The Pick of the Day

As long-time readers of this blog know, in my Twitter feed I have a "Webcomics Pick of the Day" as a semi-regular feature. Some weeks I have more to share than others, but in the past week or two I feel that we've had some particularly tweet-worthy picks.

Thus, it's time for a special #pickoftheday edition of...

• In this post-fourth-of-July strip, Greg Dean of Real Life offers a useful lesson on physics and photography for those attempting to photograph fireworks. Informative and irascible!


• Toy Story 3 has made a well-deserved splash not only at the box office, but also among webcartoonists. I've seen a number of strips and reviews, but what stood out to me was this touchingly geeky tribute from Hijinks Ensue.
  (Also, if you haven't seen it yet, go see Toy Story 3.)


• In addition to its regular storyline and some timely Fourth of July tales, Axe Cop also brings a one-off spin-off introducing the Zombie Vampire Hunter team Jack and John. It's not the first time Axe Cop has addressed matters of theology, but Jack and John's story sheds further light on the nature of God and good vs. evil in the Axe Cop universe. You know I'm a sucker for religion in comics...


• Zorphbert and Fred, of Dawn Griffin's comic Zorphbert and Fred, have their own twitter accounts by which to provide an alien perspective on human culture--including their own Webcomic Picks of the Day. Lately they've taken a liking to Max vs. Max and the insights that it provides into the online dating experience. Zorphbert and Fred, you guys have good taste in webcomics!
  One thing I enjoy about Z&F's picks is that they regularly read an entirely different segment of webcomics than I do. If you're a twitterer, checking out their feeds (@Zorphbert and @and_Fred) can expose you to some good comics that you might otherwise not encounter. It's a good way to broaden your webcomic horizons.

11/2: Week in Review

Welcome back, everyone. I hope you had a good weekend, and now it's time to start your week with webcomics. In the tradition of This Week in Webcomics tradition, let's look over the past week and see what's been good.

In Monday's Real Life strip, what starts as an exchange between nerd couple Greg and Liz turns into an exploration of the different forms of geekery. It goes on to expose the face of a prejudice deeper than racial and economic biases: that of nerdism.

Nobody Scores dished out several quality comics this past week, but this update casts Jane Doe's life as a movie, and her circle of friends and acquaintances as the supporting cast. The image of Sara frowning in the playplace ball pen is fantastic, and the riffing on movie trailers is pretty humorous overall. It takes an abrupt and hilarious twist for the postscript, so check it out.

Also, this week I found out via press release that the webcomic SMASH has finished its 12th episode, with almost 140 pages of comic content under its belt. In the Episode 12 finale, ten-year-old superhero Smash faces off against his arch-enemy, an insane mastermind known as the Magus. I haven't had time to check it out fully, but I can tell from a brief read that the creative team of Chris and Kyle Bolton are putting out a quality comic here. The art looks like one part Calvin and Hobbes to one part Marvel Comics, and it's dynamic and well-detailed. You can read the season finale, or start reading from the very beginning of season one. If you like reading offline, you can even download season one in a PDF.

It's been a busy weekend, but when I have the time, I'm definitely going to have to come back to this comic.

A few other comics from this week that I thought were good:

• This week's Matriculated: NEW SHIRT! Between Phil Chan's writing and Joe Dunn's expressive, animated artwork, Matriculated can take the mundanities of a trip to the mall and make something engaging and humorous out of them.
• Unwinder's Tall Comics. UTC has been updating with a vengeance and producing some very funny material since mid-September, so if you're not up to speed, swing by and catch up.
• A surprise visit from Twisp and Catsby at Penny Arcade, bringing the Halloween.

I was going to do a whole rundown of Halloween comics, but instead, let's get a little reader interaction going on. Did you come across a memorable Halloween-themed strip this past week? Drop a link in the comments and share some Halloween webcomic funtimes with us all.

8/21: Friday Bullet Points

If you haven't seen yesterday's comic-form interview with the creators of Blank It, I'd encourage you to hop down an entry and check it out. But now it's time for...

• The Multiplex Store launches today. This is especially exciting for me because I am the merch guy! If you place an order, I'll be the guy shipping out your t-shirts and stuff to you. Stop by the store and check out the selection--Gordon McAlpin and I are both very pleased with the shirt designs we've got available, and more are in development right now.
• In shirt-related-but-non-me-related news, Real Life has done something innovative and awesome this week. Every comic this week was scripted by a Real Life reader! Greg Dean sorted through each day's submissions and created the strip whose idea he liked best. It's a hilarious Shirt Ninja adventure with an epic climax, and it's well worth checking out.
• Cat and Girl has been similarly at the top of its game this week. It brought us comics about the youth-afflicting social disease sickle cell bohemia and late-80s edutainment software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I learned to type with Mavis Beacon, and I, like Girl, always thought Mavis Beacon really existed, as some celebrity of education. Only thing is, what the heck was Thursday's comic about?

And that's the news. Have a good weekend, and buy lots of shirts! We at This Week in Webcomics are nothing if not shameless.

7/6: Bullet Points

Sometimes it's a good day for webcomics--or at least for the webcomics that you follow. Today gave me more than enough cool material for a week-in-review post, which was convenient, because I'm planning on doing the Marooned review for tomorrow. Gentlemen, behold: entertainment!

• Terence N. Tijuana gives three gags for the price of one: canceled meetings and time travel paradoxes.
• This week at The Book of Biff, all comics have the caption "Not all hobbies can be combined successfully," with a variety of hilarious results. The failed hobby combinations start here.
• Over at Real Life, Pepsi Natural presents new challenges for Greg's Pepsi fanaticism
• At Blank It: as the new, phantomesque, unnamed female cast member loses her cool, we get to see what she looks like in color. It comes as no surprise that she's quite pretty.

Additionally, I've happened across some cool comic-related things today (and yesterday) that aren't recent updates, so I'm gonna pull an Unwinder and link indiscriminately here...

Stumble Across Cool Things Theater
I had an amusing idea for a banner for this but it would take too long to draw

• Did you know that Tauhid Bondia of Good Ship Chronicles also makes a comic for the online game Star Pirates?
• Greg Nog delivers a thoroughly entertaining series of 26 comic strips about the cartoonist's experiences as an Olive Garden server
• Bad-dad strip Crowbar Benson has more poor parenting skills than you can shake a hockey stick at. This is not the way to answer the which-kid-do-you-love-more question.

Enjoy the excellent comics, and I will see you tomorrow.

5/22: Week in Review

Some webcomics--say, The Phoenix Requiem--are primarily story-driven, and each update follows consistent characters while developing an ongoing plot. On the other end of the spectrum, some comics--and here I am thinking of Chainsawsuit--deliver continuity-free updates of "disposable internet humor" and eschew even a recurring cast. In between, there's an entire continuum ranging from one-off strips to story-driven comics, and it's not too hard to find a webcomic that strikes your preferred balance.

Where am I going with this? Well, sometimes a one-off, humor-driven webcomic will establish a measure of continuity, not through a storyline, but through themes. Sheldon often does this: Dave Kellett will often do a series of strips on the topic of, say, houseguests, or what happens when one member of a hive-mind race gets a song stuck in its head. In strips like these, you have continuity of theme, but not necessarily narrative continuity, and it just so happens that a lot of comics are riffing on a theme this week.

Huh. That was a rather long introduction.

Anyway, The Book of Biff is already well-known for its "themed weeks." This week's theme takes the idea to its logical extreme: a single recurring panel with nothing changed but the caption, and Biff's shirt/pants colors, because it's a new day and ostensibly he would change his clothes. Stroke of genius, or simple laziness? You be the judge.

Real Life this week delivers a fresh take on one of its oldest recurring jokes. It begins when Liz finds Greg practicing his Japanese with the Rosetta Stone software. When Liz brings up Greg's flawless grasp of Japanese as the Shirt Ninja, Greg is quick to disavow all knowledge. "The What Ninja, now?" As Liz enlists the help of Tony and Dave, the attempt to expose the Shirt Ninja becomes increasingly ridiculous. I enjoy Real Life's humor most when there's some measure of connection between each day's joke, so this has been a good RL week for me.

Gill this week delivers a short storyline: when Gill beats his video game "King Mubo," he needs a new diversion. However, new video games run at least fifty dollars these days. So, he spends the week trying to convince his mom to purchase a new one. The story arc is of the sort often found in newspapers: largely present to deliver humor, and making no significant changes to the strip's status quo. But it's funny, and as a child of the 80s, weaned on the NES and the Sega Genesis, I could identify with Gill's plight.

Finally, I'd like to make a few quick notes unrelated to the topic of "themes"...

• The Halfpixel Crew has a new contest for the musically inclined: create a dance mix prominently featuring the laugh(s) of Brad Guigar. The winner will receive one book from each of the members of Halfpixel. If you regularly listen to their Webcomics Weekly Podcast, you're already familiar with Guigar's ridiculous laugh. Check out the contest rules and the entrants so far.


• Unwinder's Tall Comics has really been on fire lately. This comic spoofs popular literature of all sorts, from Twilight to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and culminates with Unwinder's truly inspired mash of classics with the horror genre. Also, the most recent comic delivers tall comics in a new medium: sidewalk chalk.

And that concludes this week's recap. What comics have you enjoyed this week? Share a link in the comments!

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.

Funny Of The Week!

Hi Everybody!

Peter Metzger here with a new feature of TWIW, tentatively called "Peter's Pick(s) of the Past... Week." Any suggestions for improvements on the name will be read with enthusiasm. I'll be posting these on a fairly regular basis, usually on Friday night sometime but probably occasionally on Saturday. The focus will be on my favorite funny strip (or storyline) of the week, but in cases where I just can't help myself, I'll likely post a few.

So, enough with the introduction, let's get started! I found this week's Real Life Comics storyline to be highly entertaining, and I especially liked Greg's photo evidence of his wife's 'Real Life' bento skills (see the blog post that goes with Thursday's comic).

I was going to stop with that, but as you can see, I didn't. Friday's Penny Arcade strip took me by surprise and made me ell-oh-ell! (yeah, ok, sorry for that.)

In closing, I've also enjoyed all of this month's Toothpaste For Dinner comics... not bad for a comic that's usually hit-and-miss for me!

Don't forget to post your comments about a) a better name for this feature, b) thoughts on the comics I've posted, and 3) comics YOU found funny!

See you next week! (figuratively, of course)
-Peter

P.S. Don't forget about this week's actual TWIW review-style post!

1/9: Week in Review

For the past week, the world of Starslip Crisis has been in crisis. The reality-policing organization Deep Time has planted a bomb at the core of Jupiter that will erase the main characters' entire universe from reality: past, present, and future. All week long, as the bomb ticks down, Vanderbeam and crew have been scrambling to save as much of the universe as they can, whether by defusing the bomb or simply by escaping via starslip drive. Yesterday's comic featured the final ten seconds of last-minute panic. And today's comic breaks all of reality with its genius. I seriously thought something was wrong with the site until I figured out what was going on.

Real Life this week has featured some good laughs. After a recent storyline, techie geek Dave found himself carrying around the supercomputer PAL in his brain, and this past week has seen Dave trying to get PAL out. But Dave must first acquire hardware to download PAL's systems into: a task which Dave undertakes with gusto.

Two items of very-long-comics news this week:

Nobody Scores breaks in the new year with considered reflections on aging, then follows up with Sara's latest business scheme: "Fear Itself(tm)." What is "Fear Itself?" Apparently, a consultation service in which agents expose you to a series of truly terrifying things so that your own problems seem much less intimidating by comparison. But accidents happen, and in typical Nobody Scores fashion, Sara's scheme is thwarted by a lack of competent help. And her own flaring temper.

The postscripts are great.

Very-long-comics news #2: Unwinder's Tall Comics has an update for us this week! In this installment, Unwinder's friend Howard develops the ability to read minds. As he reads the minds of his friends, hilarity ensues, although it is hilarity dependent on the personalities of his friends. If you have never read Unwinder's Tall Comics before, this is probably not the best one to start in on. A better introduction would probably be this comic.

In video-game news, Joe Dunn and Phil Chan of Matriculated fame have teamed up to debut a brand new comic strip: Another Videogame Webcomic. What sets it apart from other gaming comics is that it's also a workplace comic; the main characters, Player One and Player Two, actually work inside the games, donning Street Fighter costumes or full-body Pong Paddle suits as the job requires. Think Ctrl-Alt-Del's "Players," but with less graphic violence and more funny, by which I mean any kind of funny at all. Another Videogame Webcomic already has nine comics up for you to peruse, and it promises to do for video games what Joe Loves Crappy Movies has done for movies, so check it out.

Speaking of CAD, if you tune into CAD for one storyline this year, let it be the current choose-your-own-adventure storyline, featuring Ethan McManus: Space Archaeologist. At present, our protagonist is in dire straits, pursued by mercenaries and with one broken arm as he tries to track down the ancient Mesocron of Knowledge. His fate is in your hands! And the hands of a hundred thousand nitwits across the internet.

UPDATE: The first installment of post-Hob Dresden Codak marks a return to form, with the first of two parts of a second Dungeons and Discourse adventure. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I suppose. Diaz is employing a slightly different art style--a more subtle color palette and thin/no outlines--but largely it's the same lavishly-illustrated abstruse philosophy-of-science jokes you've come to know and feel strongly about. I would just like to note that "Kierkeguardian" is the best class name ever.

So, that wraps up this week-in-review. Have a good weekend, and be sure to come back on Monday and Tuesday. Tony Piro from Calamities of Nature will share his his thoughts with us on the comic form, social commentary, archetypal characters, and (of course) religion. With too much insight into cartooning for a single installment, it's a two-part interview that you won't want to miss!

My Favorite Webcomics: Part 1 of Something

Greetings, webcomic enthusiasts! After an extended period of guest blogging (special thanks to Jen, Daniel, Peter, and Alec), I have returned to that noble task of talking with you about webcomics. And we have a lot to catch up on!

See, the week before Thanksgiving, my old computer died on me. Fixing the problem was a good deal more complicated than it had to be: going to one guy for the diagnosis, another guy to recover my data, and (after much shopping around) purchasing a new computer from a third place entirely. During this time, I was without my comic bookmarks, having to go to libraries and coffee shops for internet, typing in comic URLs from memory.

And it's funny how an experience like that changes your perspective. Some of my old regulars I only remembered to check a few times during that period. Some of 'em I didn't miss. And the comics that I did remember to check, I gained a new appreciation for; it made me realize exactly why it is that I keep checking back with them.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here it is: my list of regulars, and why I read them regularly.

Real Life Comics: I read Real Life because Greg Dean is a solid humorist. Every now and then the comic blows me away with something like the recent Tony's-Space-Station-Explodes Storyline, but even when it's not at its peak, it's consistently good. The art's sharp and serves the gags well, it updates reliably, and it's always good for at least a smile.

Shortpacked: Shortpacked is ridiculous. Its cast of young-adult toy-store employees are pretty much all case studies in arrested development. And then there's the over-the-top unrealities like the talking car working for the store. Willis does have a penchant for heavy-handed drama that is most apparent in Shortpacked's early years, but I think he's learned that the strip is best served when he's parodying his own over-the-top melodramatic proclivities. And he does full-page full-color comics five days a week!

The Book of Biff: A one-panel comic with a cast of one, The Book of Biff is always good for a quick laugh. Absurdity, nonsense, and unorthodox solutions to everyday problems, five days a week.

Sheldon: Dave Kellett is a consummate craftsman when it comes to comics. He's got a sharp and expressive style characterized by very expressive characters, plus a great sense of comedic timing. It's also one of the most accessible geek-humor strips I know. You don't have to get every nerdy reference to appreciate Kellett's humorous dialogue and punchlines, and underneath there's a weird but warm family vibe with Sheldon's quirky household.

Thinkin' Lincoln: Famous historical dudes and ladies have anachronistic adventures. Very weird, often funny. I hardly even mind the disembodied-head thing anymore.

F Chords: Kris Straub has got a little something for everyone. There was Checkerboard Nightmare for lampooning webcomics, Starslip Crisis for fans of sci-fi humor with an ongoing developing story, and Chainsawsuit for random, sarcastic, crudely-drawn "indie" comics. And now there's F Chords for musicians and people with unrealized dreams. In my opinion, this comic has the strongest cartooning voice of all Straub's work to date, and the reader can immediately connect with Wade and Ash's maybe-hopeless rockstar ambitions. There's a Charlie-Brown vibe of failure and self-conscious lameness to the two main characters, but the most recent storyline ended with the boys playing a modestly successful rock show to a crowd of maybe ten, so we'll see where things go from here.

Huh! Even with the trims I've made to my list of regulars, this is turning out longer than I thought! I think I'm gonna break this up into a couple of posts here. Expect a continuation of the list on Monday, and the final installment on Wednesday. In the meantime, I'm interested in knowing what's on your list of regulars. I'll start a thread for discussion, and you can share your regulars with us and (if you wish to go into detail) why you like 'em. Head to the thread, and let's do a little talkin'.

It's good to be back in the saddle. See ya Monday, and happy holidays to all y'all.

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

Hey, welcome back! Good to see you here. Let's talk about webcomics I liked this week! We can also talk about webcomics you liked this week. But we will do that when we reach the comments section.

First of all, let's get that complicated continuity stuff out of the way. Real Life continues its Plot-Hole/Alternate-Gender-Universe/Government-Agent storyline this week, as the crew escapes the destruction of Tony's space station...minus Tony. I am, of course, sworn to avoid spoilers, so in order to find out what fate truly befell Tony, I recommend that you read this week's installment from the beginning.

In other continuity news, Nobody Scores continues its Ultimate Death Martial-Arts Tournament, where kung fu meets reality TV in a grisly battle royale. This week: Sara's mom drops by to criticize her daughter, and Jane gets masterfully drunk.

And finally, for Penny and Aggie fans who have wondered if Aggie would ever reveal her affections for Marshall, wonder no further. ...Ouch. It's been a hard week for Aggie. I really feel for her.

But okay! With all that continuity and development of ongoing plotlines out of the way, we can turn our attention to standalone humor and randomness!

Let's start off with a few selections from this week's comics at Thinkin' Lincoln. It turns out that to cheer himself up, Lincoln likes to draw turtles having fun. And we get to see his drawings! Hand-drawn elements in Thinkin' Lincoln are always a fun change of pace in my book, in part because I will probably never fully get over that whole disembodied head thing. Abe subsequently overdoes it, however, and we may never see the turtles again.

And speaking of Thinkin' Lincoln, this Dinosaur Comics could have been a Thinkin' Lincoln strip. I know that DC is a major influence on Thinkin' Lincoln, but it's interesting to see the influence extending in the other direction. Frig yes, people.

Continuing on the subject of one-offs and discontinuity: after its recent Emaline-dates-Omar storyline reached a climax with Steve punching Omar Patel in the jaw, You'll Have That abruptly switched tracks on Monday. The comic in question is well-crafted, sweet, and is a thoughtful expression of the cartoonist's religious values without being aggressive or pushy...but its context in the archives is sort of weird. Especially when it's followed by Andy "bringing back the circle game". Still, bottom line is that it's a good strip, and I'm always on the lookout for religion in webcomics, so I figured it was worth mentioning.

And now, let's conclude my part of this entry. Take it away, Update Boxers!

Update Boxers and News Briefs

• Three Panel Soul does what it does best: reflects on the tension between immaturity and adulthood


• Rob and Elliot features cameos from Joe Dunn and Tom Brazelton


• Biff from The Book of Biff throws a webcomics garage sale

I'll be back on Monday with a new post. In the meantime, it's time for your part of the entry. Got a strip from this week that you'd like to share? Reactions to stuff I mentioned? Thoughts on webcomics in general? Share 'em in the comments!

Hey there once again, everybody. It's 12:30 as I begin this entry: it's time for lunch, and it's time for webcomics.

At Starslip Crisis this week, Cutter and Holiday have been watching their favorite show: the 21st-century crime-drama, Concrete Universe. Frankly, I didn't get a lot of laughs out of it. "Concrete Universe" tends to be a one-note joke, as the show's writers' tenuous grasp of 20th-century history results in anachronistic technology and slang. I mean, sure, there's another level there where it parodies the inaccuracy of our own "historical" films and TV, but it's just the same dang joke over and over again. Nonetheless, I chuckled at the punchline to this strip. It would seem that, whatever else may change, ham-handedly "clever" television dialogue is a timeless phenomenon.

Also this week, the judges over at the WebComic Readers' Choice Awards have selected their winners! You can check out the website yourself and see how your favorite comics placed, and maybe get introduced to a new comic. Particularly interesting is that to celebrate Angie Kurokami's first-place victory for "Best Supporting Character," Multiplex creator Gordon McAlpin produced an Awards-Ceremony acceptance speech comic in which Angie thanks the readers for their support. It's pretty neat, and it captures all the traits that make Angie such a strong supporting character.

Also over at Multiplex, in a reference to recent news of Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2, apparently Franklin has been recast as well. But wait, now there are two Franklins? It must be a time warp! The whole thing makes a nice balance to the heavier Religulous storyline of two weeks ago, and plus it's really amusing.

Also, Dresden Codak's Hob Saga reached its final installment today. I'm still a little unclear on what actually happened toward the tail end of the storyline, and the final comic has done little to clear up the muddled plotting that preceded it. Still, it at least sorta brings things full-circle thematically, and ends on a light-hearted tone reminiscent of the Hob story's beginning. I do think DC is at its best when Aaron Diaz is doing unpretentious intellectual weirdness, and of course I'm interested in seeing what's ahead for DC now. Hopefully it'll be either a return to form or a more successful experiment. We'll see.

And finally, let's close out with miscellaneous humor from Thinkin' Lincoln, F Chords, and The Book of Biff. And:

Real Life Corner
about Real Life the webcomic, not about life outside of the internet

In Real Life's current extended storyline, a visit to supergenius Tony Flansaas intended to fix the plot hole in X-Tony and X-Greg's home dimension has met with unexpected complications: namely, the appearance of Tony's arch-nemesis, the Government Agent, accompanied by a clone of Tony. Last week, the clone engaged Tony's base's self-destruct sequence, and this week, everyone hurries to escape. Well, almost everyone. I'm not going to give it away, but rather than a cliffhanger, today's strip ends with a big twist. Does this mean what I think it means? Is Clone Tony not the only casualty from this catastrophe? Next week, we'll find out.

read this week's RL installment
start reading the entire story arc from the beginning

Aaaaaaand we're done. Check back on Monday--maybe I'll say a little something about Rice Boy, or maybe review another chapter of Jump Leads! Until we meet again, have a good weekend, everybody.

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.

Pseudo-Special Feature: Comics for a Change

Lately I've been running across comics online that, for lack of a better way to put it, aren't just comics. These are comics in the service of something else, some message or information to communicate, or in support of a story told in some other media. Comics are showing up in places you might not expect comics to be, about things you might not expect comics to be about. So, today's post begins with Comics for a Change.

First of all, in his newsblog over at Calamities of Nature, Tony Piro pointed us over to a comic explaining Google's new browser, "Google Chrome"--drawn by Scott McCloud himself. It's cool to see comics used to convey information, something a bit more "practical" than your usual gag strip. The comic can get a bit dull and technical in parts, but still, that's to be expected when its main purpose is to educate rather than entertain. Basically, if you want to learn about the ideas behind Google Chrome, reading a comic about it is not a bad way to go about it.

Next up, socially-conscious alternative hip-hop group The Flobots have got their own comic: "Rise of the Flobots." But the comic isn't about the Flobots. It's about people like you. It's about people who are bettering their communities and improving the world around them. So far there's one story about an ordinary suburban guy fighting for freedom of expression through roadside signs, and another in progress about a soldier stationed in Iraq. It's pretty cool. Start reading here.

Finally, Joss Whedon's low-budget superhero-deconstruction internet musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, has its own short comic. Brought to you by Dark Horse Comics, it takes the form of a public service announcement from the super-self-absorbed Captain Hammer, urging you to do your part in the fight against crime and be like Captain Hammer. The humor is cynical yet playful, just as you'd expect from a Dr. Horrible comic. Check it out here--it's in the back-issues bar just below the comic viewer, so you may have to look for it a little.

It's cool to see the medium of comics put to unique use: information, social change, and indie superhero parody. If you've come across a comic using the medium in a new way for creative purposes, drop a comment and share it with us! But now, it's time for your usual webcomics rundown.

The Princess Planet, part of the Transmission-X webcomics collective, brought us this gem this past Sunday. A recurring setup is that Princess Christi, its protagonist, poses as a "treasure inspector" to confiscate "defective" treasure. The most recent comic piles one twist on top of another and escalates the treasure-confiscating scam to new heights of ridiculousness. If you haven't checked out The Princess Planet, I highly recommend it: it's colorful, imaginative, adventurous, and above all else extremely silly.

Real Life started up a new storyline this week that I'm pretty excited about. To be honest, when Real Life actually concerns itself with Greg's real life, I don't find it terribly interesting. I started reading because of the metacomic gags and the sci-fi humor; the mundane down-to-earth stuff, I can get that in my everyday life! So in Monday's comic, when an ordinary scene of Greg and Liz watching TV is interrupted by a wormhole spitting out female-Greg and female-Tony from an alternate universe where everyone's gender is reversed, my heart leaped for joy. Except that "my heart leaped for joy" sounds kind of fruity. Still, it looks like things are going somewhere cool, so I'm definitely pumped.

Joe Dunn is probably best known for his movie-review strip, but this week saw a funny installment of Matriculated, Joe's younger stepcomic about college life. In between extended storylines, Matriculated often does a couple of one-off gags, with this past Wednesday's being about the popped-collar fad. Sure, it's familiar territory, but Phil Chan's writing for the comic is clever and injects a little freshness into the topic. It was good for a chuckle.

Our last item for this week: over at Dresden Codak, the Hob storyline has concluded, with humanity evolving ambiguously into...I'm not even sure what they evolved into. Everybody disintegrated, including the Hob. I'm hoping that wherever Aaron Diaz decides to go from here, it's someplace less convoluted.

And that wraps that up. Check ya next week, webcomic enthusiasts.

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.

Hello again, from a more wakeful hour! I'm Peter Metzger, and I'll be your guest host for this week's installment of "This Week in Webcomics"

I get the feeling that I'm not quite of the same caliber as Jackson when it comes to webcomic connoisseurship, storyline assessment, or variety of webcomics read. I will, however, give my opinion on the webcomics I do read, and hopefully this is good enough for you.

At this point, I'm putting the post on SPOILER WATCH (which I think should really be a general warning covering the blog as a whole...)

So, enough with random jibber-jabber, let's dive in.

Monday's Penny Arcade comic was a little disappointing for me, being a bit funny in a disturbing kind of way, but not so much satisfying. Wednesday's and Friday's PA comics, however, were compelling and beautifully illustrated. Even though I didn't notice the "opening crawl" until today's comic, I still picked up on the basic idea of the storyline with the help of the regular PA blog post - albeit with some mystery sprinkled on top. For me, though, this only made the new development more exciting and interesting. The backstory provided by the opening crawl definitely sets things up a bit more clearly, but I'm not convinced that's an entirely good thing. I look forward very much to reading the rest of the story - even if the plot and dialogue turns out to be a bust (though I think it will be wonderful), the artwork is sure to be a treat.

Toothpaste For Dinner is a comic my brother turned me on to nearly two years ago, maybe longer, and I usually check up on it every day. It definitely brings its own brand of funny, though lately it seems that the typically mixed results are of atypically lower quality. I did enjoy several of them from this past week, however - particularly "dogosphere" (though mostly for the clever title) and "sat scores." I'm hoping that we'll see a return to the sorts of gems that got me hooked.

Random: I saw that today's xkcd comic was on digg, and given the copious amounts of Discovery Channel programming I've been absorbing in the past month, I particularly enjoyed it. In the event that you don't get it, here is the advertisement the comic is referencing.

Oftentimes, when I find a webcomic I like, I will go back to the very beginning and read every strip, so as to be all caught up. I have done this with Penny Arcade, Real Life Comics, Pungirls, Borderline Boy, and I'm in the process of doing this with Dinosaur Comics. I've already brought you up to date on Penny Arcade, Borderline Boy is taking a Borderline Break, and Pungirls has sadly been shut down for the most part. (Am I allowed to bug Jackson about bringing back Pungirls in his own blog!? ooh....)

Anyway, let's have a look at the week in Real Life Comics. I feel that the quality of Real Life has gone up dramatically since Greg Dean decided to go full time with it, and I particularly enjoyed this week's run of comics. Now, I'm not claiming these to be the best five comics Greg has ever written/illustrated, but as a whole, they're definitely a solid set of work. I appreciated in Tuesday's comic the fact that once again, Greg has managed to make some facet of World of Warcraft not only accessible also humorous to someone such as myself who has never played the game. Wednesday through Friday's comics made me happy for Liz, reported on what's happening in the Dean household, and were funny, all at once! I believe this constitutes the essential Real Life Comics experience. I also enjoyed a good chuckle at Greg's apparent enthusiasm regarding private (i.e. not public) nudity - a position I may or may not share.

END SPOILER WATCH

Enough said there, let's move on to Dinosaur Comics. As I said before, I've been reading through since the first comic. I am up into the early-800s at the moment, so I'm about two-thirds of the way to catching up. I don't typically read the current comics until I catch up to them but given that I had to write about the series here, I took a look at the latest few comics. I must say, I am very impressed at the level of quality Ryan North has been able to maintain throughout the series, and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the way through the comics I've not gotten to yet.

I'm not quite sure if Homestar Runner counts as a webcomic or if it's more of a web-based cartoon, but I would like to mention that I've been disappointed lately with the lack of 1) updates, and 2) funny. I realize they're working on a game, but it's the dry times like these that make me stop checking up on the site so often. If other people are like me in this regard, it can't be all too healthy for their site. Just saying...

Alright, I guess that about does it for this post in "This Week in Webcomics," I hope you enjoyed your stay and please come back next week when I believe Jackson Ferrell will be back with us to deliver his insights into the world of webcomics.

Please exit quickly and carefully to the right side of the train, collect any and all personal items from bin number two and bin number two only, and enjoy the rest of your day here at Jackson's Point, the internet's comic coast.