Good evening everybody. For a change, I'm going to start today's post off with a Sunday strip. Just because there are so few webcomics that update on weekends, the ones that do tend to get short shrift in this blog...which is really a shame, because you get some really nice full-color strips from the newspaper-style dailies on Sundays.

Take, for instance, this past Sunday's Sinfest. It's a clever recasting of the current socio-economic/political situation as Star Wars Episode III: with the US as (Uncle) Samakin Skywalker, Liberty in the role of Padme Amidala, and Jesus as Obi-Wan Kenobi. The Devil corrupts Samakin by turning him to the corporate side of the Force, resulting in the death of Liberty (sniff). It's witty and well-illustrated, so go check it out.

Here at TWIW, we've been following storylines from a couple of the big dailies for a couple of weeks now: Real Life and Starslip Crisis. Over at RL, the mess that started with Tony, Fem-Tony and the Plot Hole continues to escalate: as the Government Agent crashes the party (having gone indie), Tony breaks out the Battlemech. I totally enjoyed the original storyline that introduced Tony's Battlemech--and maybe it's just because he's working on the comic full-time now, but Greg's mecha-drawing skills have become dramatically more realistic. Not only is this some of the most engaging material from Real Life in a long time, but it's also some of the most artistically impressive. And true to form, today's comic revealed yet another twist to end the week on a cliffhanger. You've got my number, Greg Dean.

So, while the Real Life storyline continues, we turn our attention to the conclusion of Vanderbeam's ordeal with the horrifying mask exhibit at Starslip. In the end, Vanderbeam's solution amounts to chickening out--and Starslip moves on. A couple of strips from this week interested me, in which Vanderbeam and Jinx muse amusingly on the topic of a higher power. Even the normally light-hearted Starslip Extra has Vanderbeam contemplating the elegant cosmic functioning of stars, a little Starslip spin on the teleological argument. Vanderbeam might well make a case for a Cosmic Designer based on the order in the universe, but his tenuous grasp of astrophysics riddles his mini-monologue with scientific inaccuracies...which Jinx calls him on. In the second philosophical Starslip strip, Jinx's alien thought processes (and other processes) deliver the humor, as Vanderbeam inquires into the deepest beliefs and convictions at the core of the Cirbozoid's being. Bill Watterson once said of Hobbes, "An animal perspective sheds some light on religious questions," and apparently the same goes for space aliens.

Over at F Chords, Kris Straub delivered another strip that was interesting to me, if for no other reason than it contained old people. Turns out that Ash owns an apartment in a complex largely inhabited by senior citizens. Ash's neighbor Oscar seems like a nice ol' codger, and I hope we get to see some more of him. In this strip he's mostly there to provide characterization for Ash, but he may get some development of his own down the road. We'll see.

In other news, Thursday's Book of Biff was not just good for a laugh, but also well-crafted. The art on this one is nothing complex, but I think it's really effective. The varying line weights and quasi-isometric perspective really make that cement block look like it's hovering surreally over the sink basin, which is what really sells the punchline for me. I seriously enjoyed the quality and efficiency of the art.

And now, in the interests of time, let's wrap this up with everyone's favorite...

Update Boxers and News Briefs

• @Penny Arcade: Mega Man 9 returns the series to its roots, and it likewise returns gamers to theirs


• @Penny Arcade's Fallout 3 comic series: The vault-dweller has left the vault, puppet in hand, and now braves the dangers of the wastes
  
• @Shortpacked!: Rock Band Week begins here


• @A Softer World: a deeply personal address to our nations future


• @My Stupid Life: the classic lightbulb joke, for web cartoonists. Too true, too true.

And that's a wrap for this week. The promised in-depth look at Rice Boy is in the works; my plan is to start reading through it again tomorrow, gather topics to talk about and comic pages to link to, and work on the entry as I get time next week. Ari will see you on Wednesday, and I'll be back next Friday with the usual rundown. Thanks for tuning in, guys, and have a good weekend!

Welcome back, folks. For those who haven't been back since last Friday, we slipped in a couple special feature things while you weren't looking: an interview with Multiplex creator Gordon McAlpin, and a review of the unique "wordless" webcomic Pear Pear. Check it out! If you haven't already, I mean. Or you could check it out again, that's cool too.

But that's old news, and it's time for new news. First of all, Real Life continues the storyline it began last week, with alternate-genderswapped-universe Greg and Tony trying to find the source of the Plot Hole in their dimension. While riding the elevator up to Real Tony's space station, a surprise comes to light: Liz's male dimensional counterpart has been dead for over a year. Sort of a sobering moment, but at the same time, the revelation sets up two extremely funny jokes. And then today's comic delivers a plot twist that has got me, for one, awaiting the next installment with bated breath. It's a weekend cliffhanger, no less! Man.

Also this past week, Sinfest wrapped up a series of strips in which Squigley signs up to be Slick's running mate...as "Sarah Piglin." Political parody ensues, building to a head with the appearance of Senator Obama as a guitar-slinging Barackstar. Pretty funny series if you're not a diehard blood-red Republican, but even I, broadminded as I am, found Squigley's political cross-dressing kind of weird and disturbing.

Shortpacked! (LOOK OUT, SPOILERS AHEAD) has been building toward the appearance of a special guest at the toy store all week, and in today's comic, it is revealed to be David Willis himself, proposing to his longtime girlfriend Maggie Weidner. Aww! And Maggie bounces right back with her own cartoonified acceptance. Congratulations, guys! Okay! END SPOILERS!

Welcome back, spoiler-avoiding people. Let's have a few quick Update Boxers and News Briefs, and then call it an entry.

Update Boxers and News Briefs:

• @You'll Have That: This is the first time I've ever seen a comic strip that teaches the reader how to play a song about one of its characters. Super-creative awesomeness from Wes Molebash!


• @Diesel Sweeties: Cleverest visual pun ever? Made me laugh out loud as soon as I got it.


• @Cat and Girl: Bad Decision Dinosaur spotted last week...but wait, why is there a big "M" on his shirt? Speculation ensues! And in today's comic, all is revealed.

Man, I love Cat and Girl so much you guys. Have a good weekend, and I'll see you all next week.

EDIT: Somehow it slipped my mind to mention that last Wednesday was a Ryan Estrada Guest Comic Day! Ryan Estrada did guest strips for 70 different webcomics, and if you like webcomics a lot (which you do), chances are you ran into at least one of them. You can get the complete lowdown over at Ryan's personal site, ryanestrada.com.

Welcome back for another week-in-review installment of TWIW.

This morning, as I got up and began making the webcomic-reading rounds, my visit to Sinfest was met with this ominous portent. Does this mean the end of Sinfest? I gotta say, I hope not. I suppose we'll all find out tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you've got any insights, please do share them. I'm perplexed here.

(UPDATE: It's Saturday now, and Sinfest continues as usual. I'm relieved, but I also feel kind of silly. Oh well.)

More big news: Dr. McNinja is now in...well, I won't give away the big surprise. Suffice it to say that the awesome adventures of the good doctor will henceforth be even more awesome. Just ask yourself what could possibly make the presentation of this comic even more awesome, and you may even guess what the big change is. Did I mention that it's awesome? It's awesome.

Also awesome is Penny Arcade's latest project. I greatly enjoyed the first two installments in the Fallout computer game series, a tactical RPG series taking place in a retro-styled post-apocalyptic future, so it's a nice treat when webcomics make reference to them. Obviously, then, I was delighted to learn that Penny Arcade is collaborating with Bethesda Software to bring us illustrated Fallout ridiculousness! They've taken the concept of Fallout's Vaults as sociological experiments, put a hilarious spin on it, and now they are delivering on their premise. In fact, they are delivering it every Wednesday. I can't believe I have to wait 'til Wednesday for the next one!

On a related note, Monday's Penny Arcade was one of the funniest I've read in a long time.

And as long as we're flashing back, this is not the most recent Rob and Elliot comic, but I found it exceptionally funny. It features a freshly-squeezed spin on the classic "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it" gag, plus a subtle and implied parody of the Kool-Aid Man. Furthermore, it includes an appearance by the second-funniest land mammal. No, it's not a bear! Bears are the third-funniest land mammal. Get with the program.

For our final exhibit, the most recent Joe Loves Crappy Movies strip demonstrates the power of economy of language in a comic strip. Brevity truly is the soul of wit! And on that note, it's time to cut this entry short.

I bid you adieu, dear readers. Until next week!

Well, the big news in webcomics this week is that everyone and his webcomicking mother is at San Diego Comic Con. This means that the Penny Arcade guys are drawing comics on a series of hotel bedside notepads, Greg Dean is pulling what must be a parody of Shirt Guy Dom days, and David Willis is drawing comics in which I initially mistake Maggie for Amber. And comics in which he tries to enslave his fans. You only think I'm kidding.

Is Tatsuya Ishida of Sinfest at Comic-Con? I have no idea; the man is shrouded in mystery. But what I do know is, Sinfest this week began with a pun so bad it borders on blasphemy! And from there it took the gag and ran with it. I'm not going to give it away, but let's just say it involves Jesus Christ doing athletic warm-up exercises in preparation for saving mankind from their sins.

Fearless Cartoon Illustrator Brandon Bolt is most certainly at Comic-Con--but in an unofficial capacity, certainly not with a booth or anything. But! Before departing for the Con, he left us with Adventures in Being Made Fun of By Your Roommates starring the hapless and undateable Beans Mulroney. It's on the short side by Nobody Scores standards, but of course this means it is only twelve panels long. The great thing about Nobody Scores comics is that they have the space to develop a truly disastrous narrative.

In other news, this strip from Gunnerkrigg Court
[BEGIN SPOILERS!]hints at a possibility that fills my soul with elation: magic robots. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love robots, and the only way I could possibly love them any more is if they were magic-powered. You can blame Final Fantasy VI for this. [END SPOILERS] Wow. That big white space makes it look like I just gave away Reynardine's secret origin or something. I assure you, it's nothing so momentous as that.

In Starslip Crisis this week, Vanderbeam begins his curatorship aboard the Sai Kan and meets the staff. Embarrassingly, of course.

That's this week's news from me--so now let's have some news from you. Have you seen any noteworthy webcomic strips this week, related to Comic-Con or otherwise? Dan Echt, are you hangin' around? Wanna give us the latest on Questionable Content? Readers, let us hear from you.

And now, let's wrap things up with a...

BAD DECISION DINOSAUR SIGHTING: Bad Decision Dinosaur last spotted on a park bench talking to a cowboy.

Uhhgh...mfff. Nerghh. What time is it?

It's time for a review of the week in webcomics.

Let's start off with two of my favorite M-W-F comics, Gunnerkrigg Court and Penny and Aggie. In premise, these two comics have just about as little in common as conceivably possible: one's the science-fantasy adventures of a stoical little girl at a weird, mysterious boarding school, and the other's this down-to-earth teen drama thing with lots of hate and friendship and other interpersonal emotions, and no fantastic stuff whatsoever. But in their current storylines, they have one thing in common: plays. And I loves me some Shakespeare and some swordfights, so these are welcome developments.

Sinfest this week has turned its focus on Pooch the dog taking coolness lessons from Percy the cat, which means that this week it moves from "comic my mom would not enjoy" to "comic my mom would enjoy." Sinfest really is a peculiar comic: it's certainly edgy and sharp and crass, but it has a definite newspaper-strip sensibility to it, and not just in presentation. In spite of the characters' egoism and debauchery, a lot of its humor hinges on a theme that would be right at home in the funny pages: the notion that in spite of our well-crafted veneers, we're messy and flawed and we really just want to be loved.

Except for Percy, who, like all cats, is too cool for school.

Anyways! Let's talk about cartoonists going absent and returning from absences. After a rather quiet several weeks, Joe Dunn returns to the urgent business of loving crappy movies. We celebrate his return with much rejoicing! Yaaay. The most recent comic about Wall-E is particularly good.

Even as Joe Dunn returns triumphantly, Brandon Bolt of Nobody Scores is giving his comic its yearly vacation, but not before leaving us with this wonderful gem, illustrating the inevitable, hilarious fallout between longtime friends Jane and Sara. When Nobody Scores returns from vacation, it will be fresh and re-engineered for maximum calamity. We eagerly await its return!

I'll be danged if Monday's Cat and Girl didn't make me laugh out loud. C&G often uses this formula for a strip, wherein Girl gives a very serious, earnest conceptual dissection of a shortcoming of modernity/postmodernity, and Cat's final line is an apparent non-sequitur that actually relates to the topic at hand in some absurdist fashion. And C&G creator Dorothy Gambrell generally has the chops to fill the formula with interesting content, so I'm a fan of strips like that. Tuesday's topic was mystery: in the Information Age, what remains that hasn't been mapped out and served to us on a Google platter? As it turns out, Cat himself is full of mystery. Now go read that comic, okay?

One final quick note: I was a big ol' fan of The New Adventures of Captain S during its first-season run. Captain S is a webshow that parodies and pays tribute to both Captain N and 90s sitcoms in equal measure. There's no second season yet, but there is currently an all-new webcomic-format tale, updated weekly. You can start reading it here.

Okay, and that's a wrap! See you next week. Time to go do productive things now.