The vast majority of them are also sprite based comics, which just goes to prove that there are comics online that have no right to be there. Now, I'm as big a proponent of the First Amendment as anyone, and I'm certainly not trying to say that people shouldn't be allowed to have their comics online. If they want to put the time and energy into making the comic and putting it online, more power to them. However, the problem is that most people don't take the time and energy, but still bother to put their comics online.

Like I said, I try to shrug this stuff off, but it's hard to do so when I see terrible comics everywhere I look. Suddenly, the internet has become like cable access television; anyone who wants to post something online can do so, no matter how bad it is.

Now, this isn't to say that all webcomics are bad. And I'm not one of those people who think that anything "new" is bad; there are plenty of webcomics that I like that started less than two years ago. But for every good webcomic, there are two dozen god-awful ones. Call me a cynic, but I don't like that ratio.

The simple solution to this is for people to just take more time to do their comics. It takes me a little over an hour to think of an idea for a comic, and then draw and ink it. I then have to scan it onto my computer and color it using Photoshop. This takes between an hour and an hour and a half, depending on the comic. Considering I'm a full time student during fall, winter, and spring months, and work full time during the summer months, almost three hours to do one comic is a lot. Yet I take pride in my work, and feel the need to put out quality comics every time, even if nobody else sees them; I would be doing myself a disservice if I put out crap.

I know it shouldn't bother me, but it really gets on my nerves when people don't take pride in what they're displaying to the world. What happened to standards that people set for themselves? Take a look at some of the most popular webcomics: Sluggy Freelance, Mac Hall, Mega Tokyo, Penny Arcade, PVP, etc. The reason they're all popular is that their creators put time and effort into making them good. It's no coincidence that the "best" webcomics are the ones that people spend hours every day working on, and I just wish that more "aspiring webcomic artists" (and I use the term "artist" very loosely here) would realize this.

Probably most people who make terrible comics will tell you that they don't care about what other people have to say about their comics, that they make their comics to amuse themselves. If that's the case, then why are they posting their stuff online? If they want to be able to show their comics to their friends, printers are cheap. Hell, if you don't own a printer, photocopiers are even cheaper to use.

I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad here. If this rant applies to your webcomic, you should view this as constructive criticism. And honestly, the only way to get better as an artist is to listen to criticism and change what doesn't work well. Pablo Picasso was one of the best painters the world had ever seen, but, despite his natural abilities, he wasn't born a great artist. He labored for hours every day, refining his craft until his work was recognized for what it was. I'm sure somewhere in the early stages of Picasso's career, someone told him that his paintings were no good, but instead of quitting or simply ignoring the criticism, he worked hard until he was a master. The same is true for webcomics; you don't become a successful comic artist until you've earned your stripes, so to speak. Maybe if people realized this, we'd have more quality and less crap.