wiesel - Here's a change in tone. During 8th grade in middle school our English teacher handed out this slim novel and I remember a lot of kids excitedly whispering that it would be a quick, easy read. It was certainly one. It took me less than a day to rip through the story of Wiesel's stolen childhood and living nightmare. The book has stuck with me forever and I date my awareness of a broader, imperfect world outside my own to the moment I set the book down after reading it for the first time.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston - Junior year of high school, American literature. I adored every book I read that year and I remember a lot of my friends did, too. Not this book. I was maybe the only kid in my class to enjoy Janie Crawford's story of coming into her own, but I think in some ways she helped me start that journey for myself. I still remember a class discussion about symbolism in the book. There's a peach tree (I think it's a peach tree) that is mentioned in one chapter and the teacher was trying to pull the symbolism of that tree out of a class of 16 year olds. Finally she just says it - it's sex. The peach tree symbolizes sex and Janie's sexual maturity. As we read through the book and discussed more hidden symbols I saw the steps my own life would take (though not in any exact measure). I see this book as less of a coming of age story and more of coming into one's own or controlling one's own destiny story. It also forced me, in much the same way Night had, to start thinking about the lives of people I had never met and might never fully understand. I would never know Janie's struggle - not really. I am white and so much of Janie's journey is bound up in the dark color of her skin. But that didn't mean I couldn't learn from her and listen to her voice (and the voice of my English teacher that year) as I moved on with my life.

So there are 5 formative books that stick out clearly in my memory as anchors of my past. I'll do another list of just formative books in another post.

I will leave you with the quote that gives this post its title:
"Once upon a time we grew up on stories and the voices in which they were told. We need words to hold us and the world to behold us to truly know our own souls." - from "Reading Allowed" by Taylor Mali

Webcomics, Part 1: Introduction

Hi, Owl,

Today I wanted to get back to talking about hobbies and interests about which we are passionate. Specifically, I wanted to talk about an interest we share: webcomics.

Before I can begin this post, I would be remiss if I did not thank my brother. (I guess if we’re going with avian nicknames, my brother should also be from the genus Corvus. Nevermind that Crow is as well and Roommate and I are not related. The internal consistency of this blog’s naming structure is not yet perfect. Let’s call him Rook---closely related to the raven, and it shares a name with a game piece of a game Rook taught me how to play when I was young---chess!) Rook was the one who first got me hooked on webcomics. In fact, a great many of my hobbies can be traced back to Rook’s influence. He is a very good big brother, and I am a better nerd for his teachings. Thanks, Rook!

Back in middle school, Rook got me reading some now-veterans of the webcomic universe: Penny Arcade, Sluggy Freelance, Gods of ArrKelaan, and Something Positive were among my earliest introductions to the wonderful world of webcomics. (Side note: That was around the same time that Rook and some of his friends started a website that lets users subscribe to their favourite webcomics and receive notifications when they update. It’s called Comic-Nation and you can find it here!)

By the time I was in high school, I was reading, either religiously or passively, dozens of webcomics, and had read through the archives of or had previously followed dozens of others. In terms of skills with limited “real-world” utility, my working knowledge of webcomics is one of my strongest.

I love webcomics enough that I could spend days talking about them---and that’s exactly what I am going to do. I won’t do it all at once, as I realize that this is not a topic that everybody finds quite as fascinating as I do, and I don’t want to overwhelm you all, so I’ll space these out. You can expect me to do something similar with many other hobbies---I can talk endlessly about books, video games, and television, for instance. For now, I want to give you a brief introduction to webcomics, since I know that not all of our readers are as endlessly excited about the Internet-based-comic-strip industry as I am. Those people are probably a lot more fun at parties.

So. First, an important question. What is a webcomic? Broadly speaking, any comic published on the web can be considered a webcomic. This includes comics that are also syndicated print comics: Garfield, Get Fuzzy, Calvin and Hobbes, Foxtrot, are all posted online as well as in print. A comic doesn’t have to be published exclusively online to be considered a webcomic, but for our purposes, most of the comics I talk about are. (Although many of them now have print books that compile strips from the comic for sale online, and occasionally in brick-and-mortar stores as well.) 

The thing is, it is very hard to define a webcomic, the same way it is hard to define a print comic, a graphic novel, a cartoon, or basically any other form of art. To really answer this question, we need to ask ourselves what a comic is, and probably what we mean by “online”, and also what the definition of the word “is” is. And while I am a sucker for semantics, we’re not going to do that. 

There are, however, a few key elements that play a crucial role in the development of webcomics, and their deviation from print comics. Unlike most print comics, webcomics are, almost exclusively, published entirely independently. The only people webcomic creators answer to are their audiences, and so they have almost no restrictions or rules to follow. There is nobody censoring these creators, editing out content that might not be deemed “fit to print”, or placing guidelines and limitations on them. This can, of course, lead to a lot of poorly-edited, offensive, or just plain bad comics, but it also leads to some truly wonderful, groundbreaking, subversive, or just plain neat comics. It’s a double-edged sword, sure, but ultimately, this is a blessing for the webcomic industry.

There is no particular style that defines webcomics. The comic can be done exclusively in stick figures, as is the case with the renowned xkcd, using a predetermined template like Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics, consist of text superimposed over unrelated photographs, as per Joey Comeau and Emily Horne’s A Softer World. They can be done in Microsoft Paint and partially interactive, like MS Paint Adventures, created in a pixelated 8-bit style like Diesel Sweeties or 8-Bit Theatre. They can be influenced by anime, French impressionism, or baroque architecture (though I admit I can’t think of any webcomics that fit that last example). They are not limited by style, nor by content, though there are some common themes that pervade the world of webcomics. Webcomics are generally more likely than most other media to talk about or focus on subjects like geek subculture (science fiction/fantasy and gaming in particular) and LGBTQA+ lifestyles, and they can freely post mature, controversial, or subversive content without fear of censorship. Webcomics are one of the most flexible, accessible, and broad-reaching media we regularly consume, and this is precisely because it is an industry built entirely on independent producers. 

At a later date, I would like to talk  more about the history of webcomics and what specific elements make webcomics so intriguing to me personally, but for now, I’ll leave you with a list. (I’m sure this will just be one of many lists in my webcomic series, but it is also a pretty important one!)

Comics Raven Currently Follows*

*By “follows”, I mean that I check for updates regularly, whenever the comic updates. This is an abnormally low number of comics for me; normally I follow many more, but I’ve been busy. It’s also worth noting that this does not necessarily reflect my favourite comics. More on that later.

1.) Questionable Content

2.) Girls With Slingshots

3.) xkcd

4.) Two Guys and Guy

5.) Johnny Wander/Lucky Penny

6.) Least I Could Do

7.) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

8.) Alice Grove

9.) A Softer World

10.) Awkward Zombie

11.) Amazing Super Powers