For today’s reading, I analyzed Margaret Galvan’s “‘The Lesbian Norman Rockwell’: Alison Bechdel and Queer Grassroots Networks”. In this article, Galvan looks at how different queer communities affected the popularity, spreadability, and consumption of Bechdel’s comic. While Galvan employs many different angles to examine these factors, I am going to focus on a specific aspect of the article—how the archives that have influenced Bechdel’s works have had a similar effect on Poorly Drawn Lines.
In the first sentence of the section on archives, Galvan mentions, “Archives are not simply an aesthetics of Bechdel’s work: she…actively creates her own archives to store material that otherwise might not be saved” (415). This is an interesting point to consider in the now digital age—back when Bechdel was creating her comic strips, everything was done in print. The comics were drawn on paper, printed in the paper, and then stored on paper. The act of saving a piece of work was much more involved than today; artists had to make a conscious effort to store all of their own comics (and deal with the ensuing clutter) instead of throwing them out the second they were printed. While the task was a more conscious one, it was a necessary one. As Galvan states, “Archives in general allow us to read comics with a new fullness and to see the personal networks surrounding their creation” (418).
In today’s world, the process of putting together an archive seems much less effortful. As webcomics are posted digitally, and since services like the wayback machine exist, there are countless records of everything an author posts. It is much harder to “throw away” work. This led me to believe that archives today have lost some of their importance, as the process of deciding what to include in said archives is no longer necessary. However, the wayback machine tells a different story. On the current Poorly Drawn Lines website, the oldest archived comic that exists is “Hardly Essayists”. However, in the Feb 14, 2009 capture, “Hardly Essayists” is the 4th most recent comic. There are 37 comics posted earlier than it. This means that, even in the digital age, artists are still consciously choosing the comics they are saving. Even in an age where saving comics is as easy as the click of a button, the beauty and importance of archives lives on.
The current PDL archive (the very first comics) 
The PDL archive from Feb 2009
Poorly Drawn Lines and Well Written Blogs 
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