As promise, I am doing another comparison of DuckDuckGo vs Google. This time I am looking at when you search for the word comics. Now the biggest different I found between the two search engine, is one use your location in your search and the other does not. Could you guess which one use your location? Of course you can, we are know that Google use your location for advertisement. Which can get in the way, if you are using search engine to learn about something. We all hear the phase, if you don’t know something, Google it. I guess you could say the best place to learn what a comics is by going to a comic book store. However, comic book store are usually Marvel and DC which mean, if you are not into heroes stories, than it just does not appear to you. Now there are some comic stores that have other publisher and self-publish comics, but it is best to call first before going to found out if they carry them.
DuckDuckGo does not used your location in the search for comics. Now DuckDuckGo will recommended places to buy comics but it is online . So on their first page, you have more link to other website. Google take up most of the first page for map of local comics store, alternate search topics, and topic stories about the topic of comics.
Google provide more source for comics about pop culture that is controversial. Such as one of the Top Stories is Dark Phoenix from a opinion digital news source that is very extreme left. Also, it provide more news blogs that are on the left when it comes to the political side such as the Washington Post.
If you click on a few of the links that Google found on the front page, they will take you to lots of comics that was at one point in newspapers that are call comic strips. At least four of them: Comic A-Z List GoComics, Free Comics – Comic Strips, Comics – The Washington Post, and Comics/ArcaMax Publishing. Now I don’t believe this is all Google fault for thinking that comics are all comics strips and Marvel and DC. There have been some debate in the comic industry that many who work in Marvel and DC have out right say that graphic novel is not comics. So this have rewrite in some people what comics is, because their are graphic novels that starting up popular shows such as Scooby-Doo. I have talk with people older than me ( I am 36) who are in their 40s and 50s, and back then their was no difference between what a graphic novel and comic was. They was the same thing and still is, it is just a few people in the comic industry will not recognize that is the case.
DuckDuckGo have one Ad post at the top. It have 13 links other than the Ad link. It give you more sources for you to look at on it first page. Now DuckDuckGo does have Washington Post listen twice, however, one of the post from Washington Post have describe of example of what comics title are. DuckDuckGo is playing it safer by having only links in their search, it is design different from Google. Google search engine have example of all their features on the first page. DuckDuckGo does have images and map features, you just have to click the tab on the top of the page to look at images and map.
However, I do found a few things great about DuckDuckGo. First their Ad link, Renta! Online – Manga Store, is manga which Google did not ever think was comics. Manga is the Japanese word for comics. Many people in the comics industry does not think of manga as comics;however, manga is growing more popular every day. Which means that DuckDuckGo is keeping up with the trends of comics fans. The second ad is to My Comic Shop which gives you a range of class comics such as Godzilla, The Walking Dead, DCeased (a DC comic), and Captain Marvel (a Marvel comic).
In the search with DuckDuckGo above, I look at around 5 pages under image to see how it look vision when you do the search. In the search, you get a good look at what comics have been over the years. Many of the comics that are not heroes, are pretty well know that I grew up with such as Archie, The Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny, Heathcliff, Futurama, Garfield, and more. These are great example of comics that are not subject around a hero and villain story. If you asked most youth today about these comics, but most likely they would not know they had a comic. The youth today in the US does not know that Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Spider-man came from a comic. When I say youth, I am talking about high school, middle school, and elem school children, the ones that comics was written in the first place for because they did not like reading without pictures.
In the gallery above is Google search in image. The first thing I notices there are a lot of memes mix in the search. Also there is a lot of comic strips as well. The search I did was the word “comics” not memes or comic strips. The second thing is most of the memes and comic strip are one side point of view from the left political party in the US. There are more political comics than anything in the search, many from left wing digital news media. The third thing is Marvel and Dc take up the spots that are not so political and Marvel and DC have political memes as well. I will say that they do have a little bit of non hero story comic in the search but you do not found any until the third page such as Archie. However, the number of non heroes stories are way less. You have to really scroll to found them and this is a problem for anyone who don’t have very good internet. Internet is becoming more expense and many families in low income housing usually depend on their government smart phone or have a low data base plan for their smart phone. My point is most people will go with the first two page in the search because if it become hard or take too long to load, people will go with what they can learn in the moment.
Now you can do the search on your own and see what you get when you search the word comics on both DuckDuckGo and Google. However, from a teacher point of view, I like DuckDuckGo better. It did put some comic strips and meme in the search but not to the point that Google did. DuckDuckGo put mostly titles of comics series in their image search.
I believe DuckDuckGo is a good alternate to Google as far as answering the question for what I am searching for. I hope that this was helpful to you and I would like love to hear your feedback on what I wrote.
Little Elf in big Pond of Drama, The Comic Industry USA 