7/4: Week-in-Review, Once Again in Comic Form

ZING!

A Softer World: Tuesday, 6/30/09


Slow Wave: Sat., 6/20/09


PVP: 6/22 - 6/30
(See also: Geeks Next Door @ Dungeon Mastering)


The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Sat., 7/04/09


Thinkin' Lincoln: Friday, 7/3/09
Thinkin' Lincoln: Tuesday, 6/30/09


Chainsawsuit: Monday, 6/29/09

Shredded Moose! Oh, the horror! Even NSFW horror sometimes!

And that's a wrap for this week's show. Tune in next week for more words about comics! But without the pictures this time, my hand is cramping.


Co-written by Jackson Ferrell and Eli Parker; illustrated by Jackson Ferrell
Unwinder belongs to Unwinder's Tall Comics
Sara Peterson belongs to Nobody Scores
Memnon Vanderbeam belongs to Starslip
Mike Warner wants you to die in a fire

4/3: Week in Review

Webcomic geeks are rarely just webcomic geeks; find a webcomic enthusiast, and chances are he's also a video gamer, an anime nerd, or a tabletop RPG geek. Hence, from time to time you get comics like Penny Arcade's Fallout Puppet Comics, or the following news item which I received via press release...

The comic Geeks Next Door is teaming up with Dungeon Mastering to deliver an exclusive comic storyline starring the GND characters. Veteran gamers Matt, Jessi, and Barry will be introducing Jessi's closet-geek sister Maggie to the ins and outs of D&D, with Matt in the role of dungeon master. I've happened across Geeks Next Door a few times before, and it's a funny comic with colorful and upbeat artwork. The collaboration looks like a cool project, too, so if you're a tabletop roleplayer, be sure to tune in. The series starts tomorrow, 4/4, and will update every two weeks at DungeonMastering.com, with a new comic and commentary from Matthew, Jessi, and Maggie.

And Geeks Next Door isn't the only comic teaming up. Least I Could Do, in its most recent storyline, is teaming up with every webcomic in existence for the LICD Ultimate Final Civil War Invasion Crisis Thing. It's a comic event so big, it prompted the creator of Goblins to pull an April Fool's joke in which he threatened to sue Ryan Sohmer for unlicensed use of his characters. More about April Fool's Day later, but you can start reading LICD's Ultimate Crisis Thing right here with the intro spread.

After a long absence from the online cartooning world, You'll Have That creator Wes Molebash returned this Monday with a new comic: "Myron and Charlie." I've been looking forward to the launch of his new project ever since Wes announced it late last year: Wes has a sharp black-and-white style, and to be entirely honest, I've missed his down-to-earth sense of humor and storytelling. Rather than the gag-a-day format of You'll Have That, this new strip has an ongoing storyline with a definite end to it. It's too early to tell exactly where it's going, but so far, we've been introduced to Myron, a boy with an artistic streak and a desire for a best friend. You can catch the updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday over at the You'll Have That site.

Over at Real Life, Greg Dean has been running "open letter week," in which comic-character Greg reads open letters to a variety of individuals, including Family Guy producer Seth McFarlane, everyone on Greg's Facebook friends list, Neil Patrick Harris, and others. The open-letter action starts here, and wouldn't end right if it didn't end with a twist punchline. Bonus points if you saw the twist coming, but Greg's expression in the final panel really sells it.

And in what was possibly the most stunning update this week, this comic from Penny & Aggie dropped a bomb on me. Uptight religious fanatic Charlotte displays a surprisingly tender side, and what's more, the girl can write! Holy Sonnet, Batman! Comics are a visual medium, but this one showcases the power of good writing to flat-out knock you off your feet.

And, seeing as Wednesday was April Fool's Day, it's time to conclude this entry with the...

April Fools Watch:

• David Willis promises to end Shortpacked and deliver a Roomies reboot (complete with April Fool's site redesign)


• Chainsawsuit's make-your-own-Chainsawsuit goes horribly awry


• Dr. McNinja employs product placement for its own merchandise in this strip (see the April Fool's version)


• Hijinks Ensue adopts a new art style and a bold new storyline...all in the name of parody

And that's what's awesome this week. Have a good weekend, and, as usual, I'll see you next week with more awesome.

3/27: Week in Review

Happy Friday, all. It's time to take a look at what's happened this week, webcomics-wise.

First: I know this blog focuses less on "webcomics industry news" and more on "comics I liked this week," but it would almost certainly be remiss if I did not mention the New England Webcomics Weekend which happened this weekend. Three metric buttloads of cartoonists were in attendance, and many of them chose to create comics about their NEWW experience. Jeffrey Rowland, in his not-really-autobiographical strip Overcompensating, has particularly had a whole lot to say about it. Read his comic: he has a crazy knack for dialogue and I do not give his comic enough love.

Scott Kurtz also weighed in with an autobiographical NEWW comic that is perhaps funnier to webcartoonists than webcomic readers, and Kris Straub further celebrates with a suitably crazy Chainsawsuit comic. If you happen across any other shareworthy NEWW comics, feel free to share 'em in a comment.

Perhaps facilitated in part by the Webcomics Weekend, this has also been a big week for guest comics. Meredith Gran of Octopus Pie kicked off a guest week on Monday with this excellent strip from David Willis, Questionable Content dropped an enormous and exceptionally well-drawn guest strip from Lucid TV (lucid-tv.com), and Bobwhite rocked a guest week that included an F-Chords/Bobwhite crossover from the Straub. If you miss F Chords as much as I do, it was a welcome visit from Ash and Wade, however brief.

Also running guest weeks recently were Allan Wood's daily journal comic Allan and Unwinder's Tall Comics by Eli Parker. Typically, Allan stays painfully close to the ups and downs of its author's real life, but Allan's guest week (starting here) featured a bevy of comics with a hilarious disregard for reality. Celebrating a year of Unwinder's misguided adventures, the Tall Comics guest week featured a variety of really extremely tall comics, including a truly inspired foray into clay-model photocomics. I myself even collaborated with my friend Joe Harris on a Tall Guest Comic! I am hardly an objective journalist, so go check it out.

And finally, at the emailed recommendation of one Sanjay Kulkarni (creator of Cowbirds in Love), I have begun tuning in to Moe. Moe features a unique art style, with bold linework, earthtone colors, and a kind of calculated sloppiness to it. This week's comics feature everyman Moe's clueless and solipsistic forays into the world of organized religion, starting with confession. I definitely recommend it--I laughed out loud at each of this week's updates, especially this one.

And with that, this update draws to a close. I'll see you next week, with more to say about webcomics as always. Got a good comic to share from this past week? Drop a comment!

The Cure for the Common XKCD

XKCD needs no introduction. It's the first Google search result for "webcomic," and its only real contender in terms of stick-figure-comic popularity is Cyanide and Happiness. You certainly already know about it, and friends who don't read webcomics will send you links to strips they liked over email.

I don't read XKCD regularly anymore, though. It's still clever, and I still enjoy it when I read it. But despite its math-nerd relationship humor and insightful musings, it's not a terribly deep comic. And I miss its experimentation: the experimentation with contrasting art styles, with the fourth wall, with parody (and that A Softer World parody is spot-on, right down to the art and the alt-text). Between its present simplistic art and lack of ongoing plot/complex characters, if I did read XKCD regularly, it would fill the "quick read" category, and my quick-read needs are currently met by The Book of Biff and Thinkin' Lincoln.

XKCD is certainly not a bad comic, and I'd absolutely agree that it's good at what it does. But there are a few comics out there that, in my estimation, do the same things that XKCD does, but better. Let me share some of them with you.

Piled Higher and Deeper
Jorge Cham's Piled Higher and Deeper--PHD--is a little comic about getting your doctorate, and it has a number of things in common with XKCD. They both feature nerdy scientific charts. They both revel in academic esoterica. But there are two things PHD has that XKCD doesn't: sharp, colorful art, and a diverse cast of characters who learn and grow through their experiences of enduring higher-education bullcrap. You've got engineering nerd and chocoholic Cecilia, student activist Tajel, expert procrastinator Mike Slackenerny, and the strip's unnamed protagonist. PHD is smart, funny, and surprisingly relatable--I enjoy it, and I'm not even in grad school.

Rock, Paper, Cynic
Ever wish XKCD weren't so darn optimistic? Then Rock Paper Cynic is the comic for you. The creator, Peter Chiykowski, openly acknowledges a creative debt to XKCD, but unlike his inspiration, he goes for the throat with unmatched relentlessness. From morbid twists, to nerdy cynicism, to raw angry vulnerability, RPC delivers a caustic and critical edge. It's got your intellectual esoterica, and it's even got its own twisted brand of optimism.
It's creatively acerbic, and it updates daily. Decidedly not for the childrens, though--it can get pretty dark in there.

Chainsawsuit
So you like quick gags, few recurring characters with zero character development, and sketchy black-and-white art? Check out Chainsawsuit. Granted, it's not as intellectual as XKCD, but it's still darn funny. It specializes in unexpected twist endings, abject silliness, and juvenile gross-out humor--sometimes all three at once. In my opinion, Chainsawsuit shines hardest when it's parodying: as with Disastorm, the extended disaster-movie satire. Chainsawsuit even parodies XKCD!

To conclude: do you read XKCD regularly? If so, good. Keep on reading it. But if you like XKCD, chances are you'll also like these comics, so give 'em a look. They're good stuff.

Got a lot to talk about for this week! Let's get down to business.

First off, today's the last day of the Sheldon Caption Contest--check out this earlier post for the details and links. Also over at Sheldon, the recent economic downturn has hit Sheldonsoft, so Sheldon's gone to the only place on earth that could conceivably grant him a loan to keep his company afloat: the country of Dubai. All of the strips in the Dubai arc so far have been decently funny, but this one I found especially good. And it wasn't the punchline either! It was the fact that Arthur's approach to gaining wisdom is precisely what someone with a lot of facts but not much wisdom would do. Clever comic there, Mr. Kellett. (Because Dave Kellett is totally reading this blog right now, no really.)

In addition to the Sheldon Caption Contest, I have some other old news that I should have mentioned earlier. A couple weeks back, Thinkin' Lincoln had a guest week, featuring the likes of Eli Parker from Tall Comics, David Malki! of Wondermark, Reprographics' Chris Yates, Justin Pierce from Wonderella, and even the illustrious Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame. In case you haven't checked Thinkin' Lincoln in awhile, the guest comickery starts here.

Monday's Thinkin' Lincoln was also noteworthy for cracking me up. It features Amelia Earhart misunderstanding Lincoln's use of a common idiomatic expression. I won't spoil it for you--go check it out.

Nobody Scores finished up another tale of protracted suffering this week: "Nobody Scores with the Chip Invasion." One of the longest Nobody Scores comics to date--and the longest since its Summer Formatting Reboot, clocking in at eight separate installments--The Chip Invasion features an obnoxiously sociable friend of Sara's who turns out to work for the NSA. As the arc spirals toward its inexorable horrific end, we have spy robots, Chad's crush on Jane, insidious marketing schemes, and repeated incidents of police brutality (all of them perpetrated upon Beans). Also, out of nowhere, fungus. The carnage begins here.

Nobody Scores will also be starting another epically huge comic series on Saturday, so we can look forward to even more tales of misfortune and comic violence in the very near future. Hooray!

Another of our favorite long-form infinite-canvas comics nears the end of an extended storyline: none other than Dresden Codak. And I've got to say, Aaron Diaz has kind of made me eat my words. In the most recent installment, we discover that mankind did not evolve to a new level of machine consciousness and merge with the Hob after all; as always, it's difficult to piece together, but the dream sequence that began in Hob #20 apparently didn't end there. Kim's been in the hospital the whole time, left with one arm from her scrape with the time travelers, who seem to have been driven off. As always the art is good, so even if stuff is confusing, it's worth tuning in for that.

Boxer Hockey also updated this week, which has been a rare occurrence lately. And that's unfortunate, because when it does update, the action is quite well-rendered and pretty dang funny. Check out this week's installment to see what's going on with lost-at-sea Not-Gay Chuck, and how the team is faring without him.

So there's been a whole lot of funny this week, but for those wanting something a little deeper, turn your attention to Multiplex. With the release of Bill Maher's Religulous, this week's Multiplex arc picks up where Angie and Jason's dispute about Expelled left off several months ago. Angie finds Maher's go-for-the-throat brand of abrasive comedy insulting, so she walks out of Religulous. She and Jason get to discussing God and science again, and once again they hit a dead end. To be completely honest, I'm feeling kind of tired as I near the end of this entry, but it's customary for me to take note when religion shows up in webcomics, so: there it is. Religion at Multiplex.

And let's wrap it up with some Chainsawsuit. Thursday's comic had a big surprise in the second panel that cracked me up. It was Kris Straub's random standalone humor at its finest. And Chainsawsuit has been generally good lately, so if you're looking for some absurdity and a few good chuckles, take a browse through the recent archives.

So, that's what I liked this week. As always, the comments section is your own open invitation to tell us what you liked this week. Drop us a note and share the funny.

P.S. Real Life continues to be awesome. 'nuff said.

UPDATE-STYLE ADDENDUM TO LAST FRIDAY'S POST: So, no sooner do I express awe at the sheer volume of weekly comic strips that Kris Straub produces, than he decides to create even more comic per week. Chainsawsuit, the indie comic that parodies indie comics, will now be updating five times a week instead of three. This means that Kris Straub draws, on average, 2.4 comic strips every weekday. Dang.

Here's the big news for this week: in addition to his current projects Starslip Crisis and Chainsawsuit, Kris Straub has launched a new strip, F Chords. That's three strips. Seriously, the dude is a cartooning juggernaut. F Chords is about Ash and Wade, two studio musicians who have traded in their dreams of rock-and-roll stardom for the more accessible aspiration of playing music for radio commercials. It updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and there are already a couple strips in the archives, so hop on over and check it out.

So while Straub is upping his cartooning output, R. Stevens of Diesel Sweeties is cutting back. He will no longer be running a print edition of Diesel Sweeties, focusing his attention on the main site instead. The last day of comics.com Sweeties will be this Sunday, August 10th. After that, I guess we will all have to get by on just one Diesel Sweeties comic each weekday.

Over at Dr. McNinja, Chris and Kent aren't doing any comics this week--but that doesn't mean that other people aren't! It's the second-ever Dr. McGueststravaganza! My spell-checker tells me that isn't a real word in like five different ways. But anyway, Dr. McNinja has had a bunch of guest comics going up all this week, by such illustrious cartoonists as Kate Beaton and the Nedroid guy. Pretty sweet stuff--and a new Dr. McNinja story begins on Monday. I'm pumped.

Here's some more news about comebacks: Nobody Scores! returns! After taking a month off to retool his comic and general become more embettered (which is like being embittered but for quality), Brandon Bolt brings us the first installment of an extended story about arch-capitalist Sara Peterson's latest purchase. In general, the new Nobody Scores! will have slightly longer "episodes" overall, delivered in installments of slightly shorter shorter individual comics. The details of the new presentation format can be found in this here newspost.

That's all the news about cartoonists this week. Now let's have a quick look at a couple of strips I liked.

Tuesday's Cat and Girl delived a "sites of historical and cultural interest" take on the classic Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" routine. I thought it was a clever little tribute.

Also, as Ebert and Roeper end their run as co-hosts of "At the Movies", Joe Dunn has got a new pair of critics lined up. Who are they? They are awesome.

And that's the news for this week! Tune in next week for your regularly-scheduled Friday webcomics lowdown, plus a special feature on small comics.