Friday, December 19, 2008
Your Favorite Webcomics
So, what are your favorite webcomics? What's on your list of regulars, and why do you read them regularly? Drop a comment and let me know what you like to read, what strips you think are top-tier cartooning, what's funny, what's awesome. Have you ever had an experience where you trimmed down your check-regularly list and gained an increased appreciation for the comics you continued to read? I'm looking forward to hearing about your favorites.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Announcement: Calamities of Nature Guest Strip Contest
Sometimes, webcomics run guest strips. Sometimes the cartoonist asks a handful of his cartooning associates to create some guest strips for his comic, and other times he solicits openly to his entire readership. The cartoonist gets a brief break from his regular update schedule, and the guest cartoonists get a bit of publicity for their own projects. But with its upcoming guest strip contest, Calamities of Nature offers a little more than just publicity.
Calamities cartoonist Tony Piro has asked me to inform you: Calamities of Nature has announced its first guest strip contest. The 3 best strips submitted by December 22nd will have their comics featured as the December 28th, December 31st, and January 2nd updates. In addition, each winner will receive a signed copy of the Calamities of Nature Volume 1 collection. If you don't win, it's still all good. All other submissions will be featured in the blog individually on Tuesdays and Thursdays and have their comics saved in the gallery. For further details, see the official contest announcement.
You've got one week left, cartoonists! Get crackin'!
Calamities cartoonist Tony Piro has asked me to inform you: Calamities of Nature has announced its first guest strip contest. The 3 best strips submitted by December 22nd will have their comics featured as the December 28th, December 31st, and January 2nd updates. In addition, each winner will receive a signed copy of the Calamities of Nature Volume 1 collection. If you don't win, it's still all good. All other submissions will be featured in the blog individually on Tuesdays and Thursdays and have their comics saved in the gallery. For further details, see the official contest announcement.
You've got one week left, cartoonists! Get crackin'!
Friday, December 12, 2008
forgive me for not knowing how to do links on this blogthing
Hello, folkses! This is Alec, Jackson's friend, guest posting for this week's scheduled update of This Week in Webcomics. Now, Jackson and I do read a lot of the same comics, but I read a few others as well, so don't be surprised if some of the ones I'm going to be mentioning are familiar and some of them are not. So let's get on to the details then, shall we?
First off, a few comics you might want to take a look at: Nothing Better, by Tyler Page; and Goblins, by Tarol Hunt. These are both one-page-a-week comics, so they don't fit the TWIW paradigm exactly. A college comic, Nothing Better(1) tackles college life, and is currently wrapping up a nightmare sequence where an angry God confronts avowed Atheist Kat of the cast - and Goblins(2) has been in the throes of a confrontation between our heroes and an entire town of guardsmen and goblin killers for quite some time. Head to the main page of Nothing Better and hit the back button once to see all of the current issue up to this point all at once; for Goblins, I wouldn't start reading any earlier than the third book heading in the archives, or maybe even from the beginning :/
Several prominent webcomics have wrapped up some heavy stories this week: I am thinking of Sam and Fuzzy(3), Dr. McNinja(4) and Penny and Aggie(5), to be specific. Sam and Fuzzy just completed a storyline that was years of regular updates long, a feat rarely seen, and of course this means that new is the perfect time to catch up on this wonderful comic. Head to the Noosehead storyline and see for yourself how well all the pieces have been put together - http://www.samandfuzzy.com, people.
Dr. McNinja's plotline completed just today; the Doctor's final thoughts are available for perusal, and we, the readers, can puzzle for ourselves over what the future place of King Rad in the comic universe may end up being. I, for one, am hoping that there will be a bit more pseudo-medical expertise involved in his next caper - not that I'm complaining overly about the extreme antics of his ex-college buddy during the fight scenes in this chapter overmuch.
Penny and Aggie, an old time favorite of mine, is beginning to step into particularly difficult subject matter for me to grasp - girls being awful to girls, terrible cliques plotting school domination, and the like - but the emotional impact in the final pages of the story closing out this week was completely arresting. I won't say that it's undeniably entertaining or anything so ambitious, but I will say that for those of us who have been following the comic from the beginning and wondering what kind of a friend Penny is really, this was a real eye opener.
One more piece of comic recommendation for you folks: Princess Planet (6). I don't know if you'll all like it, but I do know if you read the most recent update and love it then you should start scouring the archives immediately.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Surprise Post!
Hey, it's Dan again, doing a completely unsolicited (and therefore unapproved) little spot.
Basically I'd like to call your attention to Ozy and Millie, which somehow I've never mentioned before. It's a sweet and intelligent strip, and even though it's run forever (since 1998!), a read through the archives is, in my opinion, completely necessary. And to think that I thought talking animals were overdone.
I would also like to point out SuperFogeys, which I just now decided is one of my favorites. Superheroes and super-villains in an old age home together? Awesome sauce.
And...that's enough for now. Also, hilarious. Enjoy! And please don't hurt me, Jackson.
Basically I'd like to call your attention to Ozy and Millie, which somehow I've never mentioned before. It's a sweet and intelligent strip, and even though it's run forever (since 1998!), a read through the archives is, in my opinion, completely necessary. And to think that I thought talking animals were overdone.
I would also like to point out SuperFogeys, which I just now decided is one of my favorites. Superheroes and super-villains in an old age home together? Awesome sauce.
And...that's enough for now. Also, hilarious. Enjoy! And please don't hurt me, Jackson.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Here it is! Here it is!
Welcome to December! Peter Metzger here, poking around these parts and guest-blogging my life away...
Let's jump in, shall we?
I've been a fan and regular reader of Real Life Comics for many years now, and after the epic-and-awesome fall storyline brought Tony and Dave back into the mix, I'm glad to see they'll also be appearing in comics actually based on real life! As noted in an earlier post (scroll down to the bottom), Greg and Liz are moving back to California. As a result, they (and hence, we) will be more likely to run into Tony and Dave - which I welcome gladly. The strip remained awesome while the Deans were in Texas, but I think the reintroduction of these two characters will bring back a dynamic that had been fading in the comic and will give Greg more material to draw from using characters we already know.
As a side note, the move back to California has necessitated a few guest strips over there at Real Life, and Monday's strip was provided by none other than our friend and author, Jackson Ferrell! Fun story about that - when I opened up the page on Monday and saw the comic, I thought to myself, "man, this guy draws a lot like Jackson... I ought to send him the link in case he hasn't seen this!" ...and then I scrolled down.
The other comic I've been reading for years, Penny Arcade, continues to fail... fail to disappoint, that is! (ooh, see what I... wasn't that clev... ok, never mind.) This week brought us a nice variety of comics, and as a tech support worker I particularly enjoyed Wednesday's comic. It was also nice to see the return of an old friend in Friday's strip.
On Monday, Gabe announced that last year's culinary contest of dubious artistic value (bottom of page) will return this year... so if you'd like to make some questionable cookies, you have until Monday (Dec. 8) to get pictures sent in.
In other news from the Penny Arcade front, the Child's Play charity is approaching the $750,000 mark in donations, which is 1) awesome, and 2) an amount I have trouble actually comprehending. At any rate, it's really cool that the charity is going to bring some joy to a huge number of sick kids this Christmas.
That's about it, we'll finish up with a quick sweep through a few other towns in webcomicland:
Borderline Boy continued to truck along this week, even with a dead computer! Wednesday's strip reminded me of this video, if only because Jay's coworker's name is Chad... the reference is from 1:30 into the video.
The latest Rob & Elliot was great - clay continues to tweak the artistic style of the comic, and the strip itself felt like a perfect blend of Penny Arcade and Pungirls... which means it was pure awesome.
Speaking of Pungirls, I will take this opportunity to officially continue to bug Jackson to draw a few more of them from time to time... I realize that it's basically a shelved project and that his focus is on Borderline Boy right now, but I love Pungirls so much I can't help but hold out hope for more! ...Also, I promise you Mr. Ferrell had nothing to do with the content of this post.
I just realized that I haven't read Toothpaste For Dinner in about a month, so I went back and caught up - there have definitely been some good ones lately. That's the nice thing about TFD - it's easy to consume them en masse if you so desire. It only took me a few minutes to catch up on a month of comics, while I've been trying to catch up on dinosaur comics for over a year. (I'm about halfway there).
That's all for this post, see you next time I'm conscripted for a guest entry!
-the pedro
Let's jump in, shall we?
I've been a fan and regular reader of Real Life Comics for many years now, and after the epic-and-awesome fall storyline brought Tony and Dave back into the mix, I'm glad to see they'll also be appearing in comics actually based on real life! As noted in an earlier post (scroll down to the bottom), Greg and Liz are moving back to California. As a result, they (and hence, we) will be more likely to run into Tony and Dave - which I welcome gladly. The strip remained awesome while the Deans were in Texas, but I think the reintroduction of these two characters will bring back a dynamic that had been fading in the comic and will give Greg more material to draw from using characters we already know.
As a side note, the move back to California has necessitated a few guest strips over there at Real Life, and Monday's strip was provided by none other than our friend and author, Jackson Ferrell! Fun story about that - when I opened up the page on Monday and saw the comic, I thought to myself, "man, this guy draws a lot like Jackson... I ought to send him the link in case he hasn't seen this!" ...and then I scrolled down.
The other comic I've been reading for years, Penny Arcade, continues to fail... fail to disappoint, that is! (ooh, see what I... wasn't that clev... ok, never mind.) This week brought us a nice variety of comics, and as a tech support worker I particularly enjoyed Wednesday's comic. It was also nice to see the return of an old friend in Friday's strip.
On Monday, Gabe announced that last year's culinary contest of dubious artistic value (bottom of page) will return this year... so if you'd like to make some questionable cookies, you have until Monday (Dec. 8) to get pictures sent in.
In other news from the Penny Arcade front, the Child's Play charity is approaching the $750,000 mark in donations, which is 1) awesome, and 2) an amount I have trouble actually comprehending. At any rate, it's really cool that the charity is going to bring some joy to a huge number of sick kids this Christmas.
That's about it, we'll finish up with a quick sweep through a few other towns in webcomicland:
Borderline Boy continued to truck along this week, even with a dead computer! Wednesday's strip reminded me of this video, if only because Jay's coworker's name is Chad... the reference is from 1:30 into the video.
The latest Rob & Elliot was great - clay continues to tweak the artistic style of the comic, and the strip itself felt like a perfect blend of Penny Arcade and Pungirls... which means it was pure awesome.
Speaking of Pungirls, I will take this opportunity to officially continue to bug Jackson to draw a few more of them from time to time... I realize that it's basically a shelved project and that his focus is on Borderline Boy right now, but I love Pungirls so much I can't help but hold out hope for more! ...Also, I promise you Mr. Ferrell had nothing to do with the content of this post.
I just realized that I haven't read Toothpaste For Dinner in about a month, so I went back and caught up - there have definitely been some good ones lately. That's the nice thing about TFD - it's easy to consume them en masse if you so desire. It only took me a few minutes to catch up on a month of comics, while I've been trying to catch up on dinosaur comics for over a year. (I'm about halfway there).
That's all for this post, see you next time I'm conscripted for a guest entry!
-the pedro
Friday, December 5, 2008
Ctrl-Alt-Del Runs 2nd Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Storyline
Greetings, the Internet! I emerge briefly from my webcomic-blogging hiatus to bring you important news.
A little over half a year ago, Ctrl-Alt-Del ran a choose-your-own-adventure-style comic storyline, in which readers voted to collectively determine the fate of Ethan McManus, space archaeologist. It was easily the most fun I've ever had reading CAD. I generally regard CAD as a mediocre gaming webcomic that does just enough right to enjoy disproportionate popularity, but frankly, I was impressed with Buckley's artwork and plotting for this one. Well, except for the sudden grisly ending, but nobody's perfect.
Anyway, I am momentarily taking a break from my blogging break to tell you that a second CAD choose-your-own-adventure is presently underway. I had a lot of fun reading and participating in the first one, and I wanted to let you know about the second. When the latest comic presents the readers with a choice, you can email your vote to CAD.VOTE (AT) GMAIL.COM. Together we can shape the fate of the universe.
And now, back to hibernation. I will see you all later.
A little over half a year ago, Ctrl-Alt-Del ran a choose-your-own-adventure-style comic storyline, in which readers voted to collectively determine the fate of Ethan McManus, space archaeologist. It was easily the most fun I've ever had reading CAD. I generally regard CAD as a mediocre gaming webcomic that does just enough right to enjoy disproportionate popularity, but frankly, I was impressed with Buckley's artwork and plotting for this one. Well, except for the sudden grisly ending, but nobody's perfect.
Anyway, I am momentarily taking a break from my blogging break to tell you that a second CAD choose-your-own-adventure is presently underway. I had a lot of fun reading and participating in the first one, and I wanted to let you know about the second. When the latest comic presents the readers with a choice, you can email your vote to CAD.VOTE (AT) GMAIL.COM. Together we can shape the fate of the universe.
And now, back to hibernation. I will see you all later.
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