April 25, 2008

• one more.
• Order Of The Stick, Sequential Art
• Achewood, although you really have to start from the very beginning in the Archives section to understand the characters. I think it's the best comic out there.
• I have to confess, I don't get Achewood at all. (Except this one because I hate Comic Sans. Mildly NSFW.) Even though I just bought the cookbook, because IT IS AWESOME and the recipes are great. No online comics thread would be complete without a mention of Penny Arcade. I've also become a fan of Virus Comix after I encountered Athiest Apocalypse.
• In addition to Order of the Stick, I also read Girl Genius, Little Dee and Looking For Group. Oh, and Freefall. Doggy! I keep Ctrl+Alt+Del on my RSS feed, but I read it only infrequently. And being a business librarian, online Dilbert comic doses are a must. *is always on the lookout for good webcomics*
• Toothpaste for Dinner. With eight years of archives!
• the Noob is hilarious if you've ever played a MMORPG. Not so much if you haven't.
• The City.
• sinfest
• I was doing a blog about comics which is currently on hiatus (but I honestly intend to resume soon but since I've been saying that for so damn long, I will not link to it - well, maybe.) Anyway, in addition to most of those already mentioned, (lots of good ones already suggested) may I reccommend... Diesel Sweeties (distinctive pixelated design and sharp wit as hipster humans and robots interact - just reached its 2000th strip, now also in a newspaper version just as funny but more 'family friendly' - I don't know how "rstevens" comes up with a DOZEN well-written gags a week, but he does) Sheldon (cute meets pop culture with boy genius Sheldon, his grumpy grandpa, talking duck and other interesting creatures - currently on vacation, running 'guest strips' by other artists) Unshelved (funny stuff about librarians that looks likeit was drawn by a librarian) Savage Chickens (better than most single-panel gag-centered comics and if it looks like it's drawn on post-it notes, well, it is) WTTF: Welcome to The Future (multi-panel stylized - everyone's in silhouette - gag comic about 'modern society') We The Robots (another good multi-panel gag strip with cute robots standing in for contemporary people) Basic Instructions (in the format of a multi-panel 'how to', a stand-up/improv comic deals with annoying people, everyday occurrences and his own foibles) Wondermark (comically absurd situations illustrated by early 20th century clip art) Truck Bearing Kibble (another random gag strip, funny and with impressive art) Questionable Content (young, hipster, high-attitude sitcom, but well written and funny) (newer comic from a webcomics veteran about a grouchy nerd and her encounters with the freakiest people of Brooklyn) Something Positive (the most ironic title ever, thorougly cynical black humor with a cast of justifiably pessimistic characters) Cat and Girl (very hipster-style comic with slouching kids, unthreatening vampires and a tall cat without a hat) Count Your Sheep (stylish - all shades of blue - cute comic about a little girl and her single mom who share an imaginary friend, NOT Calvin&Hobbes-ish)
• Also, there are quite a few genuinely funny that have very involved storylines that are not easy to jump into. But if you go back through some archives, you will be rewarded by: Schlock Mercenary (original sci-fi with a team of cynical space mercenaries and their very non-human best soldier) Starslip (another future/space/scifi/comedy comic about a space battleship converted to a museum) Evil Inc. (comic book villains gone corporate and the comic book heroes who love them) Dr. McNinja (truly comic-book-quality art about the adventures and misadventures of a ninja with a medical degree - just like the title says) Goats (a comic about 2 guys and some talking animals that evolved into a multi-universe mindblowing fantasy with demonic business consultants, Aztec computer programmers, the central hub of the universe in a pub and more) Skin Horse (new from webcomics veterans, it's about a secret government agency that deals with sentient non-humans - from lions and dogs to silverfish to 'crystal people', and the most normal character is a cross-dressing psychologist) Anders Loves Maria (funny/sad soap opera about a star-crossed couple with all the frankness and non-realistic NSFWness you'd expect from a Swedish cartoonist) Scary Go Round (small-town meets supernatural weirdness, sometimes scary but more often funny with understated Britishness) Wapsi Square (hipster sitcom evolved into supernatural fantasy with a mostly-female cast of cross-cultural mythological characters)
• Freak Angels
• oh, and _definitely_ Kukuburi
• Wow, so many great ones. Here are some of mine that as far I can tell don't duplicate what has already been posted. Slow Wave - C comic generated by a guy taking suggestions from readers about the dreams they had. VG Cats - Video Game Cats - cartoon carts with many references to new video games, old video games, and a few movie references. Bob The Angry Flower - Our favorite apostrophe fascist in his own strip. Natalie Dee - Surreal one panel strips. PvP Online - a sort of old school brethren to Penny Arcade (a friendly rivalry exist between the two strips). Overcompensating - Jeffery Rowland's true to life honest to god real things happening to him five days a week. I love this comic. Probably my favorite in my rotation at the moment. Wulffmorgenthaler - I think these guys are Dutch, but not sure, but they do a great surreal and bloody violent strip yet also funny. Octopus Pie - If you have the aforementioned Questionable Content in your rotation already, this is a good sister comic to it. It is a little more "serious" in the stories, but nothing really deep. It's largely about a chick who is sort of a misanthropic pessimist living among a lot of hipsters in Brooklyn and trying to figure out exactly why she's doing that. Great artwork. Beaver and Steve The surreal adventures of ass hole dinosaur lizard thing Steve and poor, misguided Beaver. Sometimes funny, sometimes NOT. Too Much Coffee Man - The venerable classic TMCM online. Subnormality - Great, detailed colored art. The comic itself overlaps a lot of weird things, but I have found it largely worthwhile. Kawai Not - Cute, anime-esque inanimate objects making comments about how they aren't that cute.
• Previously mentioned: OOtS, Questionable Content, CAD, xkcd, Sheldon. Also: Real Life, used to be fairly video-game oriented, not quite as good as it used to be but the archives are worth a cultural reference laugh, Lackadaisy, an anthro long-format/manga style comic about the Prohibition era in America, and, of course, Sluggy Freelance, I think the oldest webcomic still being actively produced. Storylines tend to be fantasy/sci-fi slanted.
• I third Questionable Content.
• Although heavily vested in World of Warcraft in-jokes, Dark Legacy Comics is quite droll.
• Grant Snider's Incidental Comics are worth a look...
• Link: Grant Snider's Incidental Comics are great! Another (older) example: BTW, my long-dead comics blog has been reincarnated as a "Fun Arts Site" with the cool url TOONED.IN Recently highlighting "The Tragedy Series", "What Not To Say In The Bedroom" (a sub-topic of Jennie Breedon's "Devil's Panties") and "Square Root of Negative Garfield" (an ongoing deconstruction of the too-iconic comic to which I have contributed some cut-and-paste jobs)