Rain

Artists become part of the community that they create. This image was created by a fan for the artist of Rain. The artist had recently gotten out of surgery and the fan wanted to create a get well soon card for the artist of Rain. Rain is a webcomic that follows the life of a teenage transgender girl named Rain as she attempts to go through her last year of high school identifying on only as a woman. Electronic communities have formed around electronic literature and webcomics are no different [1]. In the item above, the community that is being highlighted is the LBGTQ community. Artists of these webcomics create the community in a way and become a part of the same community [2]. The artist creates the platform for the community to form, as well as provide content to retain and grow the community. The item above shows how the audience cares about the artists by creating a digital get well card. Not only is the artist engaging the audience, but the audience is engaging the artist [3]. In many cases, the audience cares about the artist as a person like an audience in Rain. Without artists, many of these communities would not have the impact they do today. This element of the webcomic shows the connection between the audience and the artists.

1. Rettberg, Scott, Patricia Tomaszek, and Sandy Baldwin. Electronic Literature Communities. Computing Literature; Volume 6. 2015.

2. Howard, Christopher S. "The Relationship between Community Building Antecedents and Followers' Perceptions of Community." The Journal of Applied Business and Economics 19, no. 11 (12, 2017): 105-109. http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1992204550?accountid=11107.

3. Weil, Marie O. "Community Building: Building Community Practice." Social Work 41, no. 5 (09, 1996): 481. http://prx.library.gatech.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/215273402?accountid=11107.