Plug Week Day 6 — A bit of history.

When I started posting in the TWC forum, I noticed that some people asked about a comic named “Weirdism”. They were, for some reason, expecting it. After a while, Liz (Odd1) popped by and announced the launch of the comic. It was good, and everyone cheered.

Intrigued by the hype surrounding it, I emailed Liz to ask her about it. The email she replied was quite interesting. She’s been doing this for a longer time than me, and I found her story to be very engaging. Hope you do too (edited only for emphasis and flow):

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I started reading web comics in 2000. Mostly Keenspace and Keenspot comics. In late 2001 I decided to take the plunge myself and signed up for my first Keenspace account: “Paperbug”. My Keenspace account was created in February 2002 and I started running comics immediately. Paperbug was poorly written and drawn by a 14-year-old, but that didn’t matter. It was that type of serious manga-styled comics that was all the rage back then; thus it became a success anyway.

I lost interest rather quickly, because I had realized how cliche my concept was and I had started brooding a whole new idea - it would be a weird, full-color comedy… For a while I convinced myself to stick with Paperbug, which had a steady position in the top 10 of various top lists, not to mention more fan art than it did actual episodes. But, I couldn’t even take myself seriously anymore and what had started out as an story full of angst, has wandered far off track and was now incorporating aimless slapstick. In April I put Paperbug out of it’s misery, without warning.

I labeled my new project “Sweet Sanity” at the time. I knew I didn’t want it to be anime-influenced. My art style had to change completely and my skill was poor to start with. As months went by, my new project had become an out-of-hand ongoing joke in the Keen Forum, where I have always been a regular. Now titled Weirdism, but a.k.a. ‘the nonexistent yet incredibly popular web-comic’. The original deadline was January 1st, and when I missed it, Weirdism got hyped up to the point where I was afraid anything I could possibly release would not live up to people’s expectations. Then one day the hype leaked into TWC a little and I knew I had to deliver something.

At long last, February 28th; Weirdism goes public. Many people weren’t satisfied. Loyal Paperbug fans voiced their shock and disappointment. But you can’t please everyone. Weirdism will probably never get the recognition Paperbug did, but at least I can rest assured I’m doing something more original than before

— Liz Groenveld

Webcomics are, first and foremost, for their authors. It is easy to lose sight of this fact in the vote count, unique page views statistics and other, ultimately irrelevant things. Doing something that is true to oneself is the only way to achieve any kind of quality and happiness with the work. Kudos to Liz and to all the other webcomic authors out there. Keep up the great work!

In an Overcaffeinated exclusive, I present you with images from Liz’s old project, Paperbug, and an early cast shot of the guys from Weirdism

This marks the end of Plug Week. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and maybe found a new comic to like. Out now.

— sergio on April 12, 2003