Slashdot Mirror

There's a lot of really good stuff out there (and another 90+% of horrible crap, but the good stuff is enough to keep you busy for a while):

Naver has been betting strong on infinite-canvas style, both eastern translated works and english-original ones (check the page out, there's A LOT of webcomics there, a bit of everything for everyone)

Girl Genius got most of the Hugo awards for graphic story in the first years of the category

uhm, I'm a bit busy at the moment so I'll just list a bunch of webcomics I liked below, if you look at what the authors of each of those recommend you'll find lots more, and these cover a fairly wide range of styles, themes and tones:

http://www.samandfuzzy.com/new...
http://www.johnnywander.com/
http://www.egscomics.com/
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/
http://flipside.keenspot.com/
http://www.somethingpositive.n...
http://oglaf.com/latest/
http://www.happletea.com/
http://www.errantstory.com/

This year's prize in the physics category went to Marc-Antoine Fardin, who used fluid dynamics to probe the question "Can a cat be both a solid and a liquid?"

Choo-Choo Bear!

Here are some blacked-out webcomics:

• Questionable Content
• Ctrl+Alt+Del
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
• The Oatmeal (this one will be hard to take a screenshot of, as it's an animation)
• Dinosaur Comics
• Something Positive
• Nedroid

Incidentally, half of these I hadn't even heard of before today; I only know of them now because they chose to protest SOPA! Also, Penny Arcade isn't blacked out but has an anti-SOPA banner, and XKCD hasn't updated yet.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp10092003.shtml

http://www.somethingpositive.net/arch/birthofasentence.gif

Something positive the comic, look in archive for nerdotica

Rocks fall.
Everyone dies.

  EVERYONE

Wil Wheaton will save us.

Santa Claus? What's he going to do if he damns you? Bring you a lump of coal? With the prices of energy lately, being damned by Santa might actually be a blessing these days, if you know what I mean.

Hey, man, don't mess with the Krampus!

I don't use RSS feeds for webcomics, so here is the set of pages I regularly visit:
XKCD We probably all know this one.
Cyanide and Happiness Somewhat twisted humour.
Errant Story Excellent art and storyline.
Bunny Strange humour about bunnies.
QC Indy rock comic of social interaction.
Megatokyo Megatokyo. Has gone downhill in recent years, but still good art.
Penny Arcade Gamer comic, quite famous.
PBF Perry Bible Fellowship hasn't updated in some time, but very funny when he does.
Edible Dirt is a series of single-panel jokes. Very funny, often somewhat twisted.
Ctrl-Alt-Del is a comic about a few gamer roomates.
LFG WoW/MMO/D&D spoof. Quite funny, good art, interesting plot. Many references break the 4th wall.
Two-Lumps is a comic about cats, 1 smart, 1 very, very dumb. I think the artist is stalking my cat to get ideas for the dumb one.
Gunnerkrigg Court Beautiful art, excellent story. And robots.
underpower hasn't updated in some time, great single-page art pieces recently and an actual story before.
Girl Genius is all about Mad Science.
Bunny System is a comic about psychotic rabbits.
Something Positive is very, very cynical. It actually has 5 webcomics on 1 page. Very much worth checking out.
Head Trip is... a head trip.
FLEM hasn't updated in a while, and has a strange and rather violent storyline. Back to single-panel shorts now.
VGCats video game cats is excellent, if you play video games.
Clan of the Cats Author is going blind, will continue if she gets better. Great story and art.
Dr. McNinja The adventures of Dr. McNinja. Clean art, good story, ninjas on fire.
Code Name: Hunter Magic/technology interaction in a world strangely dominated by talking animals. Excellent facial expressions, especially for being animals.
Awkward Zombie gamer comic similar to vgcats.
No Need for Bushido Samurai story, well drawn and reasonably well written.
Giant ITP hosts both The Order of The Stick, a D&D spoof, and The Battle For Gobwin Knob, a comic about a GM who gets sucked into a world of his own design, on the losing side of a no-win scenario.
Last Blood Zombies have taken over the earth and killed nearly all humans, so now the vampires fight to protect their dwindling food source. Excellent drawing and unique story.
Chopping Block Butch the serial killer. Sick, twisted humour, but very funny.
Dominic Deegan Oracle for Hire, is a good story with pretty good art.
The Traveling Gnome Great art, story seems good so far.
One-Liners may be offensive to some, or funny to those with a sense of humour.

And...

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12172007.shtml

Funny how just about anything can be made into a decent video game...

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05282008.shtml

Yelling out "I Rule!!" after news is released may not be the best strategy for anonimity.

Just ask Randy Millholland : http://www.superstupor.com/sust04282008.shtml

(shameless plug)
While you are at it, check out his normal comic strip, set aside a few day to go back to the beginning and read them all.
http://www.somethingpositive.net/

Where I live, EMT services are only billed for unfounded calls

In the US that I live in, you pay for the ambulance ride, which includes the EMTs staffing the ambulance. I suppose if the fire truck beat the ambulance and a fireman gave you first aid, they might not charge (in areas with a volunteer FD), but then they hand you to the ambulance guys when they show up.

See http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp04112003.shtml for an example. My ambulance ride was $750 after a truck ran a red light and nearly ripped my arm off. I had to pay that one myself because the driver's insurance wouldn't settle and pay the bills unless I sued them, my insurance wouldn't pay the bills because the driver was supposed to, and since they didn't get paid right away, the ambulance company just up and said "pay now or we send you to the credit bureau". At least I did eventually get the money back.

So, I see that the plan has worked:

http://somethingpositive.net/sp12232007.shtml

(Hopefully this will be the start of a good treatement to all those afflicted by this disease)

I've been hooked on Something Positive for about 4 years now (gotta love a comic who's first punchline is home abortions), The Librarianist caught my eye about a year ago (I like it about as much as PBF, but it isn't in color), and The Bunny System doesn't update nearly enough to sate me. Honestly, though, if you check your favorite artist's Blog/BBS they'll link you to who they read.

PBF has been a favorite of mine for a while, now. Here's some others(wiki pages. Paper comic sites(read: syndicate sites) suck more often than not):

Zits
Get Fuzzy
Pearls Before Swine
Lio

Schlock Mercenary
Something Positive
Erfworld
Penny Arcade
Irregular Webcomic!
There's a few others, but that's most of them.

Something Positive

You read Something Positive, don't you?

Avagadro? I thought you were dead? http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12012006.shtml

Grammer Nazi, I choose you!

You might look into recruiting Spelling Stormtrooper as well. Last I saw, he was hanging around with Komma Klansman.

I have seen too much. I can cry no more. I want to know how to stop caring now. How, for the love of God, do I join the endless ranks of these gibbering fools who never think one picometer beyond their golf handicaps?

Try thinking positively?

As Something Positive reminds us, we should all take a moment to talk about the dangers of molasses.
[part1] and [part2]

As Something Positive reminds us, we should all take a moment to talk about the dangers of molasses.
[part1] and [part2]

Yes! Down with laws! Let anarchy reign supreme!

That would probably be White Wolf. Something like "OMG: the Ponies".

However, it might possibly end up like this... No, you can't be Skullfucker Bear.

Who's responsible for forcing Choo-Choo into transforming himself into a website theme? Have you no shame?

Oh, the humanity!

It's down the block not across the street!

Gees, first Jack Thompson takes on Penny Arcade, and loses.

Then he takes on VG Cats, and loses.

He also took on a news reporting website, and lost (I forgot the name).

If history is any indicator on how successful he's going to be with this "lawsuit" (and I'll beleive it when I see it, this guy is a known liar after all) as he was with Penny Arcade.

He should just do what Anne Rice does, and beat people who say bad stuff about him to a pulp both online and offline. I'd also like to go on record as saying that if Anne Rice ever comes to Australia, I love her Jesus book. However if she doesn't ever come here, I wouldn't use it to wipe my ass.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned User Friendly. Also on my list are Queen of Wands (which finished its several-year run, and is now doing a rapid-fire rerun with commentary), Something Positive, Applegeeks (which just finished an uncharacteristic Batman parody and is now resuming its normal staples of inappropriate behavior and Ramadan jokes), and Mac Hall (unrelated, at least in name, to Apple Macs). For the grad students among us, may I recommend Piled Higher and Deeper; more so for those who are considering grad school.

Less traditionally, we also have Lore Brand Comics, which is pretty much standup in webcomic form. Alas, it hasn't been updated in months, but the archive is certainly worth looking through. Paradox Lost appears to be a comic book being written in webcomic form.

Other people mentioned them, but I have to say some of my favorites are Real Life and MegaTokyo.

So we have http://www.penny-arcade.com/, http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/, http://www.officialwdc.com/comic.php, http://www.pvponline.com/, http://ww.somethingpositive.net/ and http://www.megatokyo.com/. Any other favorites?

Mike, the obnoxious hack-and-slash D&D player, finds himself in an open field west of a white house...

This is how it tried to happen. http://somethingpositive.net/sp07302004.shtml

Is this why I can't read userfriendly or Something Positive this morning? Or is it just some weird coincidental webcomic blackout?

http://somethingpositive.net/ Easily my latest fave. I recognize many of my friends in bits and pieces of his characters. Funny that I have never been to Boston or Texas.

Something Positive is done by R K Milholland, who made a offhand comment in response to some complaints about late updates to the effect of 'if you lot donate equal to my salary i'll quit and work on Something Positive solidly for a year'... and was shortly surprised to see that it happened.

Queen of Wands was done by Aeire, and is currently going through annotated reruns before she starts a new project.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html http://www.schlockmercenary.com/ http://www.gpf-comics.com/ http://www.reallifecomics.com/index.php http://www.crfh.net/ http://www.nuklearpower.com/ Random shameless plugs. Read them and enjoy.

Holy Lord Buddha!

Why if we had these sorts of things, people could be screened at Anime conventions right at the door. Noone would have to hand out these to the poor benighted hygiene-challenged individuals.

Progress!

Holy Lord Buddha!

Why if we had these sorts of things, people could be screened at Anime conventions right at the door. Noone would have to hand out these to the poor benighted hygiene-challenged individuals.

Progress!

I think this is more appropriate.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp01172005.shtml

Paper is better for long sessions, but computer screens are fine for checking the daily strips. That said, I've at various times sat and read the entire archives to Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly (when it was still funny), Queen of Wands, and Something Positive. Of course, none of them was more than a year old at the time I read through them -- I can't imagine trying to read eight(?) years of Sluggy online. Hooray for the books!

One comic that's got an interesting hybrid model is Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio. It started out as a regular comic book, but the realities of the small-press world forced it to be (a) quarterly and (b) often months late. They'd been collecting issues as hardcovers and trade paperbacks already (I think 4 comics per book), and in June they shifted their publishing scheme around. They've dropped the individual issues entirely, focusing on the books instead... but they publish a new page online for free, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So you can read it a page every few days, or buy the next book every few months. I was skeptical when they first announced the change, but it seems to be working great so far.

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.

"After the horrible mangling they put "Vampire: The Masquerade" through"

Oh, they're the ones responsible for giving us "Vampire: The Pretension?" Heck, I'd boycott 'em just for that!

(Disclaimer: I can't remember if I got that parody title from either Something Positive or The Devil's Panties.)

This policy was touched upon by today's Something Positive: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp07142005.shtml

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp02242005.shtml

http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20050224.ht ml

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/fanart/queenofwan ds.html

Of course, this being Slashdot, five people have probably already posted this by now...

You fool! I bukkake for justice!
The calculus finally came in handy.

"And even among those that are, they're all a rip off of the same thing. Have any "popular" online comics NOT done the whole "tech support sucks HAHAHAHAH!" thing yet? Have any of them not done "end users suck and I hate working in tech support HAHAHAHA!" ... Most of them are trying really hard to be User Friendly, which itself isn't all that bad. I think a lot of people just have the idea that what they do is so unique and remarkable that THE MAN -- *SOME* MAN -- must be HOLDIN' THEM DOWN."

Your exposure to webcomics must be rather minimal. "Most" webcomics are ripping off UF? All the "popular" webcomics riff on tech support? Hardly. While a number of the long-running strips do takes on geek humor, that's understandable. When they started, us nerds were the only ones reading webcomics, and they were geared to their audience.

Take a look at The Bunny. How about Chopping Block? Randy Milholland's Something Positive, Sinfest, and Penny Arcade wouldn't make it into newspaper syndication without a major change in theme and writing. None of them ever mimicked User Friendly, and there are many more like them than there are copies of Iliad's work.

The sad thing is that this rant is seen as "insightful," when it's really just shallow and mis-informed. These folks aren't complaining that they're not superstars via their work. They went off on their own so that they could create, be rewarded for their creativity, and not have to give up a large chunk of the returns on said creativity to a third party. There's a whole passel of middle-men out there who latch themselves onto artists, and drain them dry, turn them into "product", and reap the lion's share of the rewards. Need evidence? Look at the releases from the major record labels - crap, mostly. Hollywood is busy making a ghetto-version "Honeymooners," re-hashing "Bewitched", and remaking every moderately successful flick from the 60's and 70's - they're out of "product" and unwilling to take risk, so they're recycling the same swill. The comics syndicates have been playing it safe for years, distributing humorless pabulum while bleeding away the intellectual property of the original artists. Many of the old-school comics guys went broke while the syndicates raked in the bucks on their output.

Not every artist is a prima donna. Most of them are just trying to make a living without getting raped in the process. It's something that every independent business person must deal with, but it's worse for creative folks because there's an entire industry solely based on getting as big a cut as possible from their work.

That's why I said "otherwise rightfully". It's like a two-person project at school where one person does 90% of the work and both get 50% of the credit. The understanding before the project starts is that they'll share credit equally, but the one who put more effort into the final result ends up feeling kind of bitter.

Keenspot makes money off of advertisement (and maybe other things, but I only know of the advertising part), but they need good webcomics to lure advertisers.

All I meant by that comment is that I recall that some of the webcartoonists have felt like the guy doing 90% of the work.

Beyond that, I wholly concede your point.

And the "ideally" comment was more a shot at people who start webcomics only because they've seen the success that a few have attained and want to achieve the same success. It happens a lot, and the general concensus amongst webcartoonists (based on various rants I've read and webcomic panels I've attended) seems to be that if you're doing it solely for the fame, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

I usually fall on the side of "love of your craft," but I can certainly appreciate the other side too.

I've really got no problem with a webcartoonist who runs his webcomic like a business, because art supplies, bandwidth and hosting do cost a lot of money. And if you're making a living off of your strip it costs that much more.

A few artists who live off of their webcomics:

Penny Arcade
Sluggy Freelance
MegaTokyo
8-Bit Theatre
Player vs Player
Schlock Mercenary
Something Positive
Ctrl-Alt-Delete

And those are just some of the ones that I read and can remember.

Try Something positive. http://www.somethingpositive.net/

The thing is, Keenspot does have its place.

There are a lot of webcomics out there. And I mean a lot. One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that anybody who can find a place to host their files can make a webcomic. There are no other real barriers (though I might argue that not having any discernable talent should be a barrier).

So how do you find a good webcomic? Well, Keenspot is an option. It's a portal that links to a variety of strips. It has certain standards of quality. It's been around for a long time, and it's well known. So if you're looking for something to read, you can always head for Keenspot.

On the flip side, if you're an aspiring webcartoonist and want to get known, getting accepted by Keenspot is a good bet for exactly the same reasons.

From a business perspective, Keenspot is okay. They sell advertising, and some of the money goes to the webcartoonists. Keenspot has done some work to get into newspapers, too, though I admit I don't know many of the details.

And Keenspot also handles the technical side. They provide the servers and all the website code necessary for a webcomic to function (if I recall correctly, that is). In exchange, you, as a webcartoonist, agree to brand your website with a little bit of advertising.

But Keenspot isn't the be-all and end-all of webcomics. Even though there are so many webcomics out there, the webcomic "community" is pretty small. Many of the artists/writers talk to each other. They see each other at conventions. They hang out. And they link to other comics in their rants. If you're looking for a good webcomic, it's almost as if it's a game of follow the links. All you have to do is find one good strip and read it for a while, and if you pay attention, you'll find out what some other good comics are. Word of mouth seems to be the best way to get known in the webcomic community.

And, as I understand it, Keenspot webcartoonists don't get paid as well as they could. Keenspot is a for-profit venture. It's the same as with any label you might sign with ... some of the money that would otherwise rightfully be yours is going to go to the umbrella organization that's sponsoring you. Going independent might make you more money, if you're willing to deal with the financials yourself. (Ideally, you wouldn't care because you'd be doing it for the love of your craft ... but when you become more popular, the bandwidth and hosting costs more money.)

I've got work tomorrow, so I'm going to wrap it up with a couple of webcomics that have my highest recommendation (not that you'd care, given that you don't know anything about my comic preferences). Both webcartoonists are independent.

Something Positive: It's pretty damn mean spirited a lot of the time, and sometimes gets a bit wordy, but it's consistently funny, and the characters come across as being very human. They have hopes and fears. They grow as time goes on. I think they're pretty believable.

Schlock Mercenary: This is a fine piece of science fiction (certainly much more deserving of the label than is Star Wars), and very funny to boot. It also has very good characterization, and wonderfully twisty, entertaining plotlines. This is probably the first comic I check every night, and I read some 30+ webcomics. I think many Slashdotters will appreciate it too. Incidentally, this strip, like the ones mentioned in TFA, recently split from Keenspot.