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Underground > Comic Books >

What online comics do you read?

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17:47 / 19.09.07

No prob, Cameron! I'm actually partially pimping The Chemistry Set as well because I've *just* launched my new strip there. It's called Kare-Kare Komiks, and it's an ongoing collection of short webcomics. Check it out if you have the time!

02:57 / 11.10.07

can I join in on this? the 1st chapter of my MAJOR comic is available as a free download at Wowio for all American residents into retro Marvel, espionage, kicking, punching, political undertones and explosions.

you get it from there for free and the authors get $ome.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

08:15 / 11.10.07

I'd love to, Hector , but:

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OR you could just ask the creators who owns copyright and release appropriately, you lazy *&^%ers.

10:24 / 11.10.07

yeah, I know.

PM or email - majorcomics@gmail.com - and I'll fix non-US residents with THE MAJOR goodness.

just like Radiohead, but with more violence!

11:45 / 11.10.07

Something postive (already linked)
XKCD- amazingly wonderful geeky comic
Questionable Content- basically a funny web sitcom, set where I went to college.
Punch an Pie- I just love Angela

Edit: I realized I should include the good
defunct or mostly defunct ones as well
The Pet Profsional- A hitman who only takes jobs killing pets
The Parking Lot is Full- The funniest darkest comic I've read. I was sad to see it go.

18:08 / 09.06.08

Folky folks, a question: what are the big online comics? What's caused a real stir? I'm not looking for your personal recommendations, I'm looking for the well known and/or critically acclaimed stuff.

Want to review webcomics for Mindless Ones, dun I.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

19:34 / 09.06.08

penny arcade's the biggest one that comes to mind.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:42 / 09.06.08

Yes. Webcomics. They're very modish. Very now.

Faith Erin Hicks wrote an epic, by which I mean overlong, webcomic called Demonology 101, which was good enough to get her a paper gig with Zombies Calling, and is currently writing another one set in a post-Gulf Stream London. John Allison's ScaryGoRound evolved from one of the early webcomics, Bobbins

However, a lot of web comics take advantage of the absence of the standard expectations of "comic books" to function more like newspaper comics, such as Dinosaur Comics, XKCD, Achewood, Megatokyo and indeed Penny Arcade, where short strips with maybe a few episodes in row maximum deliver quick gags to a geek audience.

Realistically, though, at a guess the biggest and most successful web comic out there is probably Doonesbury, or something like it -the web being a medium, not a message.

08:15 / 10.06.08

I'm really after ongoing stories. Anything I should know about on Zuda?

17:48 / 10.06.08

I kinda think the two biggest are dieselsweeties (which has leapt to paper in a few newspapers) and xkcd. But maybe that's just because they're two of the ones I know and read regularly.

ONLY NICE THINGS

17:58 / 10.06.08

And neither of those are ongoing stories, really, although Diesel Sweeties has a common cast (and, odly, isn't very good).

I'm not sure if Zuda is really webcomics - they're just comics delivered over the web. Which is fine, but, you know.

17:59 / 10.06.08

Boboss, if you're after ongoing story goodness, and you're happy with something a bit geekysexyfunnyweird, then Platinum Grit has the hookup. Science nerd and (sometimes affectionately) abusive best friend move their will-they-or-won't-they dysfunctional relationship to the highland castle geekboy has inherited from his family; hijinks ensue with the able assistance of sex, monsters and strange Scottish manservants. The plot moves forward glacially, but it moves so engagingly and with such good art that you forgive it and embrace it wholesale.

Edit: um, and looking now at the first issue I'd forgotten how much it's improved over the years so don't let the slightly sketchy nature of the first episode, or it's insistence on the Shockwave plugin, put you off. Check the current episode for a look at what it's become before you write it off.

22:13 / 10.06.08

Ongoing stories can be round in Scary Go Round and, as The House points out, is a spin-off (or continuation) of another long ongoing (longoing?) comic by the same guy. Can be considered big in the sense that the author, apparently, is able to live purely off of the merchandise and donations generated by the comic.

Penny-Arcade is a, usually, three-panel gag strip but has lasted long enough to have it's own convention and, believe it or not, it's own charity.

Megatokyo is a western manga, written and drawn by a guy called Fred Gallagher, that's been running for nearly 8 years. Originally it was devised as a bit of a gag-strip by Gallagher and his mate/co-writer Rodney Caston but, after creative differences bubbled up, became a one-man band. Gallagher took full control in 2002 and is, as far as I know, still making it to this day, shifting focus to a long-running romantic dramedy.

23:58 / 10.06.08

neither of those are ongoing stories, really, although Diesel Sweeties has a common cast (and, odly, isn't very good).

It has continuity.

And it occasionally makes me laugh.

Actually, there is a soap opera element to it - mostly, who's sleeping with who at what time.

I also like Derek Kim's stuff, though only some of it could be called "ongoing stories". Most of it is set up like chapters in what I think have to be called graphic novels, although without pictures they'd be novellas or short stories. Some of the stuff is gag strips, though.

02:06 / 11.06.08

User Friendly was my first love. Simple,topical geek-viewpoint humour dating from the times when it was a novel thing to work at an ISP. It occasionally surprises even today.

Ongoing story? Got it covered.
Errant Story is a somewhat-standard swords-and-sorcery setting that had the good/bad (delete as applicable) fortune to be written and drawn by Michael "Exploitation Now!" Poe,so we have angst,time-bending ninja,jokes about sex,gun-toting not-as-bad-as-they-appear assassins,actual sex,a scarring past war and copious lampshade-hanging to go with your elves,half-elves (the Errants) & surprisingly deep plot. Occasional horrible spelling,though.

The Adventures of DrMcNinja is what you get when you take all the cool ideas you had for a comic when you were 17,mash them all together and treat the result seriously. It works,trust me.

The others have already mentioned Girl Genius,xkcd and Order of the Stick; they're good too.

See also TV Tropes' Notable Webcomics and Tangents Webcomic Reviews.

Baroness von Lenska

04:41 / 11.06.08

Been meaning to post this for years, since way back when the comic was still actually running, but. Better late than never.

A Lesson is Learned, but the Damage is Irreversible is my all time favorite web comic. It is, in fact, the only web comic I still reread from time to time, when I'm in the mood. The artist for the series, David Hellman, once described the aim of his artwork to be the setting of a certain mood that will make the comic rereadable whenever the reader is in that particular mood, like music. His work with ALiL was/is a smashing success. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, always surreal and melancholy and haunting, ALiL is the closest thing to a truly literary web comic. I still sometimes dream of wise Yeti gurus and wonder if strangers I pass on the street are really clouds merely pretending to be human until they're able to change into something else again. ALiL is one of the very, very few webc omics I can describe as "beautiful" and not feel like I'm stretching things just a bit.

Also Rice Boy, which recently finished. Pretty much all of the above applies here, too.

Baroness von Lenska

04:50 / 11.06.08

(Also both are ongoing narratives, with ALiL being a bit more experimental and jumpy-aroundy with perspective and setting and characterization. The first ALiL series is only loosely connected, with each episode starring the comic's creators, David and Dale, and their friends and family, as they move through surreal, dreamlike landscapes that rarely break fully onto the ordinary world, usually only for tragic/melancholic effect. The second series is more narrative-centric, focusing on clouds that choose to be human, a suicidal man whose wishes come only true, a psychiatrist and his daughter's doppelgänger and the daughter herself. Unfortunately, the second series was cut off fairly early, and remains incomplete.

Rice Boy, though, is pretty much straightforward comic book storytelling in web format.)

12:03 / 11.06.08

Thanks for the recommends, guys. Still unsure whether much of what has been recommended is popular or lauded, however, which is a problem as I'm not so much looking for quality as books that are well known.

Haus, it doesn't really matter to me whether we're talking about true webcomics or not, because that's not the root of my interest.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:26 / 11.06.08

Well, what is the root of your interest? If you're looking for something that will get hits for your blog, go for Penny Arcade or American Elf, which broadly reflect your desire for ongoing stories. If you want breakout success stories, most follow the strip rather than episodic format but xkcd, Perry Bible Fellowship, Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet or Diesel Sweeties. If you want something that adheres most faithfully to the standard format of the printed comic book, you could do worse than Zuda, I imagine, although I don't know who actually reads it.

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