Wondermark
Encyclopedia
Wondermark is a webcomic
created by David Malki which was syndicated to Flak Magazine
and appeared in The Onion
's print edition through 2008. It features 19th-century illustrations that have been recontextualized to create humorous juxtapositions. It takes the horizontal four-panel shape of a newspaper strip
, although the number of panels varies from one to six or more. It is updated on a strict twice-weekly schedule.
A typical Wondermark episode consists of one or more Victorian-era drawings of people and/or objects, repeated for several panels, with dialogue added to create a joke. In some cases, the images vary from panel to panel, creating a narrative. Occasionally, the joke in the last panel takes the form of a purely visual gag.
The creator, David Malki, has stated that the images are obtained from public domain primary sources such as 19th century-era periodicals. Malki obtains these images from public libraries and from his own collection of rare books.
The subject matter of the comics is diverse. Wondermark's targets have included politics, business, censorship, fashion, self-pity, and paranoia.
, Beetle Bailey
, The Wizard of Id
, and Momma
. In 2007 the Doctor was "retired" so that Malki could focus on other projects. The archives are still viewable at the Wondermark site.
, while the third (and current) edition features remastered artwork and an introduction by Ryan North
.
A second strip collection, entitled Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers, was released in June 2008 by Dark Horse Comics
.
Treachery! is an 8-page comic book made of Wondermark-type artwork arranged in a graphic-novel-style layout. The material in Treachery! is not reproduced on the Wondermark site.
Diamond Comic Distributors
listed three volumes of Wondermark in their December 2009 Previews Publications: BEARDS OF OUR FOREFATHERS, CLEVER TRICKS TO STAVE OFF DEATH and DAPPER CAPS & PEDAL-COPTERS.
.
, Alien Loves Predator
, Unshelved
, and Sheldon. Wondermark is part of the Playground Ghosts collective whose other members include Reprographics, Acid Keg, Fluff in Brooklyn, Alien Loves Predator, and Pixel
.
Wondermark was also featured in the Blank Label Comics
Hurricane Relief Telethon website and book, and exclusive episodes were created for each episode of the now-defunct Zoinks! The Webcomics Newspaper.
Since August 2006, each episode of Wondermark has also appeared on the webcomics site Modern Tales
.
In April 2008, Malki created an 8-page Wondermark story entitled Ransom! for Myspace Dark Horse Presents
.
Malki also directed and edited a short film entitled Expendable, which was released as an entry to the Now Film Festival in January 2008 under the production title "Wondermark Enterprises". The film was produced by Todd Croak-Falen and is currently a finalist of the festival, which lasts twenty-five weeks.
It has also been nominated for the 2007 Ignatz Award for "Outstanding Online Comic."
In 2009, Wondermark was nominated for an Eisner Award
.
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
created by David Malki which was syndicated to Flak Magazine
Flak Magazine
Flak Magazine was a pioneering American online magazine, founded in 1998. The chief editor is James Norton, the managing editor is Joey Rubin. , it reported over 250,000 unique visitors monthly. In 2008, Flak suspended publication....
and appeared in The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
's print edition through 2008. It features 19th-century illustrations that have been recontextualized to create humorous juxtapositions. It takes the horizontal four-panel shape of a newspaper strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
, although the number of panels varies from one to six or more. It is updated on a strict twice-weekly schedule.
A typical Wondermark episode consists of one or more Victorian-era drawings of people and/or objects, repeated for several panels, with dialogue added to create a joke. In some cases, the images vary from panel to panel, creating a narrative. Occasionally, the joke in the last panel takes the form of a purely visual gag.
The creator, David Malki, has stated that the images are obtained from public domain primary sources such as 19th century-era periodicals. Malki obtains these images from public libraries and from his own collection of rare books.
Story
There is no narrative continuity in Wondermark; each episode is generally unrelated to the previous or next, although on rare occasions a scenario will repeat for a second episode. In some episodes, situations and dialogue indicate that the setting may be the 19th century; in others, the characters allude to recent events or use contemporary technology (such as computers). Although certain images are used multiple times in different episodes, Malki has stated that each episode is meant to be read independent of any continuity.The subject matter of the comics is diverse. Wondermark's targets have included politics, business, censorship, fashion, self-pity, and paranoia.
The Wondermark website
Besides the comics, the Wondermark website includes a number of features and articles.The Comic Strip Doctor
The Comic Strip Doctor was an occasional column in which Malki analyzed what he called "the worst in newspaper comic strips," and then re-wrote one episode of the strip. Examples included MarmadukeMarmaduke
Marmaduke is a newspaper comic strip drawn by Brad Anderson from 1954 to the present day. The strip was created by Anderson, with help from Phil Leeming and later Dorothy Leeming , and Paul Anderson. The strip revolves around the Winslow family and their Great Dane, Marmaduke...
, Beetle Bailey
Beetle Bailey
Beetle Bailey is an American comic strip set in a fictional United States Army military post, created by cartoonist Mort Walker. It is among the oldest comic strips still being produced by the original creator...
, The Wizard of Id
The Wizard of Id
The Wizard of Id is a daily newspaper comic strip created by American cartoonists Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Beginning in 1964, the strip follows the antics of a large cast of characters in a shabby medieval kingdom called "Id". From time to time, the king refers to his subjects as "Idiots"...
, and Momma
Momma
Momma is an English language comic strip by Mell Lazarus which debuted on October 26, 1970. Initially distributed by the Publishers-Hall Syndicate, it is currently handled by Creators Syndicate and published in more than 400 newspapers worldwide....
. In 2007 the Doctor was "retired" so that Malki could focus on other projects. The archives are still viewable at the Wondermark site.
The Making of Wondermark
The Making of Wondermark is a facetious behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the comic strip. It satirizes the committee-rules process that creates many newspaper comic strips as well as other elements of popular culture (such as movie trailers, which Malki used to edit as his full-time job). It also presents a humorously exaggerated view of the amount of time, effort, and personnel necessary to produce the comic strip.Pets Love Comics Too
Pets Love Comics Too was a feature whereby Wondermark readers would send in photos of their pets reading Wondermark, and the pictures would be posted to the site. The site described the photos as evidence that pets lead a double life while their owners are away.Me vs. Comic-Con: Who's Better?
In July 2007, Malki brought a video camera to the San Diego Comic-Con and asked his fellow comics creators, "Who's better, me or Comic-Con?" The result was a 16-minute documentary film that explores the question in depth.Comics
The first Wondermark strip collection, entitled The Annotated Wondermark, was first printed in December 2004. It contains Wondermark episodes 1-100 and also includes many pages of ancillary material, such as rejected concept pieces and reader-participation features. The book has since been reprinted twice. The second edition added an introduction by Dave SimDave Sim
David Victor Sim is an award-winning Canadian comic book writer and artist.A pioneer of self-published comics and creators' rights, Sim is best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a comic book published from 1977 to 2004, which chronicles its main character in a 6,000-page self-contained...
, while the third (and current) edition features remastered artwork and an introduction by Ryan North
Ryan North
Ryan M. North is a Canadian writer, computer programmer, and occasional songwriter who is the creator and author of Dinosaur Comics, and co-creator of Whispered Apologies and Happy Dog the Happy Dog....
.
A second strip collection, entitled Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers, was released in June 2008 by Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
.
Treachery! is an 8-page comic book made of Wondermark-type artwork arranged in a graphic-novel-style layout. The material in Treachery! is not reproduced on the Wondermark site.
Diamond Comic Distributors
Diamond Comic Distributors
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. is the largest comic book distributor serving North America. They transport comic books from both big and small comic book publishers, or suppliers, to the retailers. Diamond dominates the direct market in the United States, and has exclusive arrangements with most...
listed three volumes of Wondermark in their December 2009 Previews Publications: BEARDS OF OUR FOREFATHERS, CLEVER TRICKS TO STAVE OFF DEATH and DAPPER CAPS & PEDAL-COPTERS.
Prose
There is also a trilogy of prose books entitled Dispatches from Wondermark Manor (513 pages in total). They were released over three years between 2007 and 2009. The books collect chapters of short fiction originally published by Malki in his twice-weekly Wondermark email newsletter, from which an overall story arc eventually emerges. http://store.wondermark.com/products/dispatches The trilogy is written in an archaic, verbose style, and is a parody of Victorian novelsVictorian literature
Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
.
Other Wondermark venues
David Malki has also contributed to Whispered Apologies and created guest episodes for comics including Reprographics, GoatsGoats (webcomic)
Goats is a popular webcomic written and illustrated by Jonathan Rosenberg. The webcomic started April 1, 1997. On April 3, 2006, after nine years drawing the strip, Rosenberg became a full-time cartoonist making his living drawing Goats...
, Alien Loves Predator
Alien Loves Predator
Alien Loves Predator is a webcomic written by Bernie Hou. It spoofs the Alien vs. Predator franchise. Reversing the adversarial relationship depicted in the comics, games, books and movies, ALP presents an Alien and a Predator as friends and roommates in modern-day New York City.The first issue...
, Unshelved
Unshelved
Unshelved is a daily comic strip most notable for being set in a library. Published by Overdue Media, the web comic was created by writer Gene Ambaum and co-writer/artist Bill Barnes, and has been appearing at the rate of a strip per day since February 16, 2002, with a virtual circulation in...
, and Sheldon. Wondermark is part of the Playground Ghosts collective whose other members include Reprographics, Acid Keg, Fluff in Brooklyn, Alien Loves Predator, and Pixel
Pixel (webcomic)
Pixel is a webcomic written by Chris Dlugosz, first published on June 14, 2002. It is set in the aptly named "pixel universe", inhabited by pixels, voxels, vectors, plasmas , and polygons. The comic is known for its very literal sense of humor, and its constant breaks of the fourth wall...
.
Wondermark was also featured in the Blank Label Comics
Blank Label Comics
Blank Label Comics is a collective of web comics whose creators have banded together for mutual assistance and promotion. The Blank Label Comics website officially went online on May 23, 2005.All of the comics had previously been hosted on Keenspot...
Hurricane Relief Telethon website and book, and exclusive episodes were created for each episode of the now-defunct Zoinks! The Webcomics Newspaper.
Since August 2006, each episode of Wondermark has also appeared on the webcomics site Modern Tales
Modern Tales
Modern Tales is a webcomics site launched on March 2, 2002 by Joey Manley, the Modern Tales publisher, and approximately 30 professional cartoonists, such as Dorothy Gambrell, author of the popular webcomic Cat and Girl and James Kochalka, the award-winning creator of Fancy Froglin...
.
In April 2008, Malki created an 8-page Wondermark story entitled Ransom! for Myspace Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents
Dark Horse Presents was the first comic book published by Dark Horse Comics in 1986 and was their flagship title until its September 2000 cancellation. The second incarnation was published on MySpace, running from July 2007 until August 2010...
.
Malki also directed and edited a short film entitled Expendable, which was released as an entry to the Now Film Festival in January 2008 under the production title "Wondermark Enterprises". The film was produced by Todd Croak-Falen and is currently a finalist of the festival, which lasts twenty-five weeks.
Awards
Wondermark was nominated for Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2006 and 2007 for "Outstanding Short Form Comic" and "Outstanding Comedic Comic," respectively.It has also been nominated for the 2007 Ignatz Award for "Outstanding Online Comic."
In 2009, Wondermark was nominated for an Eisner Award
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
.
External links
- Wondermark
- Playground Ghosts
- David Malki interview with Shaenon Garrity of Modern Tales
- "The 12 Funniest People on the Internet", featuring David Malki
- "Ransom!", a Wondermark story in MySpace Dark Horse Presents
- 2009 article on David Malki