 The strategy of building a business around posting free comics online began in the 1980s, when Eric Millikin created the first webcomic, "Witches and Stitches" for CompuServe in 1985.Self-publishing on the internet allowed Millikin to avoid censorship and the demographic constraints of mass-market print publishers.Though Millikin's online comics were instantly popular with the early internet audience around the world, the large online audience and influence did not necessarily translate into enough sales to reach economic success at the time.