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Web-Based Comics 171

Posted by michael 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.
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Web-Based Comics More

Web-Based Comics

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  • Ya, I understand the good intentions involved but I had to read this post 5 times over.

  • Sluggy Freelance (Score:5)

    by Kletus Cassidy ( 230405 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @08:42AM (#405829)
    How could they do an article onWeb comics and leave out Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com]. That's the funniest and most innovative of the online comics I've seen and I've read most of the ones they listed.
  • Electric Sheep (www.e-sheep.com) have some interesting and unusual strips online, but suffer from infrequent updates, and delays. Jwz (www.jwz.org) has a list of other online comics. I'd love to see archives of old comics online - wouldn't it be fun to read original Superman, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Dan Dare etc. online? What about early 2000AD? One of my gripes with online comics (probably my only one, since I got broadband) is that they seem intent on re-inventing the medium, rather than telling ripping yarns.....
  • don't forget penny arcade [penny-arcade.com]!
    ©o,,o©©o,,o©©©o,
  • http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/ [yellow5.com] and since pokey is updated about once a month these days, keep an eye on: http://www.bitterfilms.com/anesthetics.html [bitterfilms.com] for pokey-meets-redmeat fun.

  • sinfest (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    here [sinfest.net]

  • Don't forget... (Score:4)

    by Ron Harwood ( 136613 ) <harwoodr@nOspaM.linux.ca> on Saturday February 24, 2001 @08:44AM (#405834) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Fun [ibiblio.org], Goats [goats.com], Bob the Angry Flower [angryflower.com] and Too Much Coffee Man [tmcm.com].
  • If you want a truly excellent example of an online cartoon -- especially one that takes full advantage of its medium -- check out Leisure Town [leisuretown.com]. Technically brilliant, it's also hilarious and pretty much a work of art.

    I warn you though, it can take a while to really get into it. But stick with it, check out some of the older ones, and you won't be sorry.

    -tcf

    Full Disclosure: I have the same first name and nearly the same set of initials as the author of Leisure Town, but I can only wish I was capable of such brilliance ;-)
  • There are more cartoons on the internet than I know what to do with... some are merely reprints from newspapers, but then you have all these online-only strips... it gives me a headache to think about trying to read more than a few of them. I think Ill just continue reading UF and call it good =)

    Syn

  • The web is reinvigorating comics. (Score:3)

    by Heidi Wall ( 317302 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @08:45AM (#405837)
    Picture this. It is 1970. You want to be a comic drawer. You do it in your spare time, and perhaps do your comics for a couple of fanzines and so on. You have an art degree - you are well qualified. What options do you have? Your only real option id to start sending your portfolio around all the major magazines/comic books/ newspapers and so on, in the hope of being accepted for one. However, this is a competitive environment.

    Today, however, you can set up your own page and appeal to the viewers directly. If you are succesful, you have your own cult of fans and people start taking notice in the serious press. The web has created an alternative career path for the aspiring cartoonist - even if you are unsuccessful, you can still be noticed and get your work out there.

    Also, the freedom from commercial pressures means that todays comics are much more innovative than they once were - the cartoonist is free to create whatever he wishes, without interference. The modern comedic tradition, informed by Saturday Night Live, Monty Python and other such surrealist shows means that the modern comic can be downright bizarre.

    This all holds fairly well with the subversive traditions of the comic. The web is reinforing those traditions and bringing them to the fore more than they were.

    This is a golden age for comics - they are being reborn.
    --
    Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,

  • The best online comics somehow escaped mention. Without a doubt, Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] and Friend Bear [friendbear.com] are the two funniest comics around these days. Userfriendly? That piece of junk was, in my opinion, never funny. Dumb jokes about the same computer shit every week? No, thanks; PA has that category in the bag.

    Hell, even CC vs. CC [thirtyfour.org] is better than some of this crap :) I never understood why some of this stuff got so popular - maybe I'm spoiled.

    Cheers,
    levine
  • As an outside observer, viewing things from Her Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain i'm often amused by the way Americans never seem to take anything seriously. Its as if they never grow up past "high school" (as I believe secondary education is known over there).

    Here in the United Kingdom, we find it helpful to restrict our use of humour (note the 'u') to those occasions where the social situation would deem it to be appropriate.

    From watching many films (I believe you call them 'movies') about the USA it amazes me that even your police officers seem to joke while on duty, even sometimes with the very criminals they are supposed to be arresting!

    The American 'culture' fascinates me, but I don't know how you all cope. It just seems to juvenile and self-obsessed to me.

    Comics (be they online or printed matter) are simply another facet of the perpetual adolescense of the American nation. Grown adults reading childrens comics, and nobody thinks there is anything abnormal about this ? Let me tell you in England, such a person would be viewed as very eccentric (possibly even mentally disturbed). I have never been to America, is it really as childish as it sometimes appears from 'Across the pond' ? Someone please tell me it 'ain't so' :-)

  • With so many cartoons out there, why do so many of them suck? For starters we have: Dave, Cathy, Family Circus and Spiderman! I mean, if these people just looked around they could find some good cartoons like Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com], Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com], and some of the stuff on Keenspace, like MacHall [keenspace.com]. I'm sure there are a bunch of starving comic writers who are dying for syndication while a lot of cartoons that really suck are being published.
  • Tom Winkler's doodie.com [doodie.com] can't be missed!
  • The Best Comic strip of all time! Pathetic Geek stories [theonion.com]
  • I enjoy his site (www.glasbergen.com) for almost a couple of years now. He's posting a new cartoon each day, and sometimes his pieces are really good.
  • RedMeat [redmeat.com]. My favorite and one of the most bizarre comics. ffatTony
  • Lowpass.net, home of Three Reasons, has a comic strip creator for those of us who can't draw.

    http://www.lowpass.net/stripcreator

    But please, no "all your base are belong to us" strips.

  • Really funny Comic Strips
    Cat Enema! [catenema.com]

  • bad boys of computer science (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    bad boyz of computer science [hotzp.com]
  • There all all kinds of comics out these days where the art and story exceed anythign you will find in the newspapers:
    Sinfest [sinfest.net]
    Explotation now [exploitationnow.com]
    MegaTokyo [megatokyo.com]
    And for the 18+ crowd: The Thin H Line [thinhline.com]
    Of course I'd never expect a major newspaper to carry anything positive about the Thin H Line. :)

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • I found gpf-comics [gpf-comics.com] which is about a group of geeks at a small software company. With regular snide remarks against Microsoft and other references and the usual geekiness makes it quite interesting.
  • Well, if you wanna bash the US...

    We may laugh a lot and not have a rod shoved up our collective asses, but at least we have decent teeth.

  • Because we have a sence of humor try it you'll Like it!

  • You missed the best ones! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Your list of links has no mention of PvP [pvponline.com], Sinfest [sinfest.net] or Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com].

    LOL, that other online comic [userfriendly.org] looks like it was created by a pre-schooler. ;p~

  • I can't believe you haven't mentioned the two best comics on the web: Spacemoose [spacemoose.com] (I wish Adam Thrasher would update it) and classic Needle & Thread [geocities.com]

  • What, no Sluggy? (Score:4)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @09:02AM (#405856) Homepage Journal
    Can't believe you missed Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com] Seeing as how it's an option on a slashbox and all. That's www.sluggy.com for you goatse.cx paranoid.
  • SpaceAgeComics [spaceagecomics.com] is run by an old friend of mine and has a variety of comics, old and new, from the Austin area and then some. If you visit, tell the editor I sent you...

    Bryan Baskin
  • You're just jealous because we have toothpaste and dentists.

    And apparently so does the UK [bda-dentistry.org.uk] But you are probably one of those inward looking Americans with no concept of the world beyond your doorstep. Did you know only 10% of Americans hold a passport ? I am thankful :-)

    The fact that we are not so self-obsessed that we have to have all our teeth capped to fit in with some American 'ideal' just shows that along with manners, breeding and culture, we have something else too. Its called individualism. In my country, it is not nescessary for a 15 year old to have plastic surgery simply to fit in with her peers. We are just not as shallow as Americans. (Or at least the ones I have seen on TV).

  • Duh (Score:1)

    by Apreche ( 239272 )
    Mega Tokyo [megatokyo.com], Bad boys of Computer Science [hotzp.com], and Neo Baka [keenspace.net]. Duh. How can you leave these guys out? These are the only 3 web comics I read religiously. And I bet if half of you /.ers read the bad boys of CS from the beginning you will realize that the bad boys are just like you. They are so much like me and my friends it's scary.
  • So reading Great Expectations is supposed to be better than reading Pokey?

    Politics suck.

    Pokey is not poorly illustrated. :)

    HOORAY!

  • Best place for dead tree comics online. (Score:5)

    by eschatfische ( 137483 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @09:07AM (#405861)
    It's impossible to beat the Mercury News' online comics personalization engine [mercurycenter.com]. 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 [doonesbury.com] or the kickass newcomer The Boondocks [ucomics.com]. When you read 'em all at once, it just doesn't feel right to me.

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

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

    Eschatfische.

  • Well, here's a plug for one of my favorites [everythingjake.com]. It's developing into a really weird storyline, but I like the drawing style. Read it from the start to appreciate it. Many of the other ones I like (ThinHLine, Sinfest) have already been mentioned. Oh, and I don't know if it qualifies as an online comic, but Exploding Dog [explodingdog.com] is neat. I go for the emotional stuff.

    And if you really have too much time, check out The Bench [thebench.org], a comic by the readers. Reading the backlog will take you a few years, though.

    Now, to the people who have Paypal accounts, start giving something back. A dollar won't hurt you, but it'll help them.

    --

  • Seriously, where is Gary Larson? I think we at the slash followed by the dot should make a concerted collective effort to get him to come out of retirement to at least pen one more gem poking fun at the bleary-eyed, squirrly, odd open sourcers.

    Great moments in science: Einstein discovers that time is actually money. (Larson)

    1. what the? [mikegallay.com]
  • Don't forget some of my favorites:
    Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com]
    The Parking Lot is Full [plif.com]
    Pope Alien [popealien.com]

    And many others that just don't pop into mind now.

  • I have a hard time respecting an article on web based comics that doesn't even mention the work of Scott McCloud [scottmccloud.com], easily the person who has put the most thought and effort into the web as a medium for comics..!

    Go check out Scott McCloud at once. The article we just read is under-researched.

  • Speaking as an American, I must say that I agree (surprisingly). American culture is juvenile, and it is self obsessed. However, this is what gives it its vigorous creativity - other nations just cannot compare.
    • The people of Britain have cjaracter, but little personality. This means that they are good at being brave, at striving and succeeding against the odds. They have character and depth and complexity. However, they are often very boring, except where they rebel, when they are more entertaining than anyone (hence the British penchant for comedy).
    • Americans have personality, but very little character. We Americans are not good at dealing with the swords and arrows of outrageous fortune. However, we are good at appealing to people on a Prima Facie basis, as we have plenty of personality and have no concept of embarrassment or reserve or humility. Americans make good seaside entertainers, though they can be tiresome dinner guests after a while.
    The lesson we learn from this is that we should combine our strengths. The tough and stern absurdity of the British combined with the weak but adorable characteristics of the Americans would create and ideal space team, for a mission to Mars. The British would do all the exploring and heroic stuff, and the Americans would deal with the media and financing and entertainments. They would also be good at making sure the mission actually worked, without crashing. This combination would make it a sure success.
    --
    Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
  • Whilst I imagine many of your comments are along these lines from the nature of your nick and signature, I would have to say such a narrow minded viewpoint is not in any way helpful to promoting the ideas our British nation puts forward.

    Granted, the concept of adults following a child's cartoon strip somewhat fanatically seems immature. However if you cannot generalise all cartoons to be written for children. Userfriendly [userfriendly.org] for example is most certainly not directed at children. It is for the "hardcore geek", that is, you.

    It seems a pity that a nation such as Great Britain is let down and classed as pompous due to persons such as yourself giving such a narrow minded viewpoint. Admittedly, I realise much of what you have to say is written with a dry sense of humour, however we have become a respected nation for our tolerance and acceptance of the "other person's point of view". Perhaps you should look beyond the first few links, and note that not all cartoons are for children. We ourselves have cartoons in the broadsheet newspapers. One surely cannot expect a five year old to understand a cartoon such as this one's political slant and humour.

  • I'm seeing an obvious lack of Joeheads [joecartoon.com] here.
    Warning: not for the faint-hearted.
  • I've read a lot of online comics, [hevanet.com] and I've gotten tired of most of them. It's really difficult for a comic to remain fresh and funny over a long period of time.

    Exception: Superosity [superosity.com]. Chris Crosby is a freaking genius.
    --

  • uh..hmm... What about penny-arcade. The news posts alone are worth the visit.

  • Here's a few good ones (I'll leave out the obvious links to Sluggy and stuff, and those that I've seen people mention already.):

    Nukees [nukees.com]
    Acid Reflux [acidrefluxcomic.com]
    Snail Dust [xidus.net]
    Avalon [avalonhigh.com]
    Bruno [brunostrip.com]
    Waiting For Bob [waitingforbob.com] (currently on hiatus)
    Clan of the Cats [clanofthecats.com]
    It's Walky [itswalky.com]
    Irritability [utexas.edu]

  • People might be interested in checking out the Netcomics project at sourceforge, which downloads comics daily. (Note: I am one of the developers, and this could be considered as a shameless plug...but it's on-topic...)

    Check it out at http://sourceforge.net/projects/netcomics [sourceforge.net]

  • For politically subersive comics you can't beat Lalo Alcatraz's work. His cartoonista.com [cartoonista.com] has some of the most politically incorrect cartoons found on the net. Lalo's more general political satire site at pocho.com [pocho.com] is also hilarous...

    On a more serious note, Brazilian artist Latuff has some political cartoons critizing the handling of the Zapatista uprising by the Mexican government [fzln.org.mx] (in Spanish).
    --
    You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
  • I recommend the always unsettling The Parking Lot is Full, Sam Brown's brilliant explodingdog and the strange urban comicstrip called diesel sweeties where Clango the robot gets it on with the ladies! Worth digging into the archives.
    You can check them out here [hardcorelinux.com].

  • According to a number of friends of mine who do on-line cartoons, it takes about two hours to do a good daily strip, and about four or five to do a Sunday strip.

    That's a lot of time invested.

    Although some enterprising companies like Plan Nine [plan9.org] have been selling dead tree editions of some of the best on-line comics, that's still very low wages for a lot of artwork.

    I provide you this challenge: how could an Internet cartoonist make money from their website?

  • And Keith Knight and Carol Lay [salon.com] (Yay!)

    ------------------
  • I agree, PA is the only online commic I read

  • I should have included this with the last email... These are awesome links.

    First, some from electric sheep [e-sheep.com], a very socially conscious, interesting, and humerous collection of comics.

    • The Guy I Almost Was [e-sheep.com] - everyone who works with technology and OpenSource/Free Software should read this, to get a sense of how some of our idealistic roots came.
    • Rush Limbaugh Eats Everything [e-sheep.com] - Rush Limbaugh does Reality shows, and decides to eat... The LAST Spotted Owl.
    • The Jain's Death [e-sheep.com] - An insightful and beautiful story on a Jain's lives.
    • Overheard at a Rave [e-sheep.com] - A cute story about a daughter who takes her father to a rave with her.

    Here are two Scott McCloud links. Scott McClouds greatest works, unfortunately, are not online: Understanding Comics, and Reinventing Comics. Get them at a comic store near you, or at BarnesAndNoble.com [barnesandnoble.com]. Here's some of his online work, which are of exceptional quality:

    • I Can't Stop Thinking! [scottmccloud.com] A meta-comic, also by Scott McCloud. Very interesting ideas are expressed here.
    • Scott McCloud's "Hearts And Minds" [comicbookresources.com] - not my favorite online comic, but a good taste of Scott McCloud's web form, doing things that could *NEVER* have been done in print. (Such as the falling scene in Week 3.)

    Finally, Unicorn Jelly [unicornjelly.com], for those who love science, mathematics, and anime. Be sure to check out the alternative time lines, and the powers of ten map of the universe of tryslmaistan. [unicornjelly.com]

  • It's extremely funny. The author didn't give it enough credit, imho.
  • there are a few interesting comics online at http://sequentialcomics.com/index2.htm

    The print version has some of the most interesting themes I've seen in a long while. I don't remember what exactly is on the web version

  • QA Confidential has to be one of the greatest things I've ever read, on the web or off.

    There's also some pretty funky stuff on Weird Ass Comics [weirdass.net].

  • One word: syndicates (Score:5)

    by BeanThere ( 28381 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @09:41AM (#405882)

    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 [teleport.com].

  • This is exactly the kind of article I would expect in a newpaper, implying that web based comics are just there to try to become newspaper comics. Ike

  • Why no mention of Triangle and Robert [mediaone.net]?

  • As long as we're talking about penny arcade, you can't leave out Better than Penny Arcade [efront.com], by the one and only jeff k. of somethingawful :)
  • Sinfest is the best! Slick is my hero!!!
  • What about foxtrot? www.foxtrot.com great comic
  • Maybe you will like the very strange untitled.gif [untitledgif.org] , part of the comic soviet [comicsoviet.com] of underground keenspot-rejects?
  • There's a hot gothic lesbian at Cool Cat Studio [coolcatstudio.com], and Elf Life [elflife.com] is one of the few that has nothing to do with computers.

    (blatant plug) And of course Sweaty Bullets [asomething...otwhat.com] is the worst of all because I draw it.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • Another online comic that's starting out, and is good is www.whoopkadang.com [whoopkadang.com].
    It's updated weekly.

    Check it out!.
  • Ack!

    I go out into the Big Blue room to be retro, and do some shopping in this place called a store, and when I get back, what do I see?

    Anyhow, my two bits of webbased strips:

    Sabrina [sabrina-online.com] -(mirror here [descent2.com]) - Life as a dedicate Amiga user, etc.

    Vinny The Vampire [myqth.com] - Almost everyone is a hollywood classic monster of one sort or another. But other wise it is a more or less "normal" world.

    Supermegatopis [supermegatopia.com] - the worlds largest open air insane asylum

    FreeFall [purrsia.com] - Space Opera Lite

    GeekComics [geekcomix.com] - 'nuff said

  • What saddens me is uptight people like you. Sorry for dragging our "culture" down.
    I do enjoy doing the oh so "important" stuff too, but that doesn't mean i wanna be super serious all the time, lighten up.
  • http://www.reallifecomics.com
  • This might be a good spot to subtly mention my ideas about "ComicsML", a collision of digital comics and XML.

    http://www.jmac.org/projects/comics_ml/ [jmac.org]

    I'm of the opinion that XML can help web-based cartoonists, both spare-time amateurs (like myself) and professionals trying to make a living, in lots of ways, inlcuding self-syndication, accessibility, and content management, and further help open up the road for a lot of the future technology standards that'll have to take hold, such as micropayments, before digital comics can enter the state Scott McCloud [scottmccloud.com] dreams of in "Reinventing Comics".

    J
    MacOS Open Source [jmac.org]
  • Calling all perverts, calling all perverts, go to Exploitation Now! [exploitationnow.com] Who knows, you might even find a story in there. Well, probably not, but there's lots of pretty artwork.
  • spellling is for loooosers
  • Sometimes, life imitates art and brings back a deja vu feeling.

    During a recent seating reorg at my previous company, I was reminded of a certain Dilbert strip where management was actually playing a huge game of chess with all the employee cubes! I coudn't find the actual strip anywhere, so I tried the website and even sent a few emails, but received no reply.

    It would be nice to have a search engine for comic strips where one could search by theme or incident. Userfriendly has something basic where you can lookup plot lines. I'd be willing to pay a couple of bucks to have the right strip at the right time!
  • Anyone know what happened to the Dilberito? I never have seen one at a convenience or grocery store. Did that fail?
  • Comic Strip Creator [lowpass.net]

    You just entry your text, pick your chracters and backgrounds and pow [lowpass.net]..

    Sadly, doesn't work in Netscape though.
  • This is the only comic that I read a few strips and had to go back to the very beginning. The best web-based comic I have ever seen.

    It should have been included in the list in the article but unfortinutely it does not qualify as a serious strip because it is so bizarre. Or so the author was told bvy the syndicates, but you must check it out. If you like monty-pythonish weird humor
  • Schlock Mercenary [schlockmercenary.com] is a definite winner. Very funny, and the artist includes real science in every strip. Also potty humor.

  • PVP? (Score:2)

    by maj1k ( 33968 )
    come on, people! check out PVP [pvponline.com], my favorite online comic besides penny-arcade [penny-arcade.com].

  • Online Comic Strip Downloader (Score:3)

    by penguinboy ( 35085 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @10:40AM (#405907)
    My program, dailystrips [sourceforge.net], automatically downloads web comics so that you don't have to visit several different websites.

  • Re:Online Comic Strip Downloader (Score:3)

    by Lumpish Scholar ( 17107 ) on Saturday February 24, 2001 @11:23AM (#405911) Homepage Journal
    My program, dailystrips, automatically downloads web comics so that you don't have to visit several different websites.

    There are sites that do this via CGI, too. I deliberately didn't mention them in the submission, because they short-circuit whatever ad revenue these artists are making.

    I'm not saying you don't have the write to write or use such scripts. I'm saying there's an ethical decision to be made here.
  • http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/

    :) I believe his cartoons are online only and he still makes new ones!

  • I could never find official Web site. Does he have one with his cartoons or is it only on hardcopy prints? Thanks.

  • KeepSpot doesn't hold 40+ comics, it hosts hundreds through it's KeenSpace service! I'm hosted there myself.

    --
    WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
  • I absolutely agree! :-)

    Comic strips like Kevin and Kell, Sluggy Freelance, MegaTokyo, and several others could not exist in the world of the syndicates because they often have subjects that the syndicates would reject outright as either "violating standards" or too obscure.

    It really is a rebirth of the comic strip.
  • The Trib picked a few strips as a survey of the field. No such list would get everything good. The links I added were meta-sites and mega-sites, not individual strips.

    Having said that, here are some more that might appeal to fellow Slashers:

    o Goats [goats.com]: nominally a couple of Web developers, mostly about ... oh, never mind, just read it. PG-13; your mom might not like it.

    o Freefall [purrsia.com]: A captain of a starship (that's only flown once in the history of the strip), his robot sidekick, and his furry engineer. SF meets Dilbert in a kindler, gentler way.

    o GPF [gpf-comics.com]: life at a software development company with an unfortunate name.

    o Help Desk [ubersoft.net]: life at the tech support desk of a software megacompany named Ubersoft (with products such as Nifty Doorways and Tactile Basic).

    (The last two recently had a crossover [gpf-comics.com], a pretty common occurence in online strips.)

    o Acid Reflux [purrsia.com] (previously here [acidrefluxcomic.com]): vaguely-D&D-ish strip about a young god trying to restore the universe her sister abandoned.

    o Mega Tokyo [megatokyo.com]: a couple of American gamers stranded in Japan.

    o Real Life [reallifecomics.com]: a couple of American gamers who know they're comic strip characters.

    o Schlock Mercenary [schlockmercenary.com]: light SF strip.

    All have complete archives back to the first strip, so you can catch up at your leisure. Enjoy!
  • Anyone know why so many Web comics have alien abduction themes? I've seen it in Kevin and Kell [kevinandkell.com], College Roomies From Hell [crfh.net], Cool Cat Studio [coolcatstudio.com], and maybe Alice [alicecomics.com]. Roomies [roomies.org], now known as It's Walky! [itswalky.com], is now entirely about aliens. What gives?
  • Moderators, please moderte the above up. Scott McCloud's thoughtful books on comincs are amazing, and arefascinating even to non-fans.

  • No kidding. Sluggy is an awesome cartoon. I am highly addicted to it, and enjoy it far more than userfriendly to be honest.

  • Family Circus is to comics as Boyzone is to music.

    It's not as if the net hasn't tried to help this situation. The classic Dysfunctional Family Circus [implausible.net] would take a normal, horribly unfunny Family Circus image, delete the original banal caption and invite visitors to add their own caption. The best of these, chosen by editors (people who had submitted many funny captions) would be added. This went on for 500 cartoons before Bil Keane's lawyers shut it down.

  • ...apparently doesn't have much turnover at all. My strip [evercrest.com] was #2 on the list six months ago when I removed the link to vote for me on the list from my site, and today I'm still hanging in there at #8, despite no votes in the past six months.

    I still bring 9 to 10 thousand hits a day to my site, but something tells me if you can go six months and only lose six places in the list, there's a lot of dead strips in that "Top 100".

  • A daily collection of political cartoons from around the USA, and also some world news, can be found at politicalcartoons.com [politicalcartoons.com].

  • There are sites that do this via CGI, too. I deliberately didn't mention them in the submission, because they short-circuit whatever ad revenue these artists are making.

    I did something like this a while back, it's still around [evercrest.com], but it's fallen into a bit of disrepair since I don't have the time to update the scripts much anymore. Last I checked, it correctly indexed 70 or so comic strips.

    You sign in with an account, and it keeps a list of strips you want to "subscribe" to, and it remembers the last time you've read each of them. When you log in, it presents a link directly into the archives of each of your subscribed strips for every new strip since the last one you read.

    It's ad-revenue friendly, since it doesn't bring over the images, it links you to the full archive page, ads and all.
  • And Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com] (long, complex, and interesting story arcs, which are hillarious to boot), Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] (extreme funny), Player vs Player [pvponline.com] (more fun(ny) with gaming), Sinfest [sinfest.com] (offensive and funny), and Adventurers [fuzzyfur.net] (hillarious -- but only if you play console RPG's)! There are so many awesome web comics!

    ------
  • There is only one [jerkcity.com] online comic worth reading. I try to read it aloud every day (along with several back-episodes) to my girlfriend. I rarely amuse her, but any self-respecting, easily amused geek will find something to enjoy.

  • It's not as if the net hasn't tried to help this situation

    Yes, it does seem that the Net has been slightly more useful for cartoonists than it has for musicians. Dilbert is probably one of the most well-known examples - none of the syndicates wanted to publish his original Dilbert submissions, so he published them on the Internet. The syndicates were interested after Dilbert became a success.

  • http://ozyandmillie.org/ [ozyandmillie.org] is a great replacement for those who crave a "Calvin and Hobbes" fix. I'm surprised that the article didn't mention it--despite the author's comments about getting syndication, it's almost as mainstream as "Kevin and Kell" and should appeal to anyone who liked Watterson's stuff. Ah well, they couldn't mention every strip that's worth reading, and that strip just recently moved to Keenspot. The early strips are a bit uneven, but everything from series 5 on is definitely worth your time.

    I know I'm not alone in getting more laughs out of 9 or 10 online strips than I get out of an entire page of newspaper strips. Sure, they might be worried that "Sinfest" or "Sluggy Freelance" might offend some people, but as recent MTV/network TV events like "Jackass" and "Survivor" show, the people at Huge Media Coproations know that offensiveness sells. Bah, let them ignore the goose that's laying golden eggs... I'll be viewing webcomics every day and buying merchandise from the ones that are really nifty.

  • How could you have missed the classics on how to manage a business. These give Drucker a run for his money. Recruiting [spacemoose.com]
    Motivating [spacemoose.com]
    Managing [spacemoose.com]
  • Thanks for the link, by the way.
    ----
  • That's a print comic which happens to be published on the Web after a two-week delay. I hardly think that counts.
    --
    Obfuscated e-mail addresses won't stop sadistic 12-year-old ACs.

  • Re:What, no Sluggy? (Score:3)

    by RayChuang ( 10181 ) on Sunday February 25, 2001 @04:22AM (#405972)
    I'm surprised that Sluggy Freelance was not mentioned, either.

    Remember, Sluggy Freelance has been around since August 1997, a veritable old-timer in terms of online comic strips. I believe it came out about the same time as the first User Friendly strips.

    The only major online comic strip older than Sluggy Freelance I know of is Bill Holbrook's KEVIN AND KELL, which (I think) was originally distributed on CompuServe a little bit more than ten years ago.
  • Others which have been on the web for some time:

    Alex's Restaurant [alexsrestaurant.com]

    Bruno (which has been on the web for at least 5 years) [brunostrip.com]

    --

  • Strange, I remember reading something about the history of Dilbert done by Scott Adams (I think it used to be on the website but I can't find it.) He tells how he submitted to a number of major syndicates, all of which (including United Features, as I remember) rejected him. He had scans of the comic strips he submitted, as well as the responses from the syndicates, some of which said 'the humour is good but you should hire an artist'. I couldn't remember all the details, but I saved it somewhere. It definitely did not, though, just "require one submissions package". I'll have to see if I can locate that article. My netscape in Linux seems to hose itself whenever I go to dilbertzone.com.

  • "Sadly, doesn't work in Netscape though."

    Nor does it work in MSIE on the Mac, apparently.

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