Ask, and You Shall Receive

I was asked about my favorite webcomics. I had planned to write up a brief comment and leave it in the comments section but it kept getting longer and longer. I have so many of them that I read now. And each of them is very different. So I decided that instead of a comment, it would be a post. Susskins, thanks for the idea and of course thanks for reading. Here are all of my favorite webcomics all in one place. Be warned, this could get long.

Favorite

Some of these will have their links to the right but I'll include them here as well. If you were to ask me which of my webcomics were my favorite I would have to say Sheldon. Dave Kellett is just consistantly funny. He posts everyday and almost all of his comics are hilarious. Sheldon is a 10 year old boy genius, who (sometimes) runs his own company. He lives with his out of shape and gently grumpy grandfather, Arthur the talking duck, Flaco a lizard that Arthur considers his son, and an incredibly hyper pug named Oso. An odd combination that leads to hilarious punch-lines. This one is a definite recommendation.

Story Based Webcomics

I have four webcomics that I follow that tell one long and mostly consistant story. If you start reading these you will want to go back and read from the beginning. Otherwise they simply make no sense. I'll start with my most recent find, Looking For Group. For fans of World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, and fantasy in general this comic is a must read. Funny, action packed, cartoony with a touch of darkness. I wrote a whole post about it here. The next is Dreamland Chronicles. This story follows Alexander who lives in two worlds. He is a normal college student during the day but when he falls asleep he returns to Dreamland, a place of his youth to try to save it. The story is indepth and Scott Christian Sava, the creator has clearly thought it through. Beautifully rendered this story is a wonderful fantasy comic.

The next of my story based comics is only partly that. Wapsi Square started out as any other webcomic with a great mix of characters and daily strips. It has evolved into an elaborate mystery involving Mayan time clocks, demons, and immortal girls. Paul Taylor creates a very interesting group of characters and I am constantly intrigued by where it will turn next. This is a great mix of touching, funny, and creepy. The last of my story-based comics is Order of the Stick. (link on the left) This comic follows a band of D&D adventurers on their quest to destroy an evil undead wizard. All the classic D&D archetypes are there: bard, warrior, rogue, wizard. The story pokes fun at the Role Playing genre with comments about random encounters, dice roles, and experience/levels. The characters play off each other well and the strip is just one adventure after another. Hilarious stuff.

Geekery

As I mentioned before I'm a geek. Actually pretty proud of that. Geeks tend to be some of the most interesting people. So I love geek comics. These are things that deal with video games, RPGs, computer stuff, fantasy, and SciFi. I have several. The most recent one is Weregeek, a comic about a reluctant gamer who is slowly drawn into the geek world while trying to keep his new game addiction a secret. I wrote a post about it here. Evil Inc is another new addition and one I've already blogged about. Set at a company for supervillians, run by supervillians this is a comic book fan's must read. Consistantly silly and funny, this pokes fun at the whole genre. PVP by Scott Kurtz is a comic about the staff of a video game magazine. This comic is filled with pop culture references, great characters, and one big blue Troll. PVP (short for Player Versus Player) is a model of geekery, discussing new video games, movies, and technology through its characters. The interactions between the characters is funny but the references are even better. The comic is currently following a separate story-arch involving a dwarven warrior and his bard.

Greg Dean's Real Life Comics follows him and his wife Liz in their daily life. Dean is a lover of all things SciFi, television, computer games, and other geekery. The strip tends to be random, jumping from idea to idea (just how life works) but the jokes are pitch perfect. You are guaranteed a good laugh with this one. XKCD is a bit of an oddity. It's not often that a webcomic is so intelligent, so interesting, that I need to go look things up after reading it. I am constantly heading towards google or a reference book after reading this very funny comic. The strip is very random jokes about computers, science, math, and physics. The drawings are mostly stick figures but the jokes are hilarious if sometimes over my head. I love that I not only laugh at this comic but get to learn a little.

Sweet

There are some comics I read for their humor and their sweetness. Little Dee by Chris Baldwin is the perfect example of this. The story follows Dee, a young girl, who is lost in the woods and befriended by a gentle bear, a sarcastic vulture, and a loveable dog. This is a comic that you will laugh at but also be touched by. The humor mostly comes from the animals playing off Vachel the vulture. This comic makes me go Awwww, so cute while I'm laughing. Another animal based story is Sandusky by John Prengaman. The story follows a mountain lion named Sandusky that was left on a man named Scott's doorstep. Scott, who lives with his husky named Bunker, can't turn the big cat away and adopts him. But as always happens Sandusky grows up and leads both Scott and Bunker on some interesting adventures. The strip is beautifully drawn and the story, which publishes three times a week, is constantly changing. The cast of characters are wonderful and Sandusky often become the butt of the jokes because of his now civilized ways.

A new comic that I've fallen in love with is Misery Loves Sherman. I wrote about it here along with Evil Inc. The story follows Sherman, a young boy who seems to always get the short end of the stick. He is joined by two aliens who live in his room, a small version of death, a bratty and often violent sister, and two parents who don't seem to understand him. Chris Eliopoulos's drawings are rounded and wonderfully cute. Sherman is an underdog that you can't help but root for. Unshelved doesn't really fit under cute but I can't quite find another place to put it. This hilarious strip follows the adventures of the librarians at the Mallville Public Library. Dewey (yes named after Melvil Dewey founder of the Dewey Decimal System) is the main character. He's a sarcastic young adult librarian who's not a huge fan of the rules and would rather be reading then helping patrons. The fantastic cast includes an overly perky children's librarian, a rule-setting straight laced library director, a technophobic reference librarian, and a large beaver who acts as both book mascot and book shelver. For a book lover and a librarian like myself this is just heaven. The strip is a great workplace comic with a ton of great book reference and SciFi references. Every Sunday the comic does a guest book review as well.

Pushing the Envelope

I know you're getting tired but I just have two more. These comics are the ones that constantly stretch the boundaries. Anything is likely to happen and often does. They are both hilarious but both could be incredibly offensive to the wrong person. The first is Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida. This strip makes me laugh everyday. One of the funniest ones out there. The comic mostly follows Slick, a self-absorbed young man who is in love with Monique, a sexy and strong female. But the cast has pretty much everything. From the sweet Percy and Pooch (the artist's pets) to the devil and his succubi. Jesus makes regular appearances along with Buddha and God (or at least his hand which is often puppet covered). This strip will offend in so many ways. It pokes fun at religion, politics, sex, and drugs. It is incredibly risque but also incredibly funny. If you are easily offended this is not for you. If not, I guarantee you will laugh. The other I have just started reading. Least I Could Do is done by the two creators of Looking For Group. The comic follows Rayne a self-styling Don Juan. The humor is almost always focused on Rayne's attempts to have sex with pretty much every girl he meets. The comic is risque in the extreme but really funny. I laugh almost everyday at this one and am slowly working through the archives.

There you go, my current favorite webcomics all in one place. Be careful of what you ask for.