Top Ten: Nobody Scores Comics #1-275

If you read this blog regularly, you're no stranger to Nobody Scores. While it's not for everyone, its angry, R-rated tales of protracted failure have their own appeal. You have to be a certain sort of person to appreciate the humor, but when you read a Nobody Scores episode, even the most hardened pessimist can't help but think, "At least my life isn't this bad." Plus, the whole thing is one of the best-drawn comics on the web.

With cartoonist Brandon Bolt preparing to take his traditional "summer vacation," from his comic, Nobody Scores readers will have to make do with the archives for the next month. To sate your thirst, I present the top ten comics of the first two years (#1-275), in ascending order of excellence.

As with our previous top ten list, this list is no mere catalog of personal preferences! Each the excellence of each entry on this list has been confirmed by empirical observation and placed in an ordinal scale among the other entries, through the scientific process known as "archive trawling." The results are absolutely normative and free from bias of any kind, and if you dispute them then you clearly have no understanding of comic science.

No, really.

10. "The Confrontational Dead" (NS!#144)
Even though zombie apocalypses have been done to death (pun intended), Brandon Bolt breathes some life into the subject by tweaking the expected ending. Sara and Raoul's dialogue also keeps the scenario fresh. I particularly like Sara's blatantly indifferent response to Raoul's inquiry about Beans.

9. "The Winkerbeaner" (NS!#107)
Nobody Scores loves to comment on the state of newspaper comics, and when you stop to consider it, the Funkywinkerbeaniverse and the Nobodyscoresiverse are a match made in heaven. The only real difference is that the Nobodyscoresiverse is a little more self-aware about its catastrophes. And a little more over-the-top.
Just a little.

8. "The Duckulator" (NS!#175)
When the situation calls for a duck: there's the Duckulator. Inspired "Doofus Ex Machina" surreality, but the highlight is Raoul's authoritative command of the classroom. Truly, he brooks no dissent!

7. "Cynical Girl" (NS!#258)
Jane burns through fads like they're three-way appetizer samplers on Football Night at Willie's Sports Bar. But what does she do when her "casual cynicism" schtick finally sticks? Just ride it out, breaking hearts and shattering dreams all the way.

6. "The Scott McCloud Injection" (NS!#86)
When Nobody Scores takes on the topic of comics as a medium, self-parody has never been more vicious.

5. "You Just Had to Ask" (NS!#65)
This is your descent into madness. This is your descent into madness on drugs. Any questions?

4. "Meet the New Boss" (NS!#15)
As far as the main cast's interpersonal dynamic goes, this is a textbook Nobody Scores comic. Sara takes over as boss of the apartment, and proceeds to abuse her position. And by "position" I mean "roommates."

3. "Allllnighter" (NS!#61)
High school and college students as well as corporate-minded professionals will identify with this comic--though hopefully not too much. When caffeine proves insufficient to keep her working productively through the night, Sara leverages her resources to create a conducive work environment. The resources are her roommates.

2. "The Trick, Somewhere" (NS!#261)
Even though the official "Nobody Scores with Scoring" 3-strip arc concluded this week, I still consider this to be the quintessential "even when you win, you lose" comic. Everything's going Sara's way--what's responsible for this winning streak? And what will she do with her newfound good fortune? And why doesn't Firefox's onboard dictionary recognize "newfound" or "onboard" as real words?

And my all-time favorite the objectively best Nobody Scores comic of #1-275 is...

1. "Scalia's Gonna Cry" (NS!#116)
Plenty of webcomics mine internet memes as a source of potential comedy, but this is the only comic I've seen to tap into the "diet coke and mentos" trend on Youtube. Brandon Bolt takes a simple prank war between friends and escalates it to cataclysmic proportions, ultimately yielding the most surreal court decision ever to grace a comic page. I'm still waiting for a poster of this one to show up in the Nobody Scores store. Are you reading this, Bolt? I demand posters! Posters!

Totally objective!

Good morning, everyone! That's right--morning. I've been up since 7:45 AM, and tomorrow I'm going to wake up at 6:30. What could drive a man to get up at half past six on a Saturday? The answer: 24 Hour Comics Day.

Tomorrow, October 17th, people all over the world will be taking Scott McCloud's 24-hour comic challenge, attempting to complete 24 pages (or 100 panels, if working infinite-canvas style) in 24 hours. I will be one of them! Will you? If so, drop me a comment and tell me where to find your comic when it's completed. It'd be cool to read your comic, and if I like it a whole lot, I may mention it in a future entry.

So that's what's going to happen in webcomics. Let's talk about some comics that already happened this past week.

First of all, it's been a guest week over at Dinosaur Comics! Ryan North has had David Malki!, John Campbell, Kate Beaton, Anthony Clark, and Randall Munroe creating this week's comics for him. Ryan, you lazy bum. But in all seriosity, Dinosaur Comics is one of my favorite comics to see guest weeks for. It's fun to watch all the other cartoonists reinterpret the static DC art into their own style. One of my favorites of all time was Aaron Diaz's take on it, DC meets DC so to speak. At any rate, you can catch the guest-comic funtimes right here.

Malki! and Kate Beaton and their ilk aren't the only ones doing comics in someone else's style. This past Sunday's Sheldon was a tribute to George Herriman's newspaper strip "Krazy Kat." I'm only somewhat familiar with Krazy Kat, but Dave Kellett's little homage was an interesting and weird change of pace, with its unusual color scheme, weird phonetic dialogue, and quasi-stick-figure-esque Flaco. The cool thing about guest strips, tribute comics, and the like is that it gives the artist an opportunity to play with art style and do something different.

Of course, we wouldn't keep tuning in if the regular material weren't also good on its own. So let's turn our attention to regular material--like Joe Dunn doing his usual movie reviews.

Last week at Multiplex we saw some heavy religious discussion sparked by Bill Maher's "Religulous," and this week Joe weighs in on "Religulous" over at Joe Loves Crappy Movies. He created a funny, expressive strip, and I really appreciated the sentiment of his review. Talking about bigger issues like religion is hard enough without people launching snarky barbs or belittling the other guy's position with sarcasm. Joe Dunn is a stand-up guy, and I think that really comes out in his comics and movie reviews. The dude sure knows how to draw, too.

On a...less pleasant...note, over at PVP, this week has been Fart Week. Now, fart jokes can be funny, but a whole week of them? That's just oversaturation. And by the end of it, the whole concept is about as humorous as a very small living room after a Texas-style-chili-and-bean-burrito party. Pheu, that's rank! Don't get me wrong, sometimes I enjoy PVP, but after that, I really need some fresh comics to clear the air.

So let's look at comics about Heroes!

For the past two weeks or so, my brother and I have been renting DVDs from the first season of Heroes and watching the crud out of them. For those of you who--like me--spend your life under a rock when it comes to network TV, Heroes is a grisly but compelling live-action-drama take on the superhero genre of comics. It's got an ensemble cast, some of which I find more interesting than others, but Heroes is never a dull moment. And furthermore, it is a source of humor for webcomics nerds! In a comic from this past week, The Robot is Sad gives us a rather silly joke about the time-and-space-bending powers of office-working otaku Hiro Nakamura. Then, an older comic from Left-Handed Toons ruminates on the similarities between the power-sapping serial killer Sylar and the protagonist of a certain video game series. If you've seen any other Heroes comics lying around the 'net, let me know!

Heroes is pretty awesome. So are other things. Thus, it's time to finish things off with another...

Awesome Watch:

• Dr. McNinja introduces a mysterious new villain: King Radical.


• Nobody Scores! brings us Ultimate Death Tournaments on a secluded forbidden island


• Penny Arcade's Fallout Puppet Saga reaches its inevitable gritty conclusion


• Three words for you: Real. Life. Comics.

If you haven't been keeping up with Real Life's most recent storyline, I highly recommend that you start from the beginning. And on that note, I bid you adieu!

So, welcome to This Week in Webcomics, the blog where I tell you what was awesome in internet comics this past week because I love you. Wouldn't it be ironic if, as I told you what comics you should totally read, I were to mention spoilers for those same comics? So I will try not to do that. All the same, consider us to be under a Spoiler Watch. You know, like Tornado Watch vs. Tornado Warning.

I tuned in to Dr. McNinja on Monday morning and immediately knew that it was going to be a good week. As soon as I saw the last panel of Monday's comic, I was like, "Man, they just totally went there." Drawing a situation like that (notice how I am avoiding spoilers?) takes serious artistic chops, but it opens up some possibilities for sweet action that subsequent installments have totally delivered on. I look forward to seeing where this battle with Dracula on his Moon Base goes.

I'll confess, Penny Arcade has been hit-or-miss for me lately. I expect the work they've been doing on that crazy video game of theirs has something to do with it, but now that they've polished that off, I hope they'll be able to devote more creative energy to their comic-style humors. A noteworthy development: I never thought I'd see the Broodax again, figuring it for a one-off gag, but sure enough, here it is today. Broodax: the Twisp and Catsby of '08? Only time will tell.

Strips that feature children playing make-believe often idealize the experience. The vibe you get from them tends to be: "Oh, look at that, the children are playing pretend, how creative and adorable." (Family Circus, I'm looking at you.) However, Sheldon this week has been doing a strip series in which Sheldon and friends play Lord of the Rings, and Flaco and Arthur insist on making up back-stories and motivations for the villains they're playing. Strangely, it's Sheldon--the actual kid--who's making the observation that kids' games can get way too ridiculous sometimes. It also works as a subtle commentary on the tendency of webcomics to get incredibly stupid when they insist on injecting drama where it's really not necessary at all.

Speaking of kids, it's a rare occurrence that Cat and Girl acknowledges that Girl is an actual child. Seriously, with all her social commentary, it's easy to forget that she doesn't even technically have a degree yet.

Oh, yeah. And Tim Buckley's latest storyline over at CAD is a big tall glass of Cringe Juice. No, I'm not going to link to it. It's that bad.

Did I miss anything? Did anything else great or significant happen in the world of webcomics this week? Let me know if something slipped past my radar--that's why there is a comments feature.