Patrick Sean Farley is a freelance illustrator and Web page designer. Known as a pioneer of

webcomics Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be ...

as a medium, Farley works out of

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Biography

Patrick Farley is the creator of comics under the anthology "Electric Sheep Comix".

Scott McCloud Scott McCloud (born Scott McLeod; June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and comics theorist. He is best known for his non-fiction books about comics: ''Understanding Comics'' (1993), ''Reinventing Comics'' (2000), and '' Making Comics'' (200 ...

cites him as an early pioneer of the

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be ...

s movement. He is the author of a semi-autobiographical webcomics graphic novel ''The Guy I Almost Was'' and of several other Web based comics or stories, listed below. In addition to the traditional strip format Farley has presented work in the

infinite canvas The infinite canvas refers to the potentially limitless space that is available to webcomics presented on the World Wide Web. The term was introduced by Scott McCloud in his 2000 book '' Reinventing Comics'', in which he suggested that webcomic cre ...

mode peculiar to the more innovative web comics, and he has done many stories using 3D tools such as

Poser Poser or ''variant'', may refer to: *a hard problem, a poser *a hard question, a poser People *Poseur, a person who inauthentically adopts a certain subculture *a person playing a role, a role-play, a fake, an imposter *Bob Poser (1910–2002), ...

and Bryce. ''

The Webcomics Examiner Joe Zabel (born July 7, 1953)Zabel entry
Who's Who of Amer ...

'' wrote a story about Farley's work in December 2004 titled "Patrick Farley, Apocalyptic Utopian", describing him as "the

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cin ...

of webcomics". Farley appeared in ''Adventures Into Digital Comics'', a 2006 documentary on the comics industry.

Electric Sheep Comix

Electric Sheep Comix is a Web-based anthology of Farley's work. The name was taken from the title of

Philip K. Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his ...

's novel "''

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' (retroactively retitled ''Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' in some later printings) is a dystopian science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in 1968. The ...

''". It was originally hosted at the domain , but the domain registration lapsed, and after being offline for 2 years, the site was restarted in August 2009, at a new domain. One unusual project from this collection is ''Apocamon: The Final Judgement'', a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

, stylized presentation of the

Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book o ...

in a graphic style similar to the

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

trading card game and a writing style similar to the comic book tracts of

Jack T. Chick Jack Thomas Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016) was an American cartoonist and publisher, best known for his fundamentalist Christian "Chick tracts". He expressed his perspective on a variety of issues through sequential-art moral ...

''The Spiders''

''The Spiders'' is a webcomic written and illustrated by

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary an ...

Patrick S. Farley for his website, Electric Sheep Comix. The comic traces an alternate history of the

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operations ...

, where Al Gore is

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

, and ordinary

civilian Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not " combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatan ...

s can view the war through

web cam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or periphera ...

s carried by roving robotic "spiders" dispersed into

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

by the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

. Unlike most webcomics, the comic is displayed in an "

" format, where each page of the comic has the individual panels lined up in one continuous

strip Strip or Stripping may refer to: Places * Aouzou Strip, a strip of land following the northern border of Chad that had been claimed and occupied by Libya * Caprivi Strip, narrow strip of land extending from the Okavango Region of Namibia to ...

, viewable in full by

scrolling In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the tex ...

with the horizontal

scrollbar A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction (up, down, left, or right) on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the ...

of the reader's

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

. Occasionally, the pages of the comic deviate from the format for storytelling effect, usually in the form of a fictional web page created for the story.

Mark Frauenfelder Mark Frauenfelder (born November 22, 1960) is a blogger, illustrator, and journalist. He was editor-in-chief of the magazine '' MAKE'' and is co-owner of the collaborative weblog ''Boing Boing''. Along with his wife, Carla Sinclair, he founded the ...

, writing for ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

'', recommended the comic, praising how it used the multimedia capabilities afforded by the internet to "present comics in an entirely new way."

Electric Sheep Reloaded

In March 2010 Farley started a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

page in order to raise $6,000 to support him in making more comics for his website. On May 1, 2010 the fund raiser was successful. From June 2010 until December 2010 Farley continued ''The Spiders'' with a chapter titled ''Prologue''.

References

External links

Sketch blog

''electricsheep comix''
(new)
''The Spiders''
(old site down)
Patrick Farley's Kickstarter page

''The Spiders: Prologue'' at Electric Sheep Comix
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farley, Patrick American comics titles American webcomic creators Artists from Berkeley, California University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Artists from Portland, Oregon