I've mentioned before that I put together my own personal funny pages that pulls in the latest installments of a number of comics online; the intent is that I can read them all in one place and not have to go from site to site to site. Several of the comics use very regular/predictable naming conventions (usually based on the date) but many do not and I can only pull in an update through their RSS feed.

"But, Sean," you might ask, "if they've got an RSS feed, why are messing around with coding your own page? Why not just use an RSS reader?"

The 'problem' I run into with those are that the feeds sometimes do not include the comic itself. It will just have a link to the latest comic on the creator's website. And since my intent is to not have to pull up a bunch of different websites, what I find myself doing is reading the RSS feed for the updated information and then running some transformations on what is in the feed to be able to pull in the actual comic itself. (Basically, if they have a link to the updated comic page, I can use that to figure out what the link is directly to the comic image, and then just pull that in. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, that's fine; just trust me in that it makes sense.)

Anyway, last week, I ran into an issue where suddenly a bunch of comics were no longer getting pulled into my page properly. I hadn't changed my code, so something clearly happened externally to change how many of the comics were being seen. I wasn't getting any useful information from the error messages, so I'm not exactly sure what happened. I was routing the RSS feeds through a third party proxy to avoid CORS header errors so I figure they changed something there. Weirdly, some feeds continue to run through that proxy with no problem, so it's not like it got shut down or something; but regardless, it means that I've had to rework much of my custom page.

My page has been built up over the past couple years so the code is unnecessarily bloated. Heck, there were parts of it that I copy/pasted from a similar effort I had done back in 2005, so it was very much a hodge podge of inefficient codes and hacks that I wouldn't put in any sort of production environment, but worked well enough for my single user situation. Some of the comics had problems on the first day of a new year (creators often put images into a directory labeled by the year they're uploaded, not necessarily the year they're going to be seen) and again on the first day of March (since February has a weird number of days) but I knew what the problems were and it wasn't worth it to correct them just for myself.

But knowing those various problems were in place and that I had to recode much of the page anyway, I figured it was a good time to essentially start over and take the opportunity to clean things up a bit. That's what I've been working on in my spare time over the past week or so. I've got the file size down from 120 KB to 90 KB. Probably not enough to make a noticeable impact, especially since I only ever view the file locally anyway.

Where I'm going with this is that I've had to put in some not insignificant effort here. It's not horrible, to be sure, but I'm certain I'd need to use this for probably decades to make up the time I'm 'saving' by not just going to each website individually. But what I'm able to do is handle this myself and I'm less reliant on how someone wants to code an RSS reader or some other aggregation platform; they're not going to suddenly close shop or decide to start charging for their service. I was talking back in December about owning your own media, and I see this as being similar to that. (If I really wanted to, I could add some functionality to my comics page that would save each day's installment as a discrete file that I could later call up from a local archive.) My point, though, is just that corporations are increasingly making everything a service that you need to pay ongoing fees for. But with a little effort, that's not necessary. I'm not saying everyone should build their own comics web page from scratch, but you do have much more control over your media than you might think.

Today is the 75th birthday of Dennis the Menace -- that kid in the striped shirt, armed with a slingshot, causing problems for pretty much everyone in the neighborhood, sometimes with his dog as an accomplice. Of course, depending on whether you're reading this in the US or in the UK, you've likely got very different characters in your head at the moment.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know that both Hank Ketcham and David Law independently thought up ideas for a character called "Dennis the Menace" -- the rhyming name scheme is relatively obvious -- and, by a wild coincidence, both happened to first see print on the exact same day: March 12, 1951. Despite my deliberate attempt above to frame the characters as virtually identical, they really only share the most superficial elements. Thematically, they come from very different places -- the US version celebrates the wonder and innocence of children who haven't yet learned social conventions and mores, while the UK version shows what happens when a child knows but actively rejects those now learned social conventions and mores. The US Dennis annoys people because his ignorance of ettiquite means he winds up innocently doing and saying things people don't like. He has a lack of empathy because he hasn't learned it yet. The UK Dennis annoys people because he's specifically trying to cause chaos, mostly to alleviate his own boredom in day-to-day routine. His lack of empathy isn't because he hasn't learned it, but because he actively chooses his own immediate interests over others' regardless of the consequences.

What I find particularly fascinating about the coincidence of two characters named Dennis the Menace appearing on the same day on opposite sides of the Atlantic is how they've both been about equally successful in their respective countries of origin. It would be an interesting coincidence if both characters debuted simultaneously, but either one or both was nothing more than a brief splash of interest, falling out of print after a year or two. For as many comics do last a short time like that, nobody would bat an eye and it probably wouldn't be until decades later that some comic archivist happened across the coincidence. But instead both characters have been not only successful to have remained continually in print for 75 years, but they've both been the subject of multiple TV shows and movies, video games, and the like. The UK Dennis was a theme park mascot for a little over a decade, while the US Dennis has had two playgrounds built around him. They've shown up on clothes and lunchboxes and coffee mugs. They've had dolls and figures made of them. Fans have cosplayed as them.

Their successes haven't been precisely parallel, and I'm sure you could quantify which was more "successful" (i.e. which has made more money over time) but that they're both close enough to be commonly understood in the same ballpark is almost as amazing as their debuting on the same day.

The characters will no doubt to continue to evolve over time. Both Ketcham and Law passed away decades ago now, and the characters have had a number of artists and writers working on them since, obviously bringing their own preferences and biases to the table in the process. But that both characters have survived at all with so few (relatively speaking) changes would be really nothing short of astounding even if they had a full year between them.

Happy birthday, Dennis! And happy birthday, Dennis!

The founder of the popular event Comic Con India, Jatin Varma, launched The Comic Book Trust of India a couple weeks ago. According to their site, the Trust is "a pioneering not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering, promoting, and elevating the vibrant world of graphic arts and the comic book industry across India. Established with a profound commitment to nurturing creativity and supporting talent, our trust serves as a unifying platform for all key stakeholders – from the imaginative individual creators who bring stories to life, to the dynamic small publishers who champion diverse voices, and other integral members of the ecosystem."

In the short-term, they're trying to set up a digital hub for Indian comic creators, professionals, and fans. More significantly, they're hoping to also set up some financial support initiatives, like legal aid and a grant program. I can't seem to find anything noting where they're getting the seed money for this, but it seems as if this Trust was at least partially spurred by India's formal Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) policy, it might be part of a larger grant from the Indian government. (To be clear, that's total speculation on my part.)

On a longer scale, they're hoping to develop a more formal infrastructure for comics and comics advocacy in India. Things like promoting pro-comics policies in the government, school outreach -- including partnering with universities to estamblish college level curriculum and degrees -- and establishing a national comic book archive.

I'm not very familiar with the Advisory Council or the Management Team, and I don't have the slighest clue on how one might go about navigating whatever legal hurdles in India might be in the way of any of that. But I wanted to call attention to the endeavor and make the suggestion that anyone even remotely interested head over to their site to check out what they're about. I'm obviously all in favor of making comics more popular and more accessibile to wider audiences, so I'd like to wish their team the very best and hope to report on how successful they've become in some surprisingly short time!

Webtoon recently released their fourth quarter 2025 results. The short version is that recorded an operating loss of $13.2 million US in the quarter. And while they tried to spin that as an improvement over the fourth quarter of 2024, it's an increase from the $11.6 million US they lost in the third quarter 2025. They also had a decrease in revenue from Q3 -- $378 million US in Q3 versus $330.7 million US in Q4.

Not surprisingly, their statement tries to spin everything in a very positive light, heavily leveraging the recent agreement with Disney and talking up a number of upcoming projects. Aside from the agreement, though -- which was announced back in August -- they don't really have anything to actually show. Just the repackaging of seven Disney/Star Wars/Marvel titles from the past several years, all of which, I believe, had already been converted to a digital format for Amazon. Most of what they're promoting in their reporting is about all the grand plans they have in place for later.

Despite all the positive vibes they try to give off, it doesn't seem like the market is buying into it. Their stock price dropped ~10% almost immediately, and has lost another 10-ish% in the days since. As of this writing, it currently sits at the lowest it's been since just before the announcement with Disney, meaning that they've completely wiped out all the gains they got from the agreement in the first place and they're once again sitting at about 40% of the IPO price from June 2024.

Now a company doesn't live and die by its stock price, and plenty of companies operate at a loss for several years while they try to set themselves up for longer term success. Indeed, their 2024 annual report expressly states, "We have a history of net losses, and we anticipate increasing expenses in the future, and we may not achieve or maintain profitability. If we fail to control our content-related costs, the expenses we incur may exceed the increase in revenues."

Back in September, I wrote...

I don't wish ill against Webtoons, and don't want to rain on their parade exactly, but I think it's worth keeping some perspective here too... I think what we're looking at here is a company trying very hard to make things work, and they've thrown a crudload of time and money at it. But given their current operations, I don't think there's anything to be particularly excited about. This Disney deal doesn't strike me as likely to bring in a ton of opertaing capital -- if the licensing costs themselves don't increase their quarterly losses -- and I would just urge any creators posting through Webtoon to make sure that that isn't their ONLY venue for posting/earning money from their webcomic. You should never rely on a single source to begin with, and this setup with Disney doesn't strike me as being able to change Webtoon's direction.

In that 2024 annual report, they cite several potential risk factors. (Detailing risks in an annual report is pretty standard; don't read too much into the fact those are there.) They list three things that they'll need to nail down in order to grow their business and become profitable: attract high quality creators and their comics, attract more users, and "innovate and expand our advertising business." (The wording is a bit ambiguous there; I'm not sure if they talking about innovation broadly or specifically within the context of advertising.) That report is from March 2025 and I'm not sure I can say they've really done anything they mentioned about growing their business. I mean, you coudl argue they have high qualities creators by virtue of the already-created comics from Disney/Star Wars/Marvel, but that's a bit of a stretch, I think. Their "Monthly Paying Users" has remained pretty flat year-over-year, as has revenue. And I'm not aware of any innovations -- either within the context of advertising or without; indeed, my understanding is they've actually stripped away functionality.

I found a quote on GlassDoor from a former employee who was laid off in early 2024: "I thought the strategy, as it was communicated to me, was muddy and often changed radically with little or no notice... it's still unclear what direction the company is headed." I think that sums up my opinion as well. They really don't seem to have a sense of what to do with their platform to make money. Argueably, everyone who's tried making a "single source" platform for webcomics has failed, and the only reason Webtoon is still around is because they had several years being propped up financially by Naver. With them no longer in the picture, I have to wonder if they'll remain around long enough to discover that elusive formula for success.

This month, the University of Mississippi Press is launching a new series of comic creator biographies called Biographix. Instead of all the usual suspsects, though (i.e. Kirby, Lee, Eisner, Crumb...) they're trying to tackle creators whose lives have been less well-documented. Folks like Howard Cruse, Ben Katchor, Gene Luen Yang... They were able to send me an advance copy of their biography of Mark Gruenwald, which is formally due out at the end of the week.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Gruenwald, but he always struck me as the heart of 1980s and early '90s Marvel. When I was reading Marvel in the early '80s, it seemed like the company was driven by some very powerful creators making what would become iconic stories. John Byrne's Fantastic Four. Walt Simonson's Thor. Frank Miller's Daredevil. And then as the mid-80s started rolling around, there was a bit of a shift. While those types of stories were still being told, they were mostly contained to their own titles, but we started to see efforts to make sure it was easy to coalesce them all and make them easily understandable. George Olshevsky's indexes got "official" treatments published by Marvel. The Marvel Handbooks. Marvel Saga. Even Marvel Age, which was designed as a vehicle to promote upcoming books and storylines, started to "organize" the stories pre-emptively, telling readers how crossover events like "Inferno" or "Atlantis Attacks" tied together before they were even published.

Pretty much all of that was Mark's doing.

Before reading Paul V. Allen's biography on him, I knew that. Mark's name was on all of those projects. What I learned in reading the biography was how and why his name was on those projects.

Allen seems to have had good access to many of Mark's friends and relatives, including his sister and his widow. Which means that the book covers Mark's life in its entirety very well, and includes a number of family photos and any number of personal recollections. In fact, the level of detail on every part of his life included in the book from different sources almost suggests Allen could've easily have filled a book twice as large if he'd been allowed a longer page count. I know of at least a dozen anecdotes and stories about Mark that aren't even passingly referenced in the book. But I think that it not being longer is a plus. Allen offers plenty of detail to let the reader get to know who Mark was and how he approached everything, but without getting bogged down in minutia that could bore a casual reader.

I think that's where the real success of the book lies. It's not just a list of facts and dates like an extended Wikipedia entry; it really starts to capture who Mark was an individual, including some of his faults. (Which is, frankly, the first time I think I've seen anyone do that about him.) You do get a sense of Mark's passionate approach to life in general and comics in particular. And for me personally, it showcases just how much of my comics reading experiences as a teen were shaped both directly and indirectly by him. Even though I read almost none of his Captain America, Squadron Supreme, DP7, or Quasar until years after the fact.

I've long appreciated what Mark brough to Marvel Comics, and I'm glad that we now have a really good biography of him that fills in all the holes in my knowledge about him. Of the biographies I know are in the Biographix line, Mark's was the one that appealed to me the most, but if they're all written like this, I think the entire series would be worth filling out your bookshelves.

As I said, Paul V. Allen's Mark Gruenwald is due out from the University of Mississippi Press later this week and retails for $20 US for the paperback version. It should be available through your favorite bookstore.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Lift Every Voice
https://ift.tt/Dh87tPZ

Kleefeld on Comics: Mad Magazine as a Media Literacy Educator
https://ift.tt/a7wdcgW

Kleefeld on Comics: Grace Everett circa 1939
https://ift.tt/gxrDwud

Kleefeld on Comics: Unintentional Media Literacy Lesson from Dark Horse
https://ift.tt/HTJRYMK

Kleefeld on Comics: The Conquest of Hunger
https://ift.tt/49JfYxi

Public service comics are almost never actually good. Even if you get top-notch talent working on them, they tend feel forced and preachy under the best circumstances. But make up an anthropomorphic burlap sack as a mascot; give him a lot of dry, superficial exposition on different types of fertilizer; throw in some post-WWII jingoism and 1950s racist sterotypes; wrap the whole thing in a it's-never-not-a-storytelling-cheat dream sequence framework; and you've got... The Conquest of Hunger: Featuring Prosper Plenty and His Magical Chemicals from 1951.

Somebody at the National Fertilizer Association thought it was a good idea, but no one who worked on it signed their name to it. And in the three-quarters of a century since it was published, no one has owned up working on it either. It's easy to laugh at such an effort now in 2026, but I'm pretty sure no one was proud of the work back then either.

Anyway, courtesy of the Science History Institute, I offer up The Conquest of Hunger: Featuring Prosper Plenty and His Magical Chemicals.