Which web comics should I be reading, and why?

[robkelk]

With General Protection Fault winding down, I'm looking for a web comic or two to add to my reading list.

My current reading list is Darths and Droids, Dresden Codak, Freefall, Girl Genius, Girls und Panzer - Operation: More Love Love! Web Edition, Grrl Power, Irregular Webcomic!, Kevin & Kell, League Of Super Redundant Heroes, The Order of the Stick, Rusty & Co., Scandinavia and the World, Sequential Art, Sluggy Freelance, Wrong Hands, and xkcd. I haven't yet given up on Kiwi Blitz, Modest Medusa, Pepper&Carrot, and Times Like This.

Last month, I marathoned A Miracle of Science and liked the story. Last year, I marathoned Lavender Jack and liked the story.

For my current marathon, I'm about 10% into reading Megatokyo for the first time. (Yes, I know it's a big task). If it maintains the same or better level of storytelling, I'll probably add it to my reading list.

Story and characters are more important to me than artwork, as one could probably tell from the presence of Darths and Droids, Irregular Webcomic!, The Order of the Stick, and xkcd on my reading list. On the other hand, a strip has to be very good to keep my interest over a hiatus, and extremely good to keep my interest over a long hiatus or multiple hiatuses (which is why I dropped Erma and PvP – too many breaks.)

Given what I like, does anyone have any suggestions for what else I might want to audition for my reading list? Please don't just list strips; tell me why I might like them (which can be as simple as "since you liked FOO, you might like LOREM IPSUM").

[Shepherd]

Something Positive updates rarely (but so does Scandinavia and the World, and you have that on your list), but has an archive going back over twenty years. We get to watch the characters go from self centered twentysomethings to (somewhat) responsible middle aged adults. The writer/artist currently does the professional Popeye Sunday strips.

https://somethingpositive.net/archive/

Since Grrl Power and League Of Super Redundant Heroes are on your list, there are Spinnerette and Empowered. The first is a superhero webcomic about Ohio's third most popular superhero, and has had numerous Kickstarters for physical editions, while the second is a set of graphic novels/comic miniseries by Adam Warren being serialized online after the fact, telling the story of a plucky superheroine with an unfortunate tendency for getting tied up by villains. Volume 12 of the series is being released soon.

https://www.spinnyverse.com/comic/02-09-2010
https://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-1

Thunderstruck currently only gets updated once a month, but has a big archive, and is the story of two sisters who discover a secret world of hidden magic and how it ties into family secrets that've been kept from them. The writer/artist was the author of the classic Ranma 1/2 fanfic Relentless.

https://www.talesfromthevault.com/thunde...er001.html

Lackadaisy is a prohibition era anthropomorphic cat webcomic that is getting a Kickstarter funded cartoon series. You can check Youtube for some shorts.

https://lackadaisy.com/comic.php?comicid=1

[robkelk]

Thanks, Shepherd.

I wasn't enamoured by Something Positive when I tried it way-back-when; if the characters have matured over the years, it might be time to try it again. I don't remember why I stopped reading Spinnerette...

[nocarename]

The creator behind Lavender Jack is currently producing the daily strips for Flash Gordon.

https://comicskingdom.com/flash-gordon

[Norgarth]

The Whiteboard, a webcomic that usually focuses on paintball  (many of the cast play it and several story arcs have happened in and around paintball matches) and/or mad science.  Set in Alaska and with a cast of anthropomorphic animals.  Title comes from the fact the early comics were actually drawn on a whiteboard and then photographed.  Generally updates weekdays, started in 2002, went from B&W to colour in 2012.
It feels somewhat like Sluggy Freelance. 

Main characters include:
Doc (polar bear, owner of the local paintball store, avid paintball player, and mad scientist)
Roger (Raccoon, Doc's partner in the store and the Mad Science, avid paintballer)
Sandy (Red Fox, Doc's secretary, often The Only Sane Woman, novice paintballer)

[nemonowan]

If you like xkcd, you will probably like SMBC (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) by Zach Weinersmith

They are standalone strips of geek jokes, and he posts almost daily.

[Mamorien]

My honor demands that I recommend the only webcomic I check on the regular any more: Questionable Content. It's on hiatus for the entire month of December (and possibly a couple've days into the new year), but that just means you have time to get caught up (from the beginning if you hadn't already). You can watch Jeph Jacques' artistic style improve in real time, even as the characters bounce off each other and accrete story. They haven't aged in real time like Davan and the rest of the S*P shower, but I don't think any of them is exactly the same person as when they first appeared, even the ones who haven't changed in a really dramatic way like

two long-time stalwarts.

Pintsize upgrading to the chassis I call Quartsize, or Faye realizing she was gay for Bubbles.

[Ebony]

"How To Be a Werewolf" reads like White Wolf Games' World of Darkness, without all the crapsack world elements. A young woman, bitten by a werewolf at a very young age, has grown to adulthood and discovers that werewolves are all over, and a lot less feral than she thought. A coming-of-age tale, with werewolves, witches, and other things.

Ebony

[robkelk]

My honor demands that I recommend the only webcomic I check on the regular any more: Questionable Content. It's on hiatus for the entire month of December (and possibly a couple've days into the new year), but that just means you have time to get caught up (from the beginning if you hadn't already). You can watch Jeph Jacques' artistic style improve in real time, even as the characters bounce off each other and accrete story. They haven't aged in real time like Davan and the rest of the S*P shower, but I don't think any of them is exactly the same person as when they first appeared, even the ones who haven't changed in a really dramatic way like

two long-time stalwarts.

Pintsize upgrading to the chassis I call Quartsize, or Faye realizing she was gay for Bubbles.

* robkelk goes and takes a look

* robkelk sees that strips 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 are not loading

* robkelk gives up on the strip after 7 2 strips

Maybe I'll come back after the archives get cleaned up.

[Labster]

I guess I should nominate some as well.

Gunnerkrigg Court starts with a fire-headed girl named Antimony Carver who discovered she has a second shadow, and her adventures at her school with friend and gadgeteer genius Katrina Donlan.  If I was to explain all of the shadows, fairies, robots, psychopomps, and mythological creatures it would sound like it's kind of a comedic mess, but it's really not that at all.  You see, once upon a time, Coyote split the Court from the Forest, etching the canyon between, the Annan Waters, with his claw.

It has a slightly dark tone -- not nearly so dark as Uzumaki, which inspired the character design for Annie (I really wish I hadn't read Uzumaki honestly, since it's a horror that actually scared me). There is a conspiracy, but characters have real motives.  You can tell that the story has been planned a long way out, and things that happened 90 chapters ago get completely reinterpreted in such a way that you think the author must have known from the beginning.  He's kind of a master of telling just enough of the story to resolve the current dilemma, while leaving the mystery.  Also every once in a while people get really mad at the main character for doing what she wants without thinking of others.  Also when it goes on hiatus at the end of books, you actually get more frequent updates of omake-like comics -- such as the tales of City Face, the pigeon -- as well as "alchemical treatise" drawings (notice the art evolution).

Another comic I read recently when just randomly looking for a new webcomic is Stand Still, Stay Silent, picked just because I kinda liked the art style.  Each chapter picks two different colors and does all of the art in those shades of those colors.  This one is an After the End one, about various Scandinavian people investigating cities abandoned after the pandemic -- which are dangerous now due to all of the trolls.  Kinda like Beowulf meets Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou I guess?  With a dash of Scandinavia and the World?  Not really a full-on Scavenger World, since Iceland closed its borders so it survived the disease mostly unscathed (except the resulting famines obviously).

There are only two "books" in this one, both complete, and the first is better than the second because the author kind of lost interest in it.  Or rather, the author converted to Christianity and suddenly found she didn't want to be doing an action story with characters doing magic from old Norse and Finnish religions, in a world that abandoned Christianity.  That said she treated all of the religions respectfully throughout, to the extent that I was quite surprised to discover that that one scene in the Church late in book 1 was written by an ostensible atheist.

I will say that the prologue feels weird because it was written well before our little tango with the corona, and the things people don't get right about how people would act in a pandemic because we lived through it.  Like, in reality, Sweden's government had one of the dumbest responses possible, on par with places like Texas.  (Even the Netflix adaptation of Sweet Tooth felt that little bit off, though they definitely leaned into what we learned by adding an armored train filled with toilet paper and hand sanitizer.)

[Norgarth]

For Gunnerkrieg Court, during the upcoming holiday/inter-book hiatus the author is going to try and recap the past 96 chapters in 10 days/comics
https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=3035
there'll be spoilers naturally.