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1) Best overall web comic series of 2012. (Any web comic that produced content in 2012): Gunnerkrigg Court is a brilliant webcomic that has a compelling plot, interesting characters and art that has developed superbly since the comic's beginnings.

2) Funniest web comic of 2012. (This one represents the single funniest comic of any web comic series.): Evil Inc. got the most laughs out of me this year, even if a lot of the humour was a bit Dad-joke-ish. Runners up would include: Penny Arcade , XKCD , Scandinavia and the World and Overcompensating .

3) Best art in a web comic of 2012. (Web comic from 2012 with the most amazing art ever): Dresden Codak is, without any doubt, the repository of some of the most geekiest and beautiful artwork the web has ever seen. Runners up would include: Namesake , Lackadaisy Cats , Sore Thumbs and Avengelyne

4) Web comic that was most relevant to you in 2012: Real Life , because his adventures with Harper are roughly mirroring my adventures with my daughter Hailey.

Honorable Mentions (because they'd likely win categories if there were a couple more here): Bad Machinery (Best Story), Eerie Cuties (Best Black & White), Three Panel Soul (Best Drama) and Wapsi Square (Best Main Character), and Sinfest (Lifetime Achievement) among others.

...and now you can own a shirt to prove it!

http://www.scarygoround.com/shop-tshirts.php#walesisok

Am I the only one who finds this strip badly drawn and entirely unfunny? I promised myself that when I hit forty, I wouldn't lose touch, but I am beginning to feel a bit old: I appear to be the only person not carrying a bible who thinks the endless torrent(no pun intended) of graphic violence, profanity and scatalogical humor pouring from the web to be more boorish than humorous. Am I alone?

No, it has nothing to do with age.

I'm a lot younger than you (I'm assuming, based on your description), and I don't like PBF.

I actually used to be an avid reader--I had it bookmarked in my list of sites that I visited every day, and did, in fact, read it on a regular basis.

After awhile, though, I grew extremely tired of it. Its humor--if you want to call it that--gets old very quickly. Now when I read it, it seems sort of unimaginative and uninsightful at best, and offensive and naive at worst.

I do think PBF can be really witty, but those moments are far outnumbered by the majority of panels in which it's basically uninspired trash. If PBF stopped being immature and inexperienced, and actually attempted to say something intelligent and sophisticated on a regular basis, it could really be something. I think the author has the talent, he just needs to stop and ask himself what he actually is doing.

By the way, here's a list of other online comics that I have consistently enjoyed:

American Elf
Boy on a Stick and Slither
Rice Boy
Scary Go Round

Actually, at first I didn't like Rice Boy as much as I do now. You have to sort of go back and read the strip from the beginning to catch up. As I have read it, though, I've enjoyed it more and more. It's rather surreal, but epic in scope, and deals with "big questions" in a way that I haven't seen in any other strip. If you crossed the Wizard of Oz, Frog and Toad, and The Odyssey, it would come out like Rice Boy.

American Elf is probably one of my two favorite strips. It's a comic diary, where he draws himself and his friends as comic characters. It's positive but sincere and sophisticated.

Boy on a Stick and Slither sort of reminds me of PBF in some ways, in that it's cynical and sarcastic, but it never devolves into tastelessness. It's also different in that every strip contains the same two characters in different situations.

Along with American Elf, Scary Go Round is probably my other favorite comic. It's sort of like a modern version of Scooby Doo, where the monsters are real, and there are more characters and subplots.

The Boy: See, if you don't defragment your hard drive once in a while the computer....
Old Ivor: THE WHAT?
The Boy: The... magic thinky box will start to run slower because data....
Old Ivor: "DATA"? YOU SEEK TO TRICK OLD IVOR!
The Boy: The... thought honey starts to thicken in its veins and it can't move so fast.
Old Ivor: Wow! It is like a new magic thinky box!
The Boy: So what do you use the magic thinky box for?
Old Ivor: I note down the colour and shape of every toadstool I see!!
Old Ivor: Then I save my ideas on the memory square.
The Boy: Where does it get its power from?
Old Ivor: I place the monkey's paw between the fetlocks of a sleeping beast!
The Boy: It's possible that might invalidate your warranty.

http://scarygoround.com/index.php?date=20060911

What is NSFW about Finder? (This isn't a snarky comment; I honestly am unaware of what you are referring to.) I'll concede that I haven't read much of it, but to me it certainly doesn't scream "NSFW" at first glance.

I'll concede that Schlock is a fine comic if one enjoys a comedic twist on military SF, which, much to my surprise, I do. As long as we're recommending webcomics, my favourites are Scary Go Round and its precursor Bobbins, Sinfest, and dinosaur comics, though the latter is certainly pushing the envelopes of "webcomicness"(but that, of course, is part of what makes it so great).

.......Ruining Everything and making geeks look bad. You can even buy the t-shirt - rumour has it that Mapquest just took a bulk delivery.......

.......Ruining Everything and making geeks look bad. You can even buy the t-shirt - rumour has it that Mapquest just took a bulk delivery.......

http://www.scarygoround.com/
http://www.wigu.com/
http://www.wigu.com/overcompensating
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/
http://www.samandfuzzy.com/
http://www.hingos.com/patches
http://www.orneryboy.com/

To add to your list:

http://www.somethingpositive.net/
http://www.reallifecomics.com/
http://www.wapsisquare.com/
http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/
http://www.scarygoround.com/
http://crap.jinwicked.com/

Interesting art, usually good writing, characters that are more than one-dimensional... something that most print comics are lacking, these days.

http://www.scarygoround.com/
http://www.wigu.com/
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/
http://www.samandfuzzy.com/

Believe me, I know what you mean. Penny Arcade? Terrible. PVP? Terrible. Sinfest? You get the idea. I don't like Pokey the Penguin or any of this bullshit. I can tolerate Scary-go-round.

Okay man, here you go. I have the one you'll like. I hope you haven't seen it yet and dismissed it. Achewood . It relies on the characters and usually has a running plot, so don't read the front page or just today's and yesterday's.

Do yourself and me a favor. Go back to the first one and start from there. After you see a couple months worth, come back and thank me (no rush.)

But I really want to see Star Wars 3: The Saddest Wookie.

They're good but Scary Go Round is the best there is.

She'd be perfect for it.

I'd take a once a month (if you are lucky) gem like Sexylosers over something that's updated just for the sake of it. Clay (aka Hard) sends a mail out when he's finished a comic, and it's always a pleasant surprise. Be warned it's the least work-safe comic imaginable - the warning says If you are offended at all by full nudity (both sexes), images of sex involving consenting adults, images of sex involving only one person, risque humour or human secretions of any kind, this is NOT the site for you.

Wigu does manage to be good every weekday, but it takes something special to keep that work rate up, which might be why Wigu has just reinvented itself for the 2nd time, becoming "Magical Adventures in Space", now that the Wigu Tinkle storyline has reached it's natural conclusion... still full of topatoey goodness though!

The other one I check every day apart from the usual Dilbert (ocassionally very funny - but a lot less often these days) User Friendly (thank goodness for ad blocking!) and Diesel Sweeties is Scary Go Round which is beautifully crafted, and has a quirky English humour that appeals to me, being a quirky Englishman.

I think anyone that's ever tried a webcomic knows that consistency is the biggest challenge. It's hard to develop a routine and get strips up in a timely fashion with some degree of regularity. That's a critical factor in determining a strip's early success at drawing an audience. Internet users are lazy, and if you don't have any timeliness, they move on. People might counter with Mac Hall or Megatokyo, but those premiered during a slightly less dense webcomic atmosphere. Also, they drew audiences in with the art, which is the other key component. You can slack off on the updates if your art kicks ass and still maintain a decent audience. Hell, if you get both you become a rising megastar like Apple Geeks or Scary Go Round.

I remember Tycho saying that his favourite video-game web comic is VG Cats; outside of that his all-around favourite is Scary Go Round. Both of them are indeed excellent comics, if you ask me.

It's going to bring the massive industry of webcomic tshirts to a grinding halt.

That wouldn't be wise

10% brain usage may be a myth, but it can still be exploited to humorous effect.

First, a quick disclaimer: I have no personal or financial interest in any of these. I own no stock in Adobe or Wacom. Consarnit, I can't even draw.

One of the best comics on Modern Tales are Patent Pending, a drama that is drawn by the same guy who does the comedy Goats (which is free). Two other awe-inspiring MT strips are Makeshift Miracle and American Born Chinese, the former for its art and the latter for its psychological insight.

Three free strips deserving of special mention are Wigu, Achewood, and Scary-Go-Round.

Note that none of these strips concern teenagers who play video games. Hope that's not too much of a disappointment for anyone.