Doctor Fun, my favorite single-panel cartoon, is done running. Only now do I learn that David Farley, the author and artist, planned to run it for exactly 10 years. It took him more than ten years to get the requisite 520 weeks done, and those were five-day weeks, as opposed to seven-day weeks, but still… it’s over.
And the “it’s over” announcement falls on the 6th anniversary of Schlock launching. Great. Now I have GUILT.
At my current rate, I’ll “catch up” with David Farley on July 25th of 2007. But how can anyone “catch up” with the very first webcomic? Because, you know, that’s what Doctor Fun WAS. The very first webcomic. *sigh*.
‘Bye, Doc.
I suppose it’s only fair to warn you that my current plans call for ending PartiallyClips at the 10 year and/or 1000-strip mark. I am currently at about 4.5 years and 450 strips.
This is not set in stone, but I think that three Best Of collections and a 1000-strip Sausage Compendium would constitute a successful lifespan for the project.
I’d very much like to move on to writing humorous science fiction and fantasy novels. I feel like I have something as good as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in me to write before I die. I also have active plans in motion to create two new webcomics in collaboration with a very talented artist.
There will come a time when I have learned everything I can from writing a clip art strip, and doing it will have opened new opportunities that I did not have when I started. I want to keep growing. I’m following the Neil Gaiman model.
Alas, for the passing of Doctor Fun, though. A bit of living history has now become just “history.”
I will mourn the eventual passing of Partially Clips, but at least I know you well enough that whatever creative endeavors you follow it up with will find me. 🙂
While I could see Dr Fun being the very first one-shot webcomic (started in ’93), I’d really focus on Argon Zark, which has been since June of ’95.
Oh, now you’re picking non-existant nits.
Is Chopping Block a webcomic?
Then Doctor Fun is the first webcomic. Period.
Sure, Argon Zark was bigger, and splashier, but it wasn’t first.
Heh. Checking out zark.com, I see that Charley is claiming to be “first” and “longest-running.”
He’s not first. That’s obvious. 1993 comes before 1995.
He won’t be “longest running” until 2008. Doctor Fun’s “decade” was 13 years long.
His sporadic update schedule is why I stopped reading Argon Zark back in 1997. How many panels of AZ are there, anyway? I’m sure in terms of content, Sluggy Freelance and K&K beat him hands-down.
There’s some fine print though:
“””
Argon Zark! was the first comic created exclusively to be published on the World Wide Web, and represents the beginning of webcomics as we know them today.
“””
Whew… not a falsehood on the internet after all – my world is still in tact.
Yes, Chopping Block is a one-shot, one panel webcomic. That’s all fine and dandy. But you know Schlock is sequential. It has a story. It has a plot. It has a timeline. Comparing Schlock with Doctor Fun is like comparing apples and oranges. Sure, they’re all fruit (webcomics) and the amorph likes them all the same, but if you drill down one level they’re different. You get a level playing field with Argon Zark.
But I’ll give you Doctor Fun as the first webcomic, period. I’ll also give you the first one-shot/one-panel webcomic too (since Polymer City Chronicles started in ’94).
I’m sad to see Doctor Fun go, but it’s been planned, and that’s honorable. Babylon 5 was planned for 5 seasons. We can now rejoice in the reruns.
Is it me, or is that site really slow today? I wonder if the new spread wide enough and enough people linked to the first comic that it’s getting hammered? 😛
I noted the end of Doctor Fun in my LiveJournal here. I also posted a follow-up here and mentioned you. I even spelled your name right.