I was wondering what all of you thought about silent comics in general, and especially if you know any out here on the internet.
The (almost) complete lack of words in a comic doesn't seem that common out here. To tell the truth I can't really name any silent comics that isn't in a printed format.
Personally I like this little "sub genre", as I think it takes a lot of talent to tell a good story with just sequential art, but I also think a webcomic-format may make it a lot harder to keep track of the plot if it's a longer story than a few pages or so.

And now that we're at it. What do you consider a silent comic to be? How much text is "allowed", can there be little things as labels to clerify, or should it be completely mute before it can be a silent comic?
I alway thought minor details like labels and signs were okay in silent comics if they were absolutely needed to clerify what's going on, but if it can be done without them, then I prefer it that way. Christian Slade's Korgi is a nice example of a silent comic that really is completely silent if you ignore the written introduction and the notes about the characters in the end. The actual story has no words at all if I remember correctly.

I guess that's about it unless you want me to bring out some definitions, and I doubt anybody would want that, so I look forward to hearing your opinion.
Feel free to link to examples too. I'm always interested in seeing new things.

I think a silent comic would be really cool.
I was considering doing one myself, but you'd have to be AWESOME with visual storytelling.

I think the most amount of text you can have, is sound effects. Because that's just pretty obvious. Just, no talking or anything.

I remember this Gametap (I think it was them) interview with Jim Lee. He showed them around the Wildstorm studios, and he said something about a silent comic. I think it was a manga, actually, one that they had CMX fix up (I'm not sure what the whole story is. You'd have to go search for the video :P)

But yeah. Personally? Silent comics would be cool.

I agree with Ryuthehedgewolf, sound effects only. I should think that one would benefit from studying the art of mime. But that's just a wild guess on my part. It's a powerful art form but it is probably very difficult to pull off successfully.

If you ever see it in a store or library, check out a picture book called "Tuesday." It's my brother's favorite book. (It's sort of about frogs taking over the world.)

When I say "picture book" I mean it is all pictures. The words in it just give the time of day when the story is set. I think it counts as silent anyway. I know it's not technically a "comic," but it is a story told entirely with pictures, and I think it's a great example of the sort of thing you're talking about.

I love wordless comics!
I've been reading Jess Finkenstein's Chester XYV. (It's naughty, but at the same time, nice!)
You have to have REALLY strong art to pull it off, and a plot that lends itself to action-oriented things, but if you can supply those, silent comics are awesome.

I do recall seeing a silent webcomic. First volume/chapter of it anyway. But I can't remember the name

Was pretty clear to follow. And yes, I agree, getting silent stuff to work is a bit more difficult. You can't rely on dialogue or narration to get your point across, you have to draw it. Facial expressions, body language, gestures become the new "dialogue" meanwhile camera angles, panel transitions, backgrounds etc. are the "narration".

I'll have a silent two page opening at the beginning of Ravensrook, but two pages was all I dared to write into the story. Don't want to alienate the readers by not giving them enough content to keep them on the page long enough... and I think that's the thing about silent webcomics. A person clicks, five seconds later (IF that much even) they're done with the page. Not much entertainment, especially if you waited entire week for it, right?

I guess it could work for something that updates in chapters.

For silent comics (I like to call them "pantomime comics", I think sound effects and labels are fine to use. Labels such as titles of magazines, books, commercial goods, etc. Just as long as it doesn't have any written narration or dialogue.
For 24-Hour Comic Day last year, I did a partial-pantomime comic called, Socks. I'm not so sure it counts; I kind of cheated by having all the cast talk in visual symbols. (Also, there's text on the gift card that the main character gets at the start of the comic.)

As for pantomime webcomics? Hm...
I really enjoy reading Diana Nock's Intrepid Girlbot. It's about a little robot girl who wants to be a real girl. It's a well-done, mono-toned strip comic... and it's surprisingly young, too! (It began in March.)

I know of a lot more pantomime comics in print than I do on the web. Maybe because there aren't a lot of pantomime webcomics out there?

I love silent comics! They're surprisingly hard to write though, the tricky thing is that you don't have words to explain anything and you have to let the action of the story speak for itself. I'll say that you can get away with pictographs like what Speck used. My favorite silent comics like the one's in the Flight Anthology and the 24 hour comic Marina had really expressive characters and really well-thought out pacing. Maybe this is because they couldn't rely on words so they took what they had and went all the way with it. I think that the really amazing thing about silent comics is that because they don't rely on word they can be understood by just about everybody regardless of language and I think that's really cool.
I made an attempt at a silent comic-- I made this as a birthday card/zine thing for somebody that likes pirates. http://www.drunkduck.com/Arbitrary_Comix/index.php?p=346501

Wow, that was a lot of positive replies. Good to hear I'm not the only one who likes this "style" of comics if we can call it that. I'll be replying to everybody, so sorry about the length and any spellingmistakes. Hopefully I'm understandable, and if not, then feel free to ask what I mean.

@ Ryuthehedgewolf
I'll try to look for it when I get the time. I'm kinda stuck doing a lot of schoolwork at the moment, but it sounds interesting, I'll make sure to search for it.

@ CharleyHorse
I agree. I was tought by a guy who makes silent comics at some point a few years ago and after the few times I've tried myself I really got a lot of respect for what he was doing. Studying mimes and bodylanguage in general would probably be a good idea.

@ usedbooks
That title really sounds familliar. I haven't read it myself, but I think I came across it once while I was looking for books illustrated by Shaun Tan. And now that we're at it, he's made some really spectacular children's books, and I'd argue some of them could be considered silent comics just as well. The Arrival comes to mind. Here's a link to his website: http://www.shauntan.net/

@ megan_rose
Haven't heard about that one, but if I get time I may, I can handle a bit of naughtyness if it's got a good story too. And again, I agree, it takes a lot of practise to tell such a story. I think you can tell less action-oriented stories too, but it gets harder to keep peoples interest, it's in no way easy.

@ Aurora Borealis
It's a shame you can't remember the title. Finding webcomics where you've forgotten the title can be pretty much impossible (I know, I've tried). If you remember it feel free to come back and tell, it sounds like it was interesting.
And I think it was good you at least tried just for a bit. I know what you mean, sometimes it does feel like a silent webcomic would be impossible simply because it takes so little time to "read", and then people just go "so, was that it?". But like you said, if it updated in chapters it may not be impossible, and this is the internet. Sometimes people try things that really didn't ought to work, but somehow it does anyway.

@ Speck
Pantomime comics is a good name too. I know quite a few names for them by now, but I had to choose one.
I personally like the use of visual symbols as a language and think it is fine to use in silent comics as you need to use the same set of skills to "decode" the messages as you do when there's no "language" at all. I've been working on a language like that myself called "iconospeak" and sometimes it gets frustrating when I need to express more complex ideas, but it's a lot of fun.
My opinion on the use of text in silent comics are pretty simmelar to yours. It's the lack of narration and speech that is central to me too.
I'll go take a look at that webcomic. Like you said, they seem to be a bit rare out here, so it's exiting to hear about new ones.

@ patrickdevine
Like I said to Speck, I agree, the use of pictograms and icons is fine with me. It's still not easy to make a good comic even when you allow yourself to use those.
And Flight really do have some great ones. It's been a while since I've read them, but I recall they were well-told and imaginative. And go you for trying. I'll take a look when I have some time.

I feel inspired by this thread... I've been mulling over a comic project idea for a while (a short story I wrote). I wanted to either illustrate it or make it into a comic, but a silent comic? Hmm. It sounds fun and challenging to take something that is ALL words and try to say the same thing without any at all. I'm not sure I'm a good enough artist to try, but now I REALLY want to.

Found it!
It's about half-way or something in. Probably towards the end. :P
Ah. it's 4:05.

GO GET KORGIE!

Korgie is by far the most enjoyable silent comic I've read to date. So far they only have two issues out but both are very solid. I could try to explain...OR I could just like you to the See the offical Korgi Trailer.

I say go for it usedbooks! Challenging yourself like that is one of the best ways to get better. I'm sure you can make it work if you want to, and it sounds like you do, so you shouldn't worry about maybe not being good enough.

And that's awesome Ryuthehedgewolf, thanks for finding it!

Evil Emperor Nick has a point as I already think I've mentioned (if I haven't, then I at least thought about it, but I'm pretty sure I used it as an example somewhere up there). I was lucky enough to get the extra mini-story "Sprout's lost cookie" from the free comic book day comics of 2007 and that was what made me buy them. I recommend both of the books too.

The true test of a comics artist is to see if they can successfully tell a story in pantomime. I greatly admire anyone who has the storytelling power to pull it off. (Sergio Aragones, to give a notable example)

I've tried to a couple of times, but I've never been confident enough about it to post it on the interwebs.

Oh, it's a lot more than a bit naughty! lol.

I think one day I will make a silent chapter of one of my webcomics. It's totally doable. (Well, both my comics start off on the silent side pretty much, and apparently are almost confusing, hehe!)

Anyway, I stumbled across this one the other day: http://www.bonom.lu/new.php

It's gooood. It's clever. It's purposed! The few silent webcomics I've read besides that, however, have been 50/50 good/crap, not excusing their experimental nature. They lacked purpose.

The value of silence is much underrated.

@ Air Raid Robertson
That's a very fine way of describing it. And I personally always end up posting most of what I've done, maybe because I started out as a "regular" hobbyist-artist and only got into making more comic-like things a few years ago. Sometimes it can be really fun to see what people have experimented with along the way.

@ megan_rose
Yeah, well, I should be able to handle that too. I was just trying to... be nice?

@ Senshuu
I pretty much always cheer on "experimentation" like that, so I think it's a great idea, and it sounds like you know what you're talking about.
And thanks for the link, I'll make sure to take a look at it.
Personally I'm not surprised there's a lot of bad things out there. We can do pretty much what we want out here (including some crazy things like, oh, realistic one-panel comics that aren't comedic? I'd actually love to see somebody try to make something serious with limitations like that!). It's no wonder we have to go look for the good things. The freedom of the internet is both its strength and its weakness. But that's another discussion for another time.
Anyway, I agree that the beauty of a wellmade silent comic seems to be forgotten sometimes, and it's a shame.