The Nib was a progressive web comic founded by the cartoonist Matt Bors. It was originally published by Medium.com
, but Bors eventually moved it to its own website after a successful Kickstarter campaign. While Bors was the site's main cartoonist, The Nib published the work of various artists.
First Look Media acquired The Nib in 2016 and helped produce the first animated series based on The Nib's comics. The Nib went fully independent in 2019, and was financially supported by its own subscription magazine before shutting down in 2023.
The Nib contains the following tropes:
- Droste Image: "Martin Scorsese Roasts Your Fandom", including editorial cartoons, where Scorsese throws that very comic in the trash.
- Golden Mean Fallacy: "Famous Moments in History, Reimagined By Centrists", where centrists look for compromise during the Civil Rights Movement, and a "reasonable amount of wars" during the Vietnam Protests.
- History Repeats: "Resistance Is Feudal" shows how the situation for young adults in 2018 is almost identical to the one for the serfs in 1218, including blame being put on them and constant watch.
- The Horseshoe Effect: "Radical Centrism 101" begins with a lesson that the far left and far right are exactly the same and then lampoons the concept.
- Self-Deprecation: "The Life Cycle of a Meme" ends with "lazy cartoonist tries to jump on a bandwagon."
- Social Media Is Bad:
- "Posting Your Opinions Online: A Timeline" starts with learning how to code HTML and ends with a Uni-Mind Collective where all thoughts are monetized.
- "Total Engagement" portrays how Facebook goes from a "seemingly innocuous way to see what became of your high school crushes" to eventually become the "ministry of misinformation."
- "Posting Your Opinions Online: A Timeline
- String Theory: In this comic, a Trump supporter shows a string chart alleging a government conspiracy to start a witch hunt against Trump and impose socialism. The other person proposes a much simpler chart: Trump → is lying.
- Stupid Neutral: Centrists are generally portrayed this way, opposing progressive policies just because they're too "radical".
