Parker, Charley
Entry updated 13 January 2026. Tagged: Artist, Author, Comics.
(? - ) Cartoonist, painter, and early web-designer, best known for the webcomic Argon Zark!. Beginning in June 1995, Argon Zark! is one of the first long-form narrative webcomics. The titular Argon Zark invents a new Internet protocol – the "Personal Transport Protocol" – which allows people to physically travel through the Internet's Cyberspace. He, his personal assistant Robot Cybert, and their unexpected companion Zeta Fairlight dive into the Computer, where they are chased by the eldritch Monster of corrupted data named BadnastyJumpJump. While the first chapter forms a short, complete story, the second chapter only updates sporadically as of 2025. The cartoony digital worlds are rendered in frenetic detail. Parker presents the World Wide Web as a digital collage of impossible architecture, fractals, and art galleries, aesthetically reminiscent of the television series Reboot (1994). The webcomic functioned as a series of exercises in computer graphics techniques: Parker created Argon Zark! on his Macintosh Quadra 610 primarily to indulge in drawing robots, attractive women, and abstract landscapes. The resulting experimental story is striking and spontaneous.
The webcomic was described by Joe Zabel as "the first comic created specifically to be published on the World Wide Web" and ND Stevenson (see Nimona) credited Argon Zark! and its related tutorials as "at least partially responsible for getting [him] interested in making the jump to using computers in the comic creation process,"
Parker self-published a collection of Argon Zark! in December 1997. Besides Argon Zark!, Parker has produced the art appreciation blog Lines and Colors (2005-current), the comedic webcomic Dinosaur Cartoons, and he has a career in painting in oil, gouache, and casein. [MS]
Charley Parker
born
works
graphic works
- Argon Zark! (place not known: Arclight Publishing, 1997) [graph: pb/]
links
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