The modern history of art has been largely the history of artist subcommunities, bound by common interest and usually but not always by geography. Michelangelo fraternized with colleagues, burned with rivalry for Leonardo, and clucked his tongue at Titian. To be in Paris in the 1920s was to glimpse Pablo Picasso in conversation with Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway.

Scott Keuhner advertises Look What I Brought Home as the “world’s most hated webcomic,” but he won’t fight you for the title. Ranging from the raunchy to the disgusting, the subject matter of LWIBH has offended and intrigued many. Keuhner and his wife Amanda (who originally had a writing credit on LWIBH) run a site listing the potentially most offensive comics out there here. LWIBH isn't there - but it could be.

Scott Kurtz is the creative force behind PVP, and Wedlock, his brief stint with an autobiographical comic on Modern Tales. Kurtz, known for being one of the few webcomics creators able to actually live off his comic, recently started a print run of PVP with Image Comics.

Story-telling is cyclic. The good guys are up, the bad guys are down. The bad guys are up, the good guys are down. It's a distillation of the rhythmic nature of the human experience. But this pattern becomes a problem when it's circular and repetitive, instead of progressive. Like people, some characters do the same thing over and over, repeat the same shtick or fail to grow despite the wealth of experience heaped upon them by the authors of their webcomic plotlines.

If there's any doubt whether art and humor are global concepts, Vicho Freidl's webcomic is a topical solution that gets to the root of the dilemma. But perhaps we're getting a-head of ourselves...

Cabezas Que Brillian (literally "Heads That Shine" in English) features Chilean roommates Cesar and Oscar, whose adventures are the centerpiece of the comic. The vertically, follically-challenged boys are nearly identical, except Cesar has thicker eyebrows and facial hair. They star in two types of comics: one is a gag strip format, and the other, newer addition is an ongoing storyline.

I love comics. I love comic books, comic strips, web comics. I love superheroes, indies, underground, naughty, sci fi, fantasy, auto biography, funny, furry; hell, I even chuckle at Family Circus once in awhile.

"So what," I hear you saying, "we all do (except that Family Circus thing. That’s just freaky)."An Introduction

Daniel "Merlin" Goodbrey has been skulking around the webcomics scene for years now, shamelessly exposing small gaggles of readers and creators alike to the wanton nakedness of his raw Imagination. While not a 'mainstream biggie' (yet), e-merl.com holds its own in any measuring contest when it comes to quality of writing and entertainment value, and leaves the pack behind when it comes to breaking new ground in our burgeoning digital field.

Jim Zubkavich -- Traitor To The Web?

I was originally going to use this latest column to discuss Hollywood’s current fascination with comics and the inevitable backlash that it will create. However, an e-mail I received asked me some questions that surprised me, and I decided that the explanation would work well here as a new topic.

Last month I wrote about the developing potential of the webcomic medium, and the some of the way in which the inherited conventions of print have made some creators reluctant to experiment. Conventions (and I'm not talking about the one in San Diego) are immensely important to any language, as they communicate important information and offer an identifiable standard to help facilitate understanding.

This is part three of a series -- be sure to read part one and part two!

There's something about comics that make people want to talk. And sometimes, just talking causes more chaos and consternation than you can imagine. Between technical failures, heated discussions on controversial topics, and the occasional troll, creators who wish to maintain a community presence may be called on to do much more than just write and draw their comics.