After the first online comic and the first webcomic, the early pioneers of webcomics included Bill Holbrook, Peter Zale and Charley Parker. Each of these three pioneers faced their own obstacles and found success in their own way. Bill Holbrook was already a syndicated newspaper cartoonist when he launched the webcomic Kevin & Kell, Peter Zale's Helen: Sweetheart of the Internet featured a tech-savvy female at the lead character and Charley Parker's Argon Zark began to take advantage of both digital art tools and the "web" part of webcomics in ways that no online comic had previously.

Well, here goes. I thought long and hard about this, trying to decide if it was appropriate for a column, and then I came to a carefully thought-out decision based on the fact that my column was due last week.

Stephen Notley planted his first comic seeds the mid 90s while drawing weekly strips for the University of Alberta's Gateway (a student newspaper that managed to churn out not only Notley's work, but also Cigarro & Cerveja, Deathworld, and the now-defunct but fondly-remembered Space Moose all in the same span of time). It did not take him or his comic idea about a disgruntled sentient weed – umm, sorry – flower to take root and bloom brightly in the still-Edenic Garden of Webcomics. Now already releasing his fourth book, the creator of Bob The Angry Flower can be seen on the comic convention circuit sporting large yellow petals on his head and pollinating truths about life, the universe, and political everythings as only an angry, petal-bedecked person could.

In the weeks after Sept. 11, when anthrax was flying through the postal system like AOL free samplers, and flags suddenly sprouted from every crack in the ground, pop culture balled into a foetal position and rolled under a table. You were there, too, so you can’t deny you saw it. American pop culture briefly became nothing less than a 24-hour, instantly-updated funeral service with occasional breaks for scary news stories about "dirty bombs."

Every comedian had a somber speech about being unable to make jokes. Talking heads debated the patriotism of disagreeing with the President. The editor of Vanity Fair, stretching that magazine's authority just a bit, officially declared irony "dead."

That's when David Rees started tearing it all apart with the caustic sarcasm of Get Your War On.

A few nights ago, while in a drug-filled haze (the prescription kind), I hopped online for what was supposed to be a few minutes to chat with my wife, only to be slapped across the face with the Holy Trout of Revelation.

Get Fuzzy creator Darby Conley recently drew the ire of Pittsburghers when referring to Pittsburgh in a recent strip as a place that smelled. (Story here.) Since the comic was published, he has been receiving hate mail and death threats. If something so benign as saying a city smells can cause such a bad reaction, what does that say about comics that handle REAL controversial issues?