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The 2006 book "A History of Webcomics" asserted that "Inspector Dangerfuck" -- created by ANSI artist Eerie -- was "the first known comic on the Internet." The
by Kirkman14 9mo ago
The 2006 book "A History of Webcomics" asserted that "Inspector Dangerfuck" -- created by ANSI artist Eerie -- was "the first known comic on the Internet."
The book offered no dates, no details, and no sources. But these red flags didn't deter later editors, bloggers, and content creators from repeating versions of this statement.
To be clear, the assertion was wrong. Eerie drew "Inspector Dangerfuck" pieces in 1994, and there had been much earlier online comics.
Still, the assertion raises a lot of interesting questions: What is ANSI art? Who was Eerie? What was "Inspector Dangerfuck?" Was it even a comic? Were there other ANSI art comics?
I've written a multi-part series tackling these questions and diving deep into the history of an often-overlooked subculture.
- bombcar 8mo agoThe real question is what is an "online comic" or "webcomic" - especially as almost by definition a webcomic can't predate the web; though an online one could.
- Kirkman14 8mo agoThere's an extended quote from Eerie at the end of this story where he addresses this (in the context of where/if ANSI comics fit into the history of webcomics).
- bombcar 8mo agoYeah he brings up the points I would (which is that "online image" is not the precursor of webcomics, but print and other "indie" comics are). The first scanner was made in 1957, using that to scan a Peanuts comic would be some form of "digital comic image" but not a webcomic as we consider it. I do also thing there's something the kids would call a "meme" that these might be closer to; a comic does NOT have to have a narrative or overarching story (though they often seem to devolve to that) - if the only Far Side comic to exist was Cow Tools it'd still clearly be a comic.
- Kirkman14 8mo agoAh, now this is something that Part 2 of this series gets into -- how do you define a "comic"? (https://breakintochat.com/blog/2025/12/28/ansi-art-and-webcomics-bbses-and-the-artscene/ https://breakintochat.com/blog/2025/12/28/ansi-art-and-webco...) Will Eisner and Scott McCloud say that what distinguishes comics from cartoons and other forms is that they are sequential. McCloud's definition specifically exclude single-panels like "The Far Side" or "The Family Circus". In his view they are cartoons, not comics. However, other people have pushed back on this particular limitation of his definition.
- bombcar 8mo agoI think there's definitely multiple streams here; the "comic book comic" which is clearly different from single-panic comics/cartoons. But then you have newspaper comics - some of which are things like Prince Valiant which are just comic books over time, and then there are the "one joke per day" comics which sometimes have multiple panels, sometimes not. As with many things, trying to tie it down often reveals that it's not really possible - various "string of one-off" comics (even including The Far Side), political cartoons, etc end up having "recurring characters" that end up with a mythos. For most people, "digital Far Side" would be a webcomic, because it's something that would live on the comics page in the newspaper.
- Kirkman14 8mo agoI don't know if you'd be willing, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would add some of these thoughts as a comment to Part 2 of the blog series!
- justsomehnguy 8mo ago> To be clear, the assertion was wrong Wiki says the first one on the WWW was a year earlier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_webcomics#Timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_webcomics#Timeli...