Stafford Huyler's net.toon, "NetBoy®," has been rapidly gaining fame in both the digital world and analog world. Made possible by the self-publishing wave on the Internet, and avidly consumed by its diehard fans, "NetBoy" is the stick-figure rendering of a high tech world.
The strip began as a rough "beta test" in March 1994, when Huyler was employed as the marketing director of an emerging Chicagoland Internet Service Provider. Inspired by his behind-the-scene look at the online business, Huyler drew some sketches of a fair hair stick figured boy who spent a week looking for the any key. Huyler put it up a Web site and went back to work. The next week everyone in the company was astounded by the logs of activity on "NetBoy's" page. Traffic was very high. Readers began to write in, asking for more. Huyler complied, and began net-publishing a strip every week thereafter.
Although "NetBoy" was not the first comic to be published on the World-Wide Web, it was one of the leaders in the self-publishing movement on the Web. It was the first, and remains the only, comic to deal specifically and unflinchingly with the Internet culture and technology.
The leader of the cast is NetBoy himself. He's an innocent who's enamored of. but clumsy with, the Internet/ His misunderstandings and mistakes allow technology-befuddled readers to laugh at themselves. One side kick is LanMan (the name is a play on "Local-Area-Network,") LanMan has a scribbled mouth and an abrasive personality. His motto: "Love? Love?! Love is for rec.pets.cats." The final member of the trio is Bran, a bespectacled, bow-tied nerd with an endless parade of new invention. The characters are drawn simply, but expressively. Their sparce lines and colors are in direct opposition to the complexity of the electronic world.
There is a high level of reader response to "NetBoy" because Huyler has provided an active mail link on the comic's home page. With one click, readers can give direct feedback to Huyler. They yea or nay changes in a character's look or demeanor and speculate about the plot lines. Across-the-board sentiment from the readers is to keep the level of technological humor high. Readers become fans because they are so taken by the idea of a comic that speaks their own language intelligently.
"NetBoy" has proven popularity in the computer/technology niche. It is likely that readers who enjoy strips such as "Dilbert" and "Doonesbury" would find "NetBoy" amusing. "NetBoy" would also serve the as-yet unmet needs of internet-literate folks who want to read about their experiences on-line. Furthermore, with the rapid expansion of technology and proliferation of email, it seems certain the "NetBoy" would appeal to a broad variety of readers.
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