Web comics
Four silent penultimate panels for today, cuatro de mayo.
Candorville by Darrin Bell
Momma by Mel Lazarus
Overboard by Chip Dunham
Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan
ur_land commented to let me know of one I missed yesterday--Baldo.
A reader named Ben emailed to remind me that I don't pay much attention to web comics. And he's right. I have a lot of reasons for that, but only one real good one. Here are my unfounded reasons and preconceptions:
They tend to be made by teens and early twenty-somethings still learning the craft. They tend to be about things that teens and early twenty-somethings like--things like elves or pot-smoking, or pot-smoking elves. The art tends to either be extremely crude or photoshop slick.
But the real reason I don't seek web comics out is their irregularity. I like consistency and web comics tend to be updated on whims rather than reliable schedules. Take, for instance, the sample Ben sent me. The current strip is from May 1 and the joke is about not updating regularly. But, well, there is a silent penultimate panel there. So here it is. Thanks, Ben.
But I am always interested in new things. If there is a web comic that totally proves me wrong, I would love to know about it.
posted by Matt Gill at 7:35 PM
6 Comments:
What exactly is wrong with pot-smoking elves? I'd like to announce my new web comic, Toke-o Baggins, about a pot smoking elf who drives around in a van solving mysteries with the aid of an enchanted afro pick.
You should see it: it's Photoshopped like crazy. So sweet.
Erm. There are probably a ton of webcomics authors who would meet your criteria about updating regularly and having good art, but the best for my money is Chris Baldwin's Little Dee, about a young girl who gets lost in the woods and befriends a group of animals. Updated weekdays unless the author takes a sick day, well drawn, and funny to boot.
Dammit, that's littledee.net, not .com. And for context: this week Vachel the Vulture has put Easter eggs somewhere in the vast unexplored woods, and Dee is trying to find them. Best to start with Tuesday's strip
Since I read vastly more online comics than off, I initially bristled at your comments. But your characterizations are essentially correct. However, it should said be that in one respect a web-comics have one advantage over syndicated dailies: they can touch upon matters that the more mainstream comics cannot. At their best on-line comics can say things that should be said but cannot by said in syndication.
I recommend Something Positive despite being egregiously sporadic in its publication if still relatively frequent, and despite infrequent forays into roleplaying games (as, unfortunately, it's doing in this week's storyline). It has made me cry at least twice despite its usually being wickedly funny. It's brilliant, dark (no, darker than that: Milholland *started* with a joke about sending a coathanger to the babyshower of an ex-girlfriend and went darker from there) and insightful.
In the four panel category, Sinfest is also well-worth the read. Yeah, it has a young male purience to it, but it also seriously engages with, of all things, religious philosophy in a way that sharply contrasts the occasional religious blather of, say, BC.
Should that be Toke-O Baggins or Bilbo Bong-ins?
For intelligent geek humor, it's hard to beat UserFriendly. It's as 7-days-a-week-regular as any newspaper comic. In fact, I believe some newspapers have started carrying it. It doesn't have any pot-smoking elves, but it does have a dust-bunny with feet.
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