Webcomic roundup

[mneme]

I answered a webcomic roundup somewhere else that's more private, and I figure it's long and interesting enough to be worth just pasting here.

This is, to be clear, NOT all the webcomics I follow; just the subset I thought was interesting to write about (plus a few others that I decided to just list).

I read a lot of webcomics (I read them on RSS. If there isn't an rss feed for them or it isn't working I build one). So hilights-only:

Spacetrawler: This is a very goofy comic (by the guy who did the OLD "Bruno" slice of life comic). It's a pretty neat space opera humor comic, that's currently in its third major storyline. While the goofyness -is- goofy, I still find it well worth reading.

PS238: This was a print comic, but it hasn't been updated in years in print, while online it's still going strong: Taylor is a unpowered son of two of the world's most powerful superheroes, who have bombarded him with a variety of ways to try to give him superpowers throughout his life, to no effect. So as the story begins, they've just enrolled him in PS238, the secret (ish) superhero elementary school. It's wide-ranging, incredibly well written, and -kind- -- and the narrative is VERY different from the "Sky High" movie it anticipated. It's also one of three Aaron Wiliams ocmics I follow.

Gunnerkrigg Court: If anything, this beautiful fantasy comic has only gotten better over time. They've resolved some things in recent months, but there's stilll more to go. Fire-mage psychopomp teen, her gay techy friend, reynard the fox, and also Coyote (and some other people, but those are the majors IMO).

Girl Genius: I wouldn't mention because everyone reads this, except that we've been reading it SINCE BEFORE IT CAME OUT. I mean, we were already Foglio (Pronounced like the shakespere thing, "FOLLY-O" Even interviewers get this wrong sometimes!) fans before it was announced, so we bought the game, bought the Blueprints pre-issue, and away we went. This is VERY much formatted as a print comic (pages on release, not pages, 3x/week, which probably makes it one of the more prolific comics out there even compared to strip a day comics), but they're great at making sure to have almost every page have a joke despite the narrative format.

Headless Bliss: I started this one recently and blitzed through it (it's by the same author-artist as Roomie, which finished and went into reruns/reviews recently; it is very mixed but ends really well); a princess of hell joins forces with an unfinished story and a monstrous human. It's pretty neat so far.

Lore Olympus: Beautifully drawn 1/week LONG chapters (probably more material each week than Girl Genious honestly by a good margin); hitting a lot of greek mythology on a "what if Olympus was modern tech/fashion while ancient Greece remained ancient greek?"--but the core of it is and always will be the VERY consentual romance of Hades and Persephone.

Megatokyo: One of the few "early days" webcomics I still read. I still like it, and it's gotten on a MUCH more regular 1 page/month schedule over the last few years. Reread the last few pages recently and cried (I don't know if he's planning on ending it on one of the upcoming story beats, but he's certainly resolving things and in interesting ways).

Namesakes: This spent a LONG time in oz but the post-oz narrative is pretty great. I've written a few poems here.

Order of the Stick, Questionable Content: People mostly know these.

Use Sword on Monster: Another Aaron Williams comic, this one's pure fantasy about a group of people from more or less "our" world being sent along a chain of 6 other ever-more-magical worlds in creation to try to shut off the magic that's flowing into the 7th (supposedly least magical) world and continually changing and rewriting it. Gods, ancient heroes, and magical sword skills. And stuff. Currently on IIRC the fifth world, which is tricky enough that they've spent a lot of time here, but I'm reasonably convinced it will make it to the next "chapter" soon.

Freefall: Hard science fiction, with a squid alien in a suit, a robot, and a sentient humanoid wolf. This has had some slow periods, but when it's good it's really good, and it's not jsut Asimov's laws either.


The rest are in my NSFW folder, but talking about them isn't NSFW. Roomie is also here but is mostly there because it trips net nanny filters; it stopped showing boobies after the first hundred strips or so (also it's in reruns so boobies ahead).

Oglaf!: (who doesn't read oglaf? Some misses, but enough hits to be great).

Tiger, Tiger: This is amazing. Set in a fictional fantasy world that's running around Age of Sail (1700s or so) tech but with a decidedly different mythology (?) than our world, a young woman of a noble merchant family decides to disguise herself as her twin brother, the captain of the family vessel and go on an adventure of her own. It's pretty gay. Major characters are:

Our heroine, Ludovica: Daring and inexperienced heroine of the story but hampered by gender norms. She's also a scientist and REALLY likes studying sea sponges.

Jamis Arlesi: Ludi's fiance, and also the first mate of the ship she stole.

Remy: Her poor brother. He's mostly not in the story except that the author has finagled things so she has a reason to write about him sometimes. Also, pretty gay.

Luck: A mysterous person, super-charming and dangerous. Hopefully the weirdest person in the comic, but mysterious enough that I can't say much.