Sarah's Scribbles

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About

Sarah's Scribbles is a webcomic written and illustrated by cartoonist Sarah C. Andersen.

Origin

On December 10th 2011, Andersen posted her first comic onto Tumblr^[1] with the caption, "I decided to start posting comics I make about my life. Maybe other art students will relate to this…" Originally, the comic was called "Doodle Time," but Andersen changed it when GoComics decided to syndicate the comic.^[2]

Spread

"Doodle Time" quickly garnered attention. Andersen's first comic has attracted over 4,800 notes on Tumblr as of July 25th, 2016. Soon, she was picked up by larger blogs like Tastefully Offensive, who started regularly posting her work. One comic, "Waking Up,"^[3] Andersen considers the moment she went "truly 'viral.'" The comic has over 128,000 notes as of July 25th, 2016.

Sarah's Scribbles has continued to grow to due its relatable nature. The webcomic's Facebook page has over 1,000,000 likes,^[4] and Andersen's personal Twitter has over 134,000 followers.^[5] On March 8th, 2016, Andersen released a book of Sarah's Scribbles comics, Adulthood is a Myth: A "Sarah's Scribbles" Collection.^[6]

Various Examples

/pol/ Troll Campaign

On December 23rd, a thread was created on 4chan's /pol/ (politically incorrect) board requesting its posters to create edits of Andersen's comics that would depict her as a white supremacist and antisemitic in a style similar to the board's troll campaign towards political cartoon artist Ben Garrison.^[7] Although initial reactions rejected the idea, board posters eventually started sharing edits in the thread; the first version edited in a way to make Anderson appear negative towards the IQ of black people.

As board posters also showed the edits to Andersen on her Twitter, that same day she replied through a tweet notifying her followers of the edits and requesting to block and report them (shown below).^[8] This tweet was also shared by /pol/ posters in the original thread,^[7] further motivating them to continue creating and sharing edits on both /pol/ and Andersen's Twitter. Other replies to the edits varied, with some calling them unnecessary due to the absence of political themes in Andersen's comics unlike Garrison's, while others claimed her reaction to the campaign was an example of the Streisand Effect. On December 28th, Andersen's Encyclopedia Dramatica^[10] page was edited to depict her as a Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite. The following day, a thread about the edits was also created on 4chan's /co/ (comics & cartoons) board.^[9]