Pam's Book Log

26 April, 2003

I didn't get into the webcomic thing until relatively late. I recall my old roommate, circa 1997, telling me about this cool comic he discovered on the web, something called Sluggy Freelance, but I never sought those new-fangled webcomics out on my own. Anyway, this is all by way of saying that, unlike a lot of people, Sluggy was not the first webcomic I started following regularly. For me, it was Megatokyo, which I stumbled upon shortly after it started up, and which I've read regularly ever since.

Megatokyo is about two American guys who find themselves stuck in Japan with no way to get home, and settle in for an indefinite stay. The comic follows their adventures in competing realities. This book collects the first hundred-something strips in a convenient low-bandwidth, dead-tree format.

Why would anybody buy the book of a webcomic, which--by definition-- can be had for free on the Internet? Well:

Web sites are ephemeral, and controlled by somebody who's not me. I'll always be able to read the physical book.
If I like the comic enough to read it regularly, I'm perfectly happy to support the creators by shelling out a few bucks for their book.
Unless the comic has extremely well-organized archives (e.g. Sluggy Freelance), it is really inconvenient to refer to old strips, when they become relevant to recent developments in the plotline. (This is a major peeve of mine with Boy Meets Boy, for example.)
In the case of the Megatokyo book, the art is presented at a much higher resolution than on the web site-- it's cleaner, easier to look at, and much more professional-looking. Also, this book contains notes from artist/author Fred Gallagher and assistant Dominic Nguyen on most of the strips, akin to the commentary tracks one gets on DVDs, discussing the creative process, what they were thinking at the time, etc. So, this book has "value added," over what one gets from reading the comics on the web site.

Of course, I wouldn't recommend buying the book before reading the comic online. But, I am happy with what I got for my ten bucks (plus shipping and handling).

Speaking of which, this graphic novel has the best production values of any webcomic book I've seen. It really is a professional-quality product, comparable to (and in most cases superior to) the graphic novels of professional comics (both American and Japanese).