The 2006 book "A History of Webcomics" asserted that "Inspector Dangerfuck" -- created by ANSI artist Eerie -- was "the first known comic on the Internet."
The book offered no dates, no details, and no sources. But these red flags didn't deter later editors, bloggers, and content creators from repeating versions of this statement.
To be clear, the assertion was wrong. Eerie drew "Inspector Dangerfuck" pieces in 1994, and there had been much earlier online comics.
Still, the assertion raises a lot of interesting questions: What is ANSI art? Who was Eerie? What was "Inspector Dangerfuck?" Was it even a comic? Were there other ANSI art comics?
I've written a multi-part series tackling these questions and diving deep into the history of an often-overlooked subculture.
The real question is what is an "online comic" or "webcomic" - especially as almost by definition a webcomic can't predate the web; though an online one could.
There's an extended quote from Eerie at the end of this story where he addresses this (in the context of where/if ANSI comics fit into the history of webcomics).
Yeah he brings up the points I would (which is that "online image" is not the precursor of webcomics, but print and other "indie" comics are).
The first scanner was made in 1957, using that to scan a Peanuts comic would be some form of "digital comic image" but not a webcomic as we consider it.
I do also thing there's something the kids would call a "meme" that these might be closer to; a comic does NOT have to have a narrative or overarching story (though they often seem to devolve to that) - if the only Far Side comic to exist was Cow Tools it'd still clearly be a comic.
Will Eisner and Scott McCloud say that what distinguishes comics from cartoons and other forms is that they are sequential. McCloud's definition specifically exclude single-panels like "The Far Side" or "The Family Circus". In his view they are cartoons, not comics.
However, other people have pushed back on this particular limitation of his definition.
I think there's definitely multiple streams here; the "comic book comic" which is clearly different from single-panic comics/cartoons.
But then you have newspaper comics - some of which are things like Prince Valiant which are just comic books over time, and then there are the "one joke per day" comics which sometimes have multiple panels, sometimes not.
As with many things, trying to tie it down often reveals that it's not really possible - various "string of one-off" comics (even including The Far Side), political cartoons, etc end up having "recurring characters" that end up with a mythos.
For most people, "digital Far Side" would be a webcomic, because it's something that would live on the comics page in the newspaper.
Wow, what a cool article!! This post alone makes me want to read the rest of the blog.
One of the things that seems like it ought to be obvious, but nonetheless strikes me about this stuff is - you really do have to be a good artist, period, to make headway even in incredibly limited (by today’s standards) mediums like early ANSI. You have to be good at the composition aspect and the execution aspect, and aside from teaming up with someone who has a complementary speciality, there’s almost no way around that (so far.)
Love to see retro ANSI art. I was in both the large ANSI artist groups, ACiD and iCE back in the day. These ANSI blocks were a next level step in online graphics, from ASCII art. This was the predecessor to Adobe Flash.
Good old ACiD and iCE! I remember fondly drawing some pretty sophisticated ANSI in TheDraw. I never mastered the many-many-screenful art pieces that you'd see ACiD/iCE artists doing though. I did a few chat interfaces in ANSI art too for friend's BBS'.
I remember diddling around in TheDraw and wishing I could make things as cool as what I saw in the ACiD and iCE packs. Looking at the raw ANSI codes and to see what they were actually doing was a lot like "View source..." when HTML hit the scene.
Having lived in the dial-up BBS era on DOS computers I can say the ANSI artists of the day were truly talented. It's amazing what they came up with using only small color pallet and what few characters were available. Also programs like "The Draw" were amazing tools.
The 2006 book "A History of Webcomics" asserted that "Inspector Dangerfuck" -- created by ANSI artist Eerie -- was "the first known comic on the Internet."
The book offered no dates, no details, and no sources. But these red flags didn't deter later editors, bloggers, and content creators from repeating versions of this statement.
To be clear, the assertion was wrong. Eerie drew "Inspector Dangerfuck" pieces in 1994, and there had been much earlier online comics.
Still, the assertion raises a lot of interesting questions: What is ANSI art? Who was Eerie? What was "Inspector Dangerfuck?" Was it even a comic? Were there other ANSI art comics?
I've written a multi-part series tackling these questions and diving deep into the history of an often-overlooked subculture.
The real question is what is an "online comic" or "webcomic" - especially as almost by definition a webcomic can't predate the web; though an online one could.
There's an extended quote from Eerie at the end of this story where he addresses this (in the context of where/if ANSI comics fit into the history of webcomics).
Yeah he brings up the points I would (which is that "online image" is not the precursor of webcomics, but print and other "indie" comics are).
The first scanner was made in 1957, using that to scan a Peanuts comic would be some form of "digital comic image" but not a webcomic as we consider it.
I do also thing there's something the kids would call a "meme" that these might be closer to; a comic does NOT have to have a narrative or overarching story (though they often seem to devolve to that) - if the only Far Side comic to exist was Cow Tools it'd still clearly be a comic.
Ah, now this is something that Part 2 of this series gets into -- how do you define a "comic"? (https://breakintochat.com/blog/2025/12/28/ansi-art-and-webco...)
Will Eisner and Scott McCloud say that what distinguishes comics from cartoons and other forms is that they are sequential. McCloud's definition specifically exclude single-panels like "The Far Side" or "The Family Circus". In his view they are cartoons, not comics.
However, other people have pushed back on this particular limitation of his definition.
I think there's definitely multiple streams here; the "comic book comic" which is clearly different from single-panic comics/cartoons.
But then you have newspaper comics - some of which are things like Prince Valiant which are just comic books over time, and then there are the "one joke per day" comics which sometimes have multiple panels, sometimes not.
As with many things, trying to tie it down often reveals that it's not really possible - various "string of one-off" comics (even including The Far Side), political cartoons, etc end up having "recurring characters" that end up with a mythos.
For most people, "digital Far Side" would be a webcomic, because it's something that would live on the comics page in the newspaper.
I don't know if you'd be willing, but I would greatly appreciate it if you would add some of these thoughts as a comment to Part 2 of the blog series!
> To be clear, the assertion was wrong
Wiki says the first one on the WWW was a year earlier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_early_webcomics#Timeli...
Wow, what a cool article!! This post alone makes me want to read the rest of the blog.
One of the things that seems like it ought to be obvious, but nonetheless strikes me about this stuff is - you really do have to be a good artist, period, to make headway even in incredibly limited (by today’s standards) mediums like early ANSI. You have to be good at the composition aspect and the execution aspect, and aside from teaming up with someone who has a complementary speciality, there’s almost no way around that (so far.)
Thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy the blog series. I'm still working on Part 4, but I'm very happy with how the first three turned out.
Long live blocks.
ANSI art web archive https://16colo.rs/
Also on instagram https://www.instagram.com/sixteen_colors/?hl=en
Some OGs are still producing really high quality, innovative art even today.
There's also a lot of online BBSes using telnet/ssh etc. Can use a retro term like SyncTERM, mTelnet or IcyTerm.
This was fascinating. Love old BBS stuff, even though this was far from what I was experiencing at the time.
Same here. I was an active BBSer as a teen throughout the 1990s, but was never part of the underground artscene.
Love to see retro ANSI art. I was in both the large ANSI artist groups, ACiD and iCE back in the day. These ANSI blocks were a next level step in online graphics, from ASCII art. This was the predecessor to Adobe Flash.
Good old ACiD and iCE! I remember fondly drawing some pretty sophisticated ANSI in TheDraw. I never mastered the many-many-screenful art pieces that you'd see ACiD/iCE artists doing though. I did a few chat interfaces in ANSI art too for friend's BBS'.
I remember diddling around in TheDraw and wishing I could make things as cool as what I saw in the ACiD and iCE packs. Looking at the raw ANSI codes and to see what they were actually doing was a lot like "View source..." when HTML hit the scene.
What would being ‘in the group’ look like, day-to-day? Socializing on BBS? Collaborating on new pieces?
It would be fun to revive the “long form ANSI art” format for a personal website. And you wouldn’t have to worry about mobile vs desktop views, too!
Having lived in the dial-up BBS era on DOS computers I can say the ANSI artists of the day were truly talented. It's amazing what they came up with using only small color pallet and what few characters were available. Also programs like "The Draw" were amazing tools.
Obligatory - htp://16colo.rs/
EE-LG01.IMP Is my favorite of the pieces included in the article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_art
It reminds me of the bitchx splash screen