2008-04-17: Cultural shortcomings
by Emily
Okay, folks. I'm sadly lacking in my online cultural knowledge. What are the possum awesome web comics out there? I'm a fan of Jenn Manley Lee's Dicebox and the newly re-started Hereville. But I know there is a ton of other great stuff out there.
What am I missing? What do you read?
2008-04-17 19:14:36 Lukas
What kind of comics do you like in general? Knowing only Dicebox out of the two you mentioned, I'll just throw out a few serialized, story-oriented ones that I like.
Dresden Codak (Starts off one-offy, then develops an ongoing story)
That's a handful to start off. ^_^ Also, I assume you're already reading Jake's Rivius Obscura, but if not, it's pretty cool.
2008-04-17 19:49:05 Ben Lehman
The archives are partially for pay, but Digger
http://www.graphicsmash.com/comics/digger.php
is the best comic being written in English right now, I'm pretty sure.
2008-04-17 20:52:49 misuba
The girl really likes Girl Genius
I am strangely ashamed to admit I read Penny Arcade
And it's early days but this looks promising: FreakAngels
2008-04-18 15:09:38 mountzionryan
Order of the Stick Famililarity with D&D suggested but not required. familiarity with RPG tropes a must.
Commissioned Goofy and well drawn, O. (the artist) flips between storylines about RP characters and "real" life.
Achewood - Surreal comedy Gold
Creased Comics, even more surreal. Some of the strips are flat out nonsensical.
Nothing Better - Well written college angst
Questionable Content - Twenty-somethings with good taste. Very well written.
I'll second Dr. McNinja.
Finally any geek worth their cred should be reading XKCD
2008-04-19 10:56:45 Charles
Dylan Meconis's Family Man- A beautifully illustrated story of 18th century philosophers and werewolves (?) that is in some way a prequal to Bite Me.
2008-04-21 09:22:15 Christoph
I've been enjoying XKCD a lot recently. It's "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language."
2008-04-22 06:38:58 Philaros
Let me second or third, as appropriate, the following suggestions:
Digger
Dresden Codak
Girl Genius
Gunnerkrieg Court
The Order of the Stick
Questionable Content
XKCD
I do also read Achewood, but... I'm not sure why. It's not bad, just... strange.
Additionally, let me suggest the following:
Narbonic, the saga of a mad scientist and her hapless minions. It ran for 6.5 years, completing at the end of 2006; it's now in reruns with "director's commentary" (on a separate page to avoid spoilers). Although that means there's more than a year's worth of daily strips to catch up on if you want to follow along, it also means that at least you know the whole thing's complete so you can read it at your leisure if you don't want to try to catch up and follow along daily.
The same author has a new strip (with another person handling the cartooning) called Skin Horse, about a semi-secret government bureau of misfits who deal with other misfits. It has strange (Wizard-of-) Oz-related references, but it's not clear yet where they're going with that. It only just started at the beginning of the year so it's not too far along yet.
Cat and Girl is by turns surreal, puzzling, whimsical, wistful, even occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, and always philosophical. I still swear by the author's definitions for nerd, geek, and dork in the strip Oxford English Cat and Girl.
Sinfest is often funny, or at least amusing, and deals with... hmm, it's hard to describe Sinfest in brief. It deals with spirituality and human nature in a sort of punk-rock/hip-hop fashion.
Dinosaur Comics uses the exact same six panels in each strip, and just changes the dialogue, but it's often witty and funny and philosophical.
2008-04-22 17:00:26 Barry Deutsch
I second everyone's suggestions (especially Hereville :-P ).
In addition, I've been reading through the Crowfeathers archives this week and really enjoying them. Grace is wonderful and sweet and stunningly drawn. And Minus. And From Death Til Now. And Wanderlost. And Smile. And Breakfast of the Gods.
Okay, I could go on a long time, but I think I'll quit now. :-)
2008-04-23 01:57:56 Joshua A.C. Newman
Dr. McNinja is like a fighter/mage Chuck Yeager fighting with werewolf Snake Eyes.
2008-04-23 15:40:09 Emily
Thank you all!! I think if Dr. McNinja didn't exist it would have welled up from the collective unconscious and formed out of pure aether.
Well, maybe that is what happened...
Kris Dresden! She is so good. And thank you for reminding me about Family Man. I am a complete Dylan Myconis fangirl since Bite Me. Crowfeathers looks very interesting to me (of course). I've been hearing about Cat and Girl. I think it may grow on me. It has a very understated charm.
Oh dear, Penny Arcade makes me feel my out of step-ness even more—twitter shitter? Having dial up at home is much like when I had a black & white tv with no cable at home. It's like being in 7th grade all over again. :)
2008-04-30 06:38:16 Jake Richmond
I'm really liking
2008-08-27 01:43:15 Josh W
a href="[http://www.undefined.net/1/0/]">1/0 is pretty good, good enough that it encouraged me to invent rule 1/0 of DM'ing (you'll guess what it is when you see how the plot develops).
Penny Arcade, XKCD and Order of The Stick keep me coming back, and while I have read other good ones, I'll take that as a sort of selection for quality, or at least for variety.
2008-08-27 02:22:09 Josh W
That'll teach me to preview!
2008-09-05 22:19:00 Emily
Thanks, Josh! Penny Arcade is great. I've gotten into Crowfeathers and also Grace by Kris Dresden. So many to read....