The artist that first inspired this project is Meredith Gran, the creator of the webcomic Octopus Pie. While "OP", as it is nicknamed in acronym, now has published paperback editions by Image Comics, OP ostensibly began as a web-first creation as a means of self-publishing back in 2007, when the webcomics scene was steadily growing in popularity. In an interview with Popverse, Meredith explained “From jump, I had a lot of support because I had a lot of friends that were webcomic artists from starting and stopping other webcomic projects and having a presence at comic conventions and the online comics community which, in those days, was about a hundred people so you could really know everybody” (Gran, 2022). The origins of Octopus Pie truly capture the independent, close-knit days of online communities before social media began to take root as the de-facto digital ‘third space’.

During the span of Octopus Pie's run, Meredith experimented with boundary-breaking comics techniques. She and her colorist Valerie Halla incorporated gifs (Gran, 2013), infinite-scrolling pages (Gran, 2015), and changing formats from landscape-oriented pages to vertical layouts (Gran, 2019) – all challenging to commit to a printed work, but effortless in digital web form. These story-oriented design decisions garnered Meredith two Ignatz awards for her work on Octopus Pie, and she went on to teach other burgeoning comic artists at the School of Visual Art (Gran, n.d.).

After the conclusion of Octopus Pie, Meredith re-posted the full length of the comic every weekday with new author commentary below each page (Gran, 2018), offering a rare behind-the-scenes peek at her thought process and further cementing her reputation as a communicative and candid artist. She later borrowed her previous experience in comics to create two critically acclaimed and independently-produced point-and-click narrative adventure games, Perfect Tides (Three Bees, 2022) and its sequel, Perfect Tides: Station to Station (Three Bees, 2026). Octopus Pie challenged audience expectations of webcomics as a flat, static medium similar to printed comics, instead introducing new levels of immersion, finally culminating in her foray into the interactive world of video games.

Meredith has been my personal source of artistic inspiration for over a decade, along with her online contemporaries. Her artistic trajectory encapsulates the unique position of webcomics in the canon of digital cultural heritage and their potential to inform other types of art. However, when attempting to share her work, and the work of many other webcomic artists, the conversations feel decidedly "underground", that is, existing outside of the mainstream. Even traditional comic artists that have defined themselves as the true, bona-fide underground comix artists like Robert Crumb have earned their place in greater pop culture and within the walls of museums and libraries. Therein lies a question: Could webcomics find a wider audience with improved methods of access? Applying comprehensive metadata to webcomics could help satisfy such an inquiry.

Gran, M. (n.d.). About – octopus pie [Webcomic]. Self-published. Octopus Pie. Retrieved April 3, 2026, from https://www.octopuspie.com/about/

Gran, M. (2013, March 13). #588 – yes i remember – octopus pie [Webcomic]. Self-published. Octopus Pie. https://www.octopuspie.com/comic/588-yes-i-remember/

Gran, M. (2015, December 28). #858 – oops! Bye!! – Octopus pie [Webcomic]. Self-published. Octopus Pie. https://www.octopuspie.com/comic/858-oops-bye/

Gran, M. (2018, March 19). #001 – pea wiggle – octopus pie [Webcomic]. Self-published. Octopus Pie. https://www.octopuspie.com/comic/001-pea-wiggle-2/

Gran, M. (2019, September 19). #538 – union station – octopus pie [Webcomic]. Self-published. Octopus Pie. https://www.octopuspie.com/comic/538-union-station-2/

Gran, M. (2022, December 9). Meredith Gran looks back on 15 years of Octopus Pie [Web Feature]. Popverse. https://www.thepopverse.com/meredith-gran-octopus-pie-interview/

Three Bees. (2022, February 22). Perfect Tides on Steam [Digital distribution service]. Three Bees. Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1172800/Perfect_Tides/

Three Bees. (2026, January 22). Perfect Tides: Station to Station on Steam [Digital distribution service]. Three Bees. Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2088810/Perfect_Tides_Station_to_Station/