Source: Me

When Facebook was first created, it provided an outlet for people to share their personal lives with their friends. When webcomics began to pick up speed, they provided an outlet for people to share their personal lives with the world. Since the beginning of time people have been recording their lives; through diaries, autobiographies, paintings and film. In the past these recordings would either be for personal use or have to go through a long and arduous process of becoming acceptable to the public, and profitable for whoever produced it. Nowadays, it’s as though we have a way to peek into someone’s personal diary – in a much more aesthetically pleasing format.

Source: Lunar Baboon Comics

The autobiographical comic is founded on the idea of sharing your personal experience to connect with others. Even though we may not always have a personal understanding of the situations people go through, we can all relate to certain sentiments and feelings. We all feel the same sort of frustration, or joy, or sadness.

Autobiographical comics show other people making sense of the world and going through the same things we are. And though it’s something that can be created by anyone, it’s most commonly done by people in the “20-somethings”. This is becoming more and more iconic as a time of confusion in our generation, and feeling caught between having an adult responsibilities and feeling like a child. There is an expectation for people of this age to be college graduates who have a career in their chosen field. But, as most of these comics show, adulthood has very little to do with acting like an adult.

Source: Johnny Wander

Source: Our Super Adventure

Source: Today Nothing Happened

Another aspect unique to autobiographical webcomics is the creation of the hourly comic. Which requires comic artists to draw a comic of what they’re doing for every hour of the day. Though this is a hallmark of the autobiographical comic, it’s open to any webcomic artist, and most will do it as a challenge to their own artistic skills and dedication. And also as a way of sharing their life with the world, even when their comic itself is about something entirely different. Everyone wants to share some part of their personal lives with others, especially when they have control over what’s seen.

Comics are no longer only about superheroes or only for seasoned professionals, there’s an ocean’s worth of genres and artists, all exploring the depths of possibilities comics provide. There is no one right or wrong way to share your story with the world.