For this project, I created a comprehensive metadata schema for cataloging and classifying webcomics. This schema is designed to help users both discover new webcomics and to consider the comics they already enjoy in a new way. This schema uses attribute/value pairs similar to Dublin Core elements, but customized for webcomics as a unique medium. It also attempts to capture and articulate content-based subjective elements of comics—such as art style and mood—in a systematic, organized way.

Included in this paper are cataloging instructions for indexers, paradigmatic and “borderline” examples of the schema applied to actual webcomics, and a reflection on the schema creation process as a whole. Worth a read for comic nerds and/or classification nerds.