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Web-Based Comics

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the boneless-chicken-ranch dept.

Lumpish Scholar writes "The Chicago Tribune (no registration required:-) has this long awaited article on Web-based cartoons and cartoonists. (A couple of Web-based cartoonists put together the recent Berkely Breathed interview, as reported here.) The Trib article mentions some of my favorite online cartoons: Kevin and Kell, College Roomies From Hell, and Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet (now in dead tree syndication and online here). Other sources: Keenspot, hosting service for forty online strips; Planet Cartoonist's list of the top 100 online comic strips; a similar list from Big Panda; Yahoo!'s same-day-as-the-papers strips; King Features; Comics.com, home of Dilbert (a.k.a. Dilbert.com), Peanuts (Snoopy.com), and other United Media comic strips, and cartoons from the New Yorker; Plan 9 Publishing, bringing online comics to dead trees near you; oh, yeah, and let's not forget that other online strip." I just wish Gary Larson would come back.

3 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Sluggy Freelance by Kletus+Cassidy · · Score: 5

    How could they do an article onWeb comics and leave out Sluggy Freelance. That's the funniest and most innovative of the online comics I've seen and I've read most of the ones they listed.

  2. Best place for dead tree comics online. by eschatfische · · Score: 5
    It's impossible to beat the Mercury News' online comics personalization engine. Most of the dead tree comics out there, only the ones you want to see, same day as the papers, in color! Free registration required, as they say.

    I love web comics, but the problem I have with them is that I don't read them on a "daily basis" like the dead tree comics, so the ones with an ongoing storyline or character development lose a lot of their "flow." I like the "one day at a time" feel of something like Doonesbury or the kickass newcomer The Boondocks. When you read 'em all at once, it just doesn't feel right to me.

    Other great online strips: the ones at Salon, especially Tom the Dancing Bug and Story Minute. And how could I leave out the deranged genius which is Space Moose!

    The world hasn't been the same since Word.com got destroyed by their fish-oil selling masters. However, if you Google long enough, you'll find the old archive of Maakies still online.

    Eschatfische.

  3. One word: syndicates by BeanThere · · Score: 5

    The syndicates have done to comic strip art what the record companies have done to music. Family Circus is to comics as Boyzone is to music.

    A worthwhile read is a speech given by Bill Watterson (creator of Calvin and Hobbes, who would not "sell out") called The cheapening of the comics.