News
10/23: Gonna Make a Schedule
At first, I thought that I might be putting up the pages too fast if i posted them more than once a week - but now, 2 weeks after I said i'd be posting more, I realize that I haven't posted any. I'll make sure that I get new content up here every friday night until I start updating my other comics again.
Whoo, lots more webcomics. And here I thought I would be running out of content because of the few webcomics I've been reading. But then... I am sort of getting in trouble at work for spending time reading them instead of actually... y'know... working.
There's a guy I know on IRC that is debatably crazier webcomic guy than me. I might have to ask him for his resources, because he often finds webcomics that are really good that I've never heard of before. Then I also have a few more comics that I discovered through Giant in the Playground webcomic forumi (the correct plural abbreviation of "forum"), such as Left Handed Toons, and MS Paint Adventures, notably the currently running story, Problem Sleuth. I consider this a comic - although it's certainly open to interpretation. MSPA utilizes alot of animated gifs, and there are no dialogue bubbles, although nearly every page has a caption. It's an interective comic - each new page is designed based on input from the readers. The fact that game seems to be a ridiculously complicated puzzle rpg, and the fact that you are literally given infinite options for what you can do, it's a very fun comic.
I don't remember where I was linked Tiny Plaid Ninjas, although be warned: it is not actually a webcomic - it is a series of flash videos.
Miracle of Science is a webcomic though, one I actually read a looooong time ago, well before I actually made the webcomic compendium, hence it's notable absence (until now!). Miracle of Science is a fun sci-fi detective action comic. It lacks notably in the art department, but I love many of it's science fiction concepts, particularly the mad scientist complex trope seen in so many movies explained away in this canon as a disease with it's own phases and medication.
And last is Mezzacotta, which while it was only launched a few weeks ago, it has the single largest archive of strips in history. It has a strip for every day since the internet's invention, electricity's discovery, manmade roads, the formation of our sun, and the estimated time of the Big Bang, and even a few billion years prior. Go ahead, check it out. There will be a strip for 1st January, 9999999999999 BC.
This is, of course, not accomplished by human hands - at least not directly. The makers of Irregular Webcomic and Darths and Droids coded their server to spontaneously generate a comic whenever a user selects a date, and then it permanently stores it in the archive. As far as I can figure, they have several "characters" that are each tied to a database of kinds of responses, not unlike how Jabberwacky or even Elbot function - the server than puts one or two of these characters into a comic and has them talk to each other. How sane the response is just a matter of chance - infinite monkeys with typewriters and all that jazz...
10/10: Hello? hello? hello?
Sorry I haven't been keeping the page updated. I'll do a better job! I promise!
Here's another of the Hilarity Ensues art strips I finished. I've actually done alot of them, and I'll try and post them up a little more often. I haven't been slacking, I just haven't been updating the page. I swear that Spore has had very little to do with that.
I've read a ton of webcomics recently, the most recent being P238, a moderately super-hero comic by the same author that you are more likely to recognize as the maker of Nodwick. P238 could be compared to Sky-High, as it deals with a school that is designed to educate and hone the natural abilities of a new generation of metahumans, many of which are the direct descendants of the world's most popular superheroes. While the strip is certainly not building a new frontier on any degree, I find the dialogue to be witty and believable, and the characters interesting.
The comic focuses on a young boy named Tyler who is the son of two of the most powerful superheroes on the planet. His parents enrolled him at P238 despite the fact that he has currently not manifested any superpowers at all. Interestingly enough, Tyler isn't introduced until a few issues into the series, in which several of the other major characters of the strip hold the limelight. Even after Tyler's introduction, the rest of the character's places in the story are not overly diluted, and each other member of the cast seems to have his own place in a major series of events that will soon be unfolding.
P238 was a comic that I actually found on the Webcomic forum of Giantitp.com, home of Order of the Stick. I actually hadn't been to the forums for awhile because I had been burnt out on looking up homebrew rules for Dungeons and Dragons, but I've recently taking a liking to just casually carousing the few threads in the webcomic section. Besides P238, I found a few other comics of interest.
Another gem from the bunch was Kukubiri, a fantasy epic that is spectacularly drawn and the story so far is well paced and written. The archive is short, and I'll be looking forward to keeping up with it.
Last, but certainly not least for this update is The Cide, which they are quoted as saying is not a comic. The side is a brand new type of media, only really available with the technology that is the internet. The Cide manages to take the best aspects of comics - relatively low production times, mainly visual nature, but great opportunities for narrative, and it gives it music and animation. The strip is beautiful, not to mention the fact that I've already been drawn into their narrative style and story.
9/16: Sorry for the delays
I've undertaken a large project to draw a story arc for one of my favorite webcomics, Hilarity Ensues, but to finish them in any reasonable amount of time, and of satisfactory quality, i've taken a hiatus on my other comics. I may update my other comics from time to time, but they'll be even rarer than my usual update schedule (yes, it's physically possible).
I'm free to post up the artwork i'm working on. Stay tuned for when the strips go live to actually see the dialogue (and large images) when the strip returns from hiatus!
8/29: He Didn't Do Dishes Much Either
The reason for the last OOC was to make this one, really. Losing Ryan as a roomate isn't a big deal for me, really, besides the loss of rent, since I rarely saw him as is. Hopefully the guy who moves in to replace him won't monopolize the bandwidth like Ryan did. To my other roomate though, this is a godsend. Scott is doing metaphorical backflips right now. The first panel was more or less a real statement that Ryan made to Scott. My retort in the comic is wholly fictional - usally any kind of flippant remark was not worth keeping ryan in the room for long enough to hear it. I wasn't even privy to the original conversation, although Scott was happy to share.
Even with Ryan moving out though, I'll probably be using him for a few more OOC in the future. Just too good of a material. And let's find out what our new roomate adds to the equation...
I've been reading a bunch of stuff at ShigaBooks.com. While it sounds like a bookstore (and most of the books are for sale), it's actually a pretty amazing collection of webcomics all by a single person. I'll probably see if i can pick up one or two of these, since the quality is tremendous. Fleep was the first comic I read, and it would up being a "gateway drug," as it were, to Jason Shiga's other works. Some of them are amazingly interactive, while others are just plain silly, but all of them are entertaining.
That's enough OOC for the time being. I'll try to get a Gray Matters out next week. It's a longer one than the last, so I don't know when it'll get done.
8/23: I Can't Really Afford Higher Rent
Sorry about the belatedness, especially since this comic doesn't really seem worth the wait. My roomate moved out, and alot of stuff me and my other roomate use were his - our lamps, alot of our cooking utensiles... my computer desk. I finally got my own new desk after having to operate my computer off of the chest in the center of the living room. It's a nice desk - sixty dollars. The "skin" on the roof of the desk isn't particularly pleasant ont he front edges of the desk, but it came $30 discounted, and it's pretty sturdy, so i think i got my money's worth.
I've been experimenting with the art of the comic, and I'd say the above is kind of a failure on that part. It really is shitty and half-assed. Panel one came out alright, but the other two should probalby have just been put out of misery and started from scratch - but i was already over a week overdue with the comic, and i'm not particularly enthused with the joke on this strip anyway. It's more a setup for the next OOC anyway, so it's no biggy.
8/04: But My Ego Demands It
Sorry about the unnanounced Hiatus. I was already running late, and then Comic Con came up... and I'd really prefer not to just stick crap up here just because there's a schedule. I'll probably see if I can get a Revenant Seal out by next week. The next Gray Matters strip is going to be fairly long, so I'll have to really feel like tackling it.
A few new webcomics in my time. You may ask, Digital, how do you have the time to read comics, but not make them? Well, to that I say, I don't do my strips at work, because I feel that any creative energy I exert there should go into my cartooning there. I don't have any such compunction about reading other people's creativity at work though. It's research.
Eegra I actually read awhile ago, but I don't think I ever actually posted about it, and if I did, i didn't put it in the compendium. I shall rectify that momentarily. Eegra is a video game comic. On the abstract side, and not particularly polished, but it's amusing. It's at least not Penny-Arcade Rip Off. Also in this vein is Awkward Zombie which is also a non-penny-arcade-rip-off comic, but it has fairly vague subject matter, mostly limited to World of Warcraft and Smash Brothers, with a few others tossed in for decoration.
Fanboy did start off as a penny-arcade rip-off that tried to differentiate itself by having a female main character. Don't read the strip from the beginning because, if you are like me, you will hate it. The more recent the strip, the better. There are a few cannon storylines, each no longer than 10 pages each, and sometimes you'll miss some character intros, but I think the strip reads much better from most recent and back.
Bug Bash is a programming sub-culture comic. It has a slightly wider appeal, but you'll likely not find it interesting unless you also like User Friendly and other comics. I would also say XKCD, but XKCD is more a geek subculture comic, and if your on the internet, you probably already love it.
But what really takes the cake this week is Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun. I haven't seen anything as hiliously absurd and tongue-in-cheek as this since Dr. McNinja. Jesus feels so much guilt over the holocaust that he disobeys his fathers orders and goes back down to earth to kick nazi ass.
I haven't updated the webcomic compendium in awhile, so I'll be adding a bunch of other comics. Have I mentioned Marry Me? I'll eventually be adding a section for print only-comics that I like. I don't buy superhero comics, so it'll likely be by artists like Jen Wang and Hope Larson. Both of them make contributions to the beautiful Flight series. I also finally started reading Scott Pilgrim, and will likely start buying all his volumes.
7/12: Jaywalking
Some continuity for Gray Matters. Not the first time, but this will be the first time it goes beyond the second strip. This is also the first 1 page gray matters. When I was working out the script, this section just flowed better short. My scripts have been getting shorter and shorter lately as I try to make the text seem less daunting, so as not to punch new readers in the face. I won't abandon multi-page layouts, but these shorter ones will probably become more common (and easier to update on time).
I am Jamie is a strange comic, to say the least. It goes from the adventures of a young, terribly ugly, offensive little boy as he travels through dimensions, to a journal comic, to (the current arc) a fictional depiction of Batman Versus Godzilla.
I've had Letters to a Wild Boar on my bookmarks for awhile, but only recently got around to checking it out. It's a very disjointed art journal than a webcomic - the art is highly stylized but not particularly amazing, and there's a few parrallel storylines going at the same time, a la Irregular Webcomic. She knows alot of the Koalla Wallup authors, apparantly, so she might have some other work that I haven't seen yet (or have seen, but aren't aware of similar authors).
David Troupes, creator of Buttercup Festival, one of my favorite webcomics, has taken a brief hiatus to put up some of his single project work, Renaming of the Birds. I say this only because i wanted a chance to plug this fantastic comic.
7/4: The Revenant Seal 4
No special comic for the Fourth of July, but I do have a new The Revenant Seal for you.
6/27: It's Less of a Tradegy if Tentacles are Involved
Eekeemoo is a black and white action adventure comic that utilizes infinite canvas and no discernable language.
On the subject of alternative comic strip presentation in the Digital Age, I Am a Rocket Builder has been an experimenter in the field for some time, although he has only recently put all his work back online. The currently displayed strip is called Coming Home, build in Adobe Flash, which allows it to be read in a non linear fashion.
6/20: It's Been Such a Long Time
The comic is what? Two weeks late now? I really hope this one was worth the wait. I hadn't worked on Gray Matters for about two weeks before, and I've gotten really ambitious with it. It's inescapeable, it seems. I don't even work on Aristotle anymore because I put so much effort into GM. I'll promise that if I'm going to be doing a major Gray Matters like this I'll see if I can get a nice light Out of Context out every week. I find those take much less effort to accomlish.
I've found a few new comics, such as Wasted Talent, a journal comic by Angie (she either doesn't give her full name, or I can't find it >_< ). Like many journal comics, it is often based on the bizarre and cute relationship antics of Angie and Trevor, and other hijinks that ensue as she studies to be an engineering major, and, more recently, enter the workforce. The art is heavily anime influenced, and shows decided improvement as the strip progresses, proving to be one of the best drawn journal comics in recent strips.
Bellen is another relationship comic, where Ellen is a balance to Ben's depression, confidence issues, and general angst. Ben has a hard time seeing the world as a place worth living in when Ellen isn't around. The earlier strips aren't much to speak of, but the most recent run are well drawn and very intelligent and insightful.
6/3: Cherry Tree Syndrome
This comic is technically last week's comic. This will change based on whether or not I get another comic done this week. If I don't, then I'll just say last week had no comic and this is this week's comic. It all depends on what my mind cooks up.
I think with OOC, I'll be trying to do this from now on: simplistic art, faded backgrounds. Backgrounds, in case you are not aware, take the brunt of the work doing a comic. The more detailed the background, the more additional colors and detail shading you have to do. By doing simple washes for the background, I can probably quarter the time it takes to do a comic. That means more of them. Good, yes?
03/04: Things are Funny Here
5/22: Meta Meta Humor
Hey, this one is sorta on time! Although its also probably one of the simplest ones i've ever made. Yes i think its also the best looking ooc yet. Lesson learned: Put less effort into comics.
In other comic news: I found these two comics while catching up the the Anders Loves Maria archives. Both are competent. Both also have fairly short archives, so webcomic younguns might find them attractive compared to say Sluggy Freelance, or the new comic I've been reading, Clan of Cats.
This is going to be a deviant blogging, as I don't usually plug a comic until i've finished reading its archives, but Clan of Cats is HUGE. It's a daily update comic that's been chugging along for near ten years now, so its similar to Sluggy Freelance in size. Clan of Cats is, plain and simple, the story of a woman who finds out that she turns into a were-panther when stressed, anxious, or excited. Not only is she a were-panther, but she's a pure blood were-panther. Now, all of this is just run-of-the-mill fantasy story building, but I was really attracted to how they portray Chelsea and her family and friends as the story progresses. It's certainly a good quality serial if you have time to read it.
05/18: Thank The Mist for This One
Sorry for the lateness. I notice that i've been finishing the comic up Sunday. Now, logic dictates that if i've been consistently finishing the comic on suday, I should change the update schedule to Sunday. Thing is, I finished the comic on thursday before I changed the update schedule to thursday, and i finished on Tuesday when the update schedule was saturday, so i think i'll just let my comic be perpetually 2 days late.
In the interim since the last webcomics post I read Natch Evil. It's in the vein of the media where the protagonist is a serial killer. Natch Evil separates itself from Dexter or American Psycho by mixing in quite a bit of humor, as well as an angle of the supernatural. Saffron's amazingly distrubing and riveting psychological problems are a tribute to Mike's writing skill and deep, deep sadistic tendencies. I love it.
That said, stay away from the Shoulder Angel comics. They deviate from the mood of the main comic signficantly, the jokes are trite, and the hijinks are stale and recycled. Unfortunately, Mike seems to really like them, as they make up 1/2 of the site. Luckily, he also runs a very thorough archive system, making skipping storylines a synch.
5/12: Hygeine
I actually finished this comic and posted it on thursday, but i never updated the links on the website or wrote a blog for it. Dur me.
05/04: Mixing Genres
This comic is very, very late.
A combination of factors contributed to this. The first: its very artsy, which means there were alot of house that went into it, which means I took frequent breaks while drawing it to make sure i didn't get sick of it.
Then there was my roomate constantly putting on awesome movies distracting me form my work time. I mean, could /you/ draw while Cloverfield is playing right behind you?
Then there was locking myself out of the house for the afternoon. Long story short, I have to replace a window screen now.
In other news, Sordid City Blues is a good comic. It reminds me of Nothing Better in how it deals with the questioning of religion and personal belief. It also deals with self-perception and self-esteem issues. Very plot and character oriented, with fairly little humor. Plus, one of the characters is a vaguely disguised version of the webcomic artist himself (not like you see that all the time).
Not From Concentrate is another bizarre, non-sequiter, non-linear comics. The art is very basic, and the humor is randomly great. Certainly a comic that wouldn't be a bad way to spend stumbling through an afternoon of archives.
05/03
Sorry, the comic is running quite a bit late. I'll have it done tomorrow (most likely).
04/20: An Apt Description
Sorry for being so late. Just a heads up, I may just skip this upcoming week's comic just to get me back on track.
04/12: Gray Gender
I'm reading Thinkin' Lincoln and Hero by Night right now.
Thinkin' Lincoln is so similar to Dinosaur Comics that if they weren't both clearly authored by different people I would assume they were the same man (or woman). Not to say that it is a copy-cat comic, but that it has very similar humor and a similar comic format. It does use copy and paste art, but not nearly to the same extent as Ryan North does. It also has alot of historical humor.
Hero by Night is a pretty by the numbers super hero comic, but the twist is that the entire story is told through the diary of the hero, who has disappeared. It's a fun experience to see how Hero by Night discovers the origins of his powers and slowly accumulates his arsenal of weapons and the establishment of his headquarters.
04/04: The Revenant Seal - Page 3
04/03: Purposefully Left Blank
Update schedule is currently being changed. I figured out that I just don't like to work on the comic on weekends anymore, so, since I'm no longer raiding in World of Warcraft, I have time during the week to draw.
The comic is either going to "officially" update thursday or friday, but I'll just post it up whenever its ready (one every week), because if i finish it early, i always forget to post it.
Oh, here's a couple of cool comics.
03/19: This One is Actually About Dinosaurs
What's funny is that I actually finsihed this comic mid Sunday, but, as is apparantly usually the case when I finish a strip early, I forgot to upload it.
This comic may be pretty difficult to follow if you aren't aware of some of the references.
In other webcomicing news, Machall's server is back up, and has probably been for a while now. I recall not being fond of the comic when I first checked it, but I went back and started reading it with my patented procedure for reading bad-start webcomics - I read it backwards. All the aspects that I like about Three Panel Soul are all evident in the later strips of Machall, so its definitely something to check out if you don't mind messing up some of the continuity of the strip by reading them out of order.
03/19: Invasion of the Black Boxes
These... artistic... comics are killing me. This one took waaay longer than a usual Gray Matters does. Next week will be stick figures.
Subnormality is a neat comic, although it may very well be more wordy than Gray Matters is at times.
I've also been more thoroughly aquainted with Pon and Zi, which is criminially emo and cute.
03/13: I So Could Have Directed Transformers
Now, this is probably the first "late" comic I've done for awhile. Partially my fault, partially me going to an overnight trip on wednesday. Now, I didn't finish the strip on monday because I was too busy watching American Psycho. Tuesday I was in Pasadena staying in a hotel to do AV work all the next day. Wednesday I was working on more Gray Matters, but I also spent quite a bit of time browsing Imperiumnova.com and chess.com to get the time back that i lost on tuesday.
And now the strip is done today :P
Now, to comic strips.
Whispered Apologies is a comic strip where the dialogue and art are put together by different artists without cooperation. Much of the writing is done by Ryan North, John Campbell, David Malki! (the exclamation point is part of his name) and Joey Comeau. The comic is actually similar to Gray Matters, where the text doesn't often quite match the visuals.
Through Whispered Apologies, I found a few other artists such as the maker of Tweep. Tweep reminds me quite a bit of Scary-Go-Round, except minus the british humor and bizarre supernatural antics. Actually, that makes the two strips almost completely different. I mean, they both feature lots of comical banter, except where Scary-Go-Round is just bizarre, and no doubt a bit lost in translation across the atlantic, Tweep is very hilarious, and much more relationship oriented. Plus they both have the same kind of illustrator-pen lines (except... y'know... when Scary-Go-Round is being hand drawn).
I also found Flaky Pastry through Whispered Apologies, although it sucks. Okay, it doesn't suck, but when you compare the fantastic art to the terribly cliche and just plain un-funny dialogue and story, I can't really keep reading.
Compare that to Buttersafe, the other comic I discovered from Whispered Apologies, and you can just toss Flaky Pastry into the garbage can with the rest of the stale bread. Buttersafe doesn't have a single strip in the archive which isn't fantastic. The art is diverse and experimental, the writing and humor at the exact opposite of safe. You'll not find a single cliche joke in Buttersafe's archive.
The next course of action is to find more comics that have butter in their names, because obviously its a sign of quality.
This is the first Gray Matters that is really just a *gag* comic. Not to say that none of the other ones had little pithy comments at the end, but this is the first one with no real meat in the comic besides the humor.
I've been reading a bunch of webcomics while I'm supposed to be working.
Mitch Clem is an apparant heavy-weight in the webcomic world with his comic Nothing Nice to Say, although I can't say I'm fond of it. The art is subpar, and the comic is not funny to anyone it is not specifically targetted to. The same can be said of Penny Arcade, but of course, I like Penny-Arcade because I like video games, as do many people on the internets. Nothing Nice to Say is targetted towards some specific music sub-culture that I don't know enough about to name.
He has a journal comic, however, that I find pretty entertaining, although he doesn't have much of an archive built on it. Go ahead and check out Nothing Nice to Say too, as you might like it more than I.
Weird Adventures in Unemployment looks to be an interesting strip. It's obvious from the getgo that the characters are pre-developed and have quite a backstory that has yet to be explained. Its rare in a webcomic that you get to start in the middle of a story rather than at the beginning, which is good, considering the medium. You have to capture audiences quickly, and a single room in an industrial building that is occupied by a man-eating squid will do that.
Scene Language and Anders Loves Maria are actually moderatly similar strips as far as their dramatic theme goes. And the sex. Well, Scene Language doesn't even begin to compare to Anders Loves Maria when it comes to sex. But the constant barrage of broken hearts is pretty close.
Scene Language is definately the tamer of the two, but its probably still not safe for work. It's rounded out with no less than five very developed characters, with complicated webs of relationships abounding. The stories and emotions merge together, so its one of those comics where you can't really explain one thing without really giving away a big chunk of the comic.
Anders Loves Maria - where to begin. Well, to start, don't read this at work. I mean, if you threw a dart at the archive, you'd have like a 50/50 chance of opening a strip with characters having sex. There's alot of sex. Anders Loves Maria is a very experimental art comic, so the layout and medium are constantly changing strip to strip. The characters are actually very realistic, once you realize that they are exaggerations of archetypes. Anders is a skinny white boy from a rich family, Maria is a spunky girl who doesn't think about consequences.
The only thing you learn from Scene Language and Anders Loves Maria is what not to do in a relationship.
02/26: Nothing to Ad
Several webcomics to update you all on.
Cyanide and Happiness is a comic that I found through a guildmate from my world of warcraft guild forums. Its a standard comic strip gag style comic that likes to poke fun at the things that society says are off limits. Because I am off kilter and hate the world, I enjoy these kinds of comics.
Family Man is a comic by the same artist who drew Bite Me, although I don't think you can really compare two. Bite Me is cliche, has little or no story, and is a (self-admitted) means for Dylan Meconis to make silly jokes. Family Man suffers from none of these things - it is pure polish. The art is gorgeous, the characters and world are fleshed out, and there are some serious strings that seem to be hiding just beneath the surface as the story builds.
I don't remember where I found Gossamer Commons, its just one of the links in my bookmarks I check occasionally. Most likely, some combination of the creators did a guest strip somewhere.
Anywhoo, Gossamer Commons is about a would-be writer named Keith who becomes marked for death after he sees an unglamored Fairy. But because he saved the fairy despite knowledge of his fate, he's been granted a boon. Before he dies, Keith decides that he wants to become immortal.
But the main star of tonight is Misfile. While I don't want to say really much of anything about the story, because doing so would mess up the flow and mood of the intro, let's just say that "In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile."
I found Misfile off of a thread in a Myspace Group for webcomics. And I was not disappointed. Misfile is one of those rare gems that you find every now and then, and quite a bright, bright gem it is. I am very dissapointed that I found Misfile last week instead of two weeks ago, because then I could have voted for it as Best Character Writing, Best Writing, and Best Long Form comic.
The depth and execution of character I found in Misfile is unmatched. I read through the entire three year archives of the comic in the day that I discovered it. If you read nothing else on this website, read Misfile.
02/18: Apologies for the lack of update.
No GM this week. I was sick alot of thursday and friday, and so i didn't get a chance to be exposed to any media that would set my irate heart afury. Coupled with the all day UFS tournament I went to on saturday, I just didn't have a Gray Matters in me, not a good one anyway. I promise a really good one next week.
Instead, you get two pages of me and my friend Chris' strip The Revenant's Seal. Many of the people who read Gray Matters already know about this through my myspace page, since i posted the first page a few weeks ago. The second page is brand new.
I just voted in the WCC awards. You have to register as a webcomic artist to participate. While the awards themselves often wind up being a popularity contest than an actual judge of quality, I love the awards because they give me a chance to get aquainted to some fantastic comics that I might otherwise have overlooked. The WCC awards, for instance, introduced me to Girl Genius, Lackadaisy Cats, Broken Mirror, Bunny, and many more.
This year, I'm happy to say I knew alot more of the comics before hand than I did last year. This means I am more in the know now. However, I was still happy to discover Dark Red, a neat photograph fantasy, demonie evil bad comic that looks pretty deep. The story is really just getting started after a year in updates.
The Book of Biff was actually nominated last year too, but I must have overlooked some of the single panel comics. It is (hold your breath) hilariously absurd. I believe I use that descriptive phrase for many things now. Better than "interesting," I suppose.
One of the biggest jewels, however, is Atland, which you could compare to Looking For Group, but I'd have to stab you in the eye. Everything that LFG does wrong, Atland does right. It puts in senseless violence, but characters that do it are either doing it out of ignorance, or are dead by the end of the story arc. Nate Piekos' doesn't have a main character - all the characters get time in the spotlight, and each character is extremely simple at their funniest and extremely complex at their most dramatic. The humor is fresh and variable, and you won't stop laughing until you catch up with the archive and then yell at the screen because you can't read any more yet. The story is barebones, but its purpose is only to serve as a backdrop quest for these characters to travel and grow.
Besides - as anyone can tell you, sidequests take up alot more of a fantasy campaign than the main quest ever will.
02/12: We Control the Vertical and the Horizontal
Messing with you this week. Not sure if the horizontal format will stay, but the minimized webpage for the GM strip will stay. I'll probably eventually add image buttons instead, but text links funciton fine for now.
For those of you unfamiliar with the suject matter, I've provided a few links (I'm using my friend Chris' horrendously wrong definition of few here).
You may also like to check out an interesting discussion a fairly obscure blog.
02/05: Don't Forget to Check the Alt Text
I've been meaning to post this, but I keep forgetting. David Malki! (its spelled with an exclamation point), along with a large number of other people have produced a small independent film named Expendable. It is original and very, very amusing. Even funny! I guarantee that it is at least entertaining.
I've also been putting off telling you about The Least I Could Do. Its a greatly entertaining strip, with good art and good characterization. That is, recently. I'd say in the last few years of the strip. It starts off very rockily. New readers I would suggest start where Lar Desouza begins to illustrate the strip. You might even try reading from the beginning of last year, as alot of Rayne's depth doesn't pop up until 2007. Once you get a feel for the characters, you might try delving back into the archive to get a better feel for the histories of some of the characters.
The Least I Could Do is created by the same duo who make Looking for Group, a world of warcraft oriented strip. Catering to the largest video game customer base in history is a stroke of genius for them, as Looking for Group managed to garner a significant amount of the gamer internet crowd (for those not in the know, making a gamer comic and having a halfway decent marketing strategy is pretty much a guaranteed way of succeeding in webcomics) and is so popular that it is being made into a feature-length movie.
I can't say I care for it. At least the beginning. I haven't kept up with it since it first began, and while I enjoyed how it started, you can only laugh at ha ha, the warlock arsoned something so many times. But maybe someone else who likes it will tell me if the comic has gotten anymore depth since the last time I looked, because I'm not particularly interested in looking.
01/29: Arts and Crafts
Updated the Webcomic Compendium with a few more strips. Notably Malfunction Junction and Return to Sender.
Malfunction Junction linked a neat strip named Gin and the Devil, which is a fantastic strip, although its a bit long winded (i know, case of the pot calling the kettle black).
I've also read a bunch of Goats. It's in the compendium now, even though I've only read maybe a third of it (if that), and the reason is, most of it sucks. Okay, it doesn't suck. But it is nearly as long as Sluggy Freelance is (ten years of often-updating archives), and it is not nearly as good (in my opinion).
If your going to read Goats, I would suggest going into the archives and selecting from one of the post 2000 story archs. Going further back than that is asking for it. Before 2000, you're looking at bad jokes, bad art, and all around a bad strip. In fact, I'd so far as to say that you should probably start the strip on the most recent arc, Infinitie Typewriters, where the characters (particularly Fish) has gotten some moderately good character development. The art is actually pretty good at that advanced stage in the strip as well.
Goats' storyline is not bad. Its not great, but I was reading it quite adamantly. Not so much for the storylines before that. Well, the complete lack of storylines. Reading the strip from the beginning became an excercise in tolerance, and the 2000+ strips was just watching Goats add more characters that served no purpose. Now, I'm sure there's some really entertaining gems in those archives, but I'm afraid you have to trudge through alot of mediocre crap to get to them.
So yeah. Goats is good, but If your going to be spending the time to trudge through ten years of archives, I'd suggest Sluggy Freelance or It's Walky.
By the way, unless you're color blind, you may have noticed the little author text in today's comic. I changed the font that Gray uses to speak. I've been using Dan's Hand font from 1001 Free Fonts.com to represent Gray, and its been a hassle to use. The font is very light, so I've been having to use Photoshop's Faux Bold in order to make it legible. That limits my choices for emphasis to underlining the text or simply making it bigger. Underlining doesn't work super well for comics.
So I've changed Gray's font to Greg's Hand, which is much more legible, and I can add emphasis to certain words much easier. Most likely its going to stay as Greg's Hand until I go and author a font based on my own handwriting.
01/22: The Cave has got Nothin' on This
Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life is a sci-fi webcomic that has a unique take on why the human race no longer exists. While at first I was unimpressed with how the robots that inhabit his world are almost exactly like human beings, although, the author's explanation of this was actually pretty logical.
01/15: Apathy - It's What's for Dinner!
The last strip, while textured decently, was poorly drawn, particularly near the end. This is the apology for that one.
This was probably the most hours I've spent drawing a Gray Matters, and wouldn't you know it, as soon as I shrink the comic down to 75dpi size, i accidentally save it over the hi res 300dpi size.
Normally, I safeguard against just this kind of stupid mistake by doing all the shading under the file name "Draft5" or whatever number I am currently at, and then not saving as the date name until after I do speech bubbles. I didn't do that this time because I figured, "I'm doing all these precautions, and I haven't made a bone headed mistake with one yet, why bother?"
Now, if I ever want a print-quality version of this strip I'm going to have to do all the shading a second time.
Fun.
Not too much webcomic news. I can't recall at what point i fell behind in updated my "Featured Webcomic," and I probably won't get back into it until my site is all php'd up and I can just enter shit into a box to make it pop up. So, in like... five years.
Hate Song turned out to be pretty neat, and it wasn't such a nasty strip when I came back to it later. Time and healing brain scars may have desensitized me to it. I've yet to check out his Journal comic, Filth Hole. But I'm usually not too amazingly fond of journal comics unless the art is good. But i'm not sure if you can really consider Filth Hole a journal comic...
01/08: Happy Rock Band
Another title that has nothing to do with the comic. Wow, my archives are going to be confusing as fuck.
I would post more, but my roomates are playing Rock Band behind me and I must play.
01/01/2008: Happy New Year
The title of the comic has absolutely nothing to do with the comic. But I suppose that's not completely new.
New comics I have read: Misunderstandings Between Friends, and the two Secret Friends Society comics, Jellaby and Salamander Dream.
The Secret Friends Society is a teamup between Hope Larson and Kean Soo, for the purpose of creating their comics about secret friends. Jellaby is about a girl who accidentally happens upon a baby dragon. The dragon, with its innocent but mischeivious bent causes the main character, Portia to come out of her shell. Its a little cliche, but its cute, and I love the art style.
Salamander Dream is a beautiful and original comic about a girl, then teenager, then woman who exchanges stories with a whimsical creature named Salamander, who she only sees when she goes out into the woods, out past her house, where its a little easier to believe in magic. Its short, and wonderful to read - well worth your time.
Misunderstandings Between Friends is a bizarre black and white strip. It tickles my fancy with its pure zaniness. People who like Perry Bible Fellowship would probably enjoy it, my distaste for PBF aside (its not really a distaste as much as a virulent bias).
12/28: Worth the Wait, I Hope
Aristotle is back, after a seven month hiatus. Only to go on hiatus again, most likely. I really have no idea when I'll have time to do another one.
12/25: There's No Such Thing
Finished Terror Island. That will be a fun one to keep up with.
From Terror Island I got a link to a parody review site, which also linked Isotown, which an interesting comic where the author goes and builds a town, step by step, in MS Paint, complete with random happenings and commentary. At this point, he even has an animated video of the first 135 strips in quick succession. A novel idea, well worth checking out.
I've also taken a liking to Erika Moen's comic diary. Careful, its not always safe for work. (Hardly ever, actually).
Finally, I read a large chunk of College Roomates from Hell. Now, normally, when I say a large chunck, it means i've started at the beginning and read forward. Here, it means I started in 2003 and read to the current, skipping a few years of archives. The reason I did this was because it was the only possible way I was not going to quit the comic completely. I still have to go back and try this methodology with Goats.
You see, CRFH is not for a casual comic reader. It's not for most readers in general. You really have to have a certain tolerance to read it. The art is not a draw, even in the later strips. The art is damn near unbearable at the beginning. Art isn't a necessisty for me though, as is evident in my liking of the early Sluggy Freelance archives or simplified strips like F8D or Irregular Webcomic.
What it doesn't have that is a necessity is humor. The lack of humor wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't a humor strip. In fact, the only thing that kept me reading once I started about halfway through is that it has some fairly involved characters and narrative.
But the humor just isn't there.
After reading the mid- to late strips, I went back and started to read from the beginning. The early strips rely wholly on hijinks to entertain you, and all it comes off as is quaint and cliche. With a new respect for the characters, I was able to tolerate them a bit more, but still - I just couldn't bring myself to continue reading it when there were dozens of other comics on my bookmarks that I hadn't gotten around to yet.
So, yeah. Check out Terror Island, Isotown, and DAR: A Super Girl Top Secret Comic Diary, but I'd suggest staying away from CRFH unless you don't have anything better to do.
12/18: Road Rage
I've been checking out Terror Island. I have not even finished reading the strip, and it is already going into the compendium. (when i get around to updating it again. It has been months).
I started playing Final Fantasy XI. I don't expect to start paying for it past the 30 day trial.
I also went to the Pomona Computer fair and picked up City of Villians for five dollars. That should be fun to play around with.
12/11: A Light Tale
I'm actually not sure when this will go up since my server seems to be acting up.
For those that like bloggy thingies, I have some personal news that you most likely will not care about! I have a new car!
My prior car (my parent's car, anyway) was a 1979 Toyota Corolla. I've been using it for a couple of years now, paying something along the lines of 1000 dollars on various repairs, smog checks and maintenance. I loved the car, even with its quirks (and my Roomates refusal to ride in) but recent diagnoses by mechanics pegged the most recent repair at about 800 dollars, which is no small sum considering the bluebook would probably put my car's value in the lower triple digits.
So I went car shopping, and I now own a (almost) new 2007 Toyota Corolla! It has an FM Radio! I am gleeful :)
And here's a few links to check out.
12/04: Forty Lashes
For those who are completely lost about my references in the comic.
Came across a fantastic writer in a signiture in the forum of Dresden Codak.
11/28: There Are Some Artifacts in Your Intestinal Tract
Just a few useful links.
Too Much Coffee Man is bizarre.
Dadgummit, i'm switching the update schedule to tuesdays. its the second week in a row I forget to upload tuesday night.
11/21: One of Those... Philosophy... Things...
I've been reading through Reprographics, but they got sidetracked when I started re-reading through the archives of Gunnerkrigg Court, Sam and Fuzzy, and Dresden Codak.
I would normally be finished reading through the DC archives pretty fast, but I decided to wiki the concepts the strip touches on while I go. Hint - this takes ten times longer than reading the strip as is.
11/15: Extrapolation
Comic is up early because i'm not going to be back to upload it until late wednesday. I don't have one of those fancy-schmancy auto-updaters.
Yet.
11/07: Accounting
Edwitch is awesome. Go read. I think the reason I like it so much is that it reminds me of Skirting Danger. The art style is very similar and the angst is much the same, but with a darker, more serious tone. The world itself is a bit richer and more consistent than that of Skirting Danger, and it's also consistantly updating, so Kudos for that, Edwitch.
10/31: Wet Hood Contest
You know what is awesome? Buttercup Festival.
What else? Octopus Pie. I thought that Meredith Gran hadn't done any work since she stopped updated Skirting Danger, but in addition to a journal comic that didn't go far, she has recently started a very good comic.
10/24: Man Three
Washed Ashore is a comic by the same artist who makes Comet 7 (a comic that I was not overly fond of) and Kristy vs. the Zombie Army, which I am pretty fond of.
Training Wheels is pretty good, and it is part of many, many comics in what is Snafu Comics, which I note has a collection of comics that are mostly fan-fics. I have not read any besides Training Wheels (which is pretty entertaining, if mostly lacking in the consistency it tries to attain, sometimes) and the pilot comic Snafu, which I only read through the archive of after having seen the most recent update, which is awesome. The rest of the archive? Less so.
Very similar in target audience, Internet Superbuddies lacks in many areas, notably expressions on characters that actually change, but at least 1/3 of the comics in the archive are smirk-worthy, and many 2 or 3 of the 55 may actually make you laugh. However, if you don't have time to waste looking through mediocre sprite comics, you can always read 8-Bit Theatre.
Looking through my bookmarks, I found Pictures for Sad Children, which is a bizarre and great comic that was only just starting when i finished reading the archive, and am just rediscovering.
Looking back at Post Secrets, I am reminded of Playing with Dolls, another comic by the wonderfully talented Spike, who draws and writes Templar, Arizona. Along with A Softer World, these comics often have a very cynical view on relationships and some interesting insight on the people who get into bad ones.
10/17: Anything but Black and White, Part 2
Still Wednesday. Not late.
10/10: Anything but Black and White, Part 1
I've read a few webcomics recently. Keep forgetting to put them in the compendium.
One of the one's I remembered was Instant Classic. Above average comic. Not fantastic. I like it.
10/04: Gone Spelunkin'
Late update. I'll try not to make a habit of it.
9/29: Do doo do doo doo do
Here's the update. Like I promised.
9/26: It's Not My Fault (okay, yes it is)
I went to my parent's house over the weekend to drop off my car because it was leaking transmission fluid. Since I Raid in world of warcraft on mondays and tuesdays (leaving little room for philosophic yelling and drawing), I started doing it on the weekends. So that left drawing the comic on my computer at my parents house. I did the same thing last week and it worked out pretty well.
The difference this time was that I left the flash drive with the comic on it on it at my parents house, and its a 1/2 hour drive.
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