Recommended Webcomics for Someone Who Enjoys "Something Positive" and "Lilane"?

February 15, 2005 10:31 PM

What's your favorite webcomic? I mostly read Something Positive and Liliane but I'm looking to branch out. I'm up for anything but as recs go I'd prefer more than a link so a sentence or three about the comic and why you like it would be cool.
posted by nooneyouknow to Computers & Internet (35 answers total)

The Perry Bible Fellowship is a perfect example of a postmodern scalable humour architecture combined with bleeding edge clicks and mortar comedy engineering.
posted by cmonkey at 10:45 PM on February 15, 2005

Penny Arcade, because I haven't completely renounced my geekery, and I enjoy the fine sting of a dry wit.

Copper, because I'm a sucker for pretty artwork, and it has a sort of Calvin And Hobbes vibe that I thoroughly enjoy.
posted by rfordh at 10:50 PM on February 15, 2005

A Softer World, and Sinfest give my life meaning. And of course, who could forget the best dinosaur webcomic ever.
posted by tweak at 10:55 PM on February 15, 2005

Space Moose is also a great choice for those times when Garfield is just slightly too risqué. Sadly, it is no longer updated.
posted by cmonkey at 11:11 PM on February 15, 2005

Questionable Content is what you'd get if you merged Diesel Sweeties with Something Positive. Weekdays.

Schlock Mercenary is a daily read. Pretty frickin' funny, kind of like star-trek meets keystone kops.

Least I Could Do is a comic for and by male chauvanist pigs. I love it. Weekdays + Saturdays.

Aerie's Queen of Wands is required reading for S*P fans, considering how many crossovers there have been and the fact that Kestrel is moving to Boston, where I fully expect another crossover in which Davan and Kestrel hook up. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Angels 2200 - Kind of a space opera with chicks with big boobs and steamy showers and stuff. (Can you say fan service?) Monday and Friday updates.

Girls with Slingshots is a comic by one of my very bestest friends in the world, Danielle Corsetto. Tuesday/Thursday updates.

Digger - Ursula Vernon's webcomic. She's known for her, uh, anthromorphic *cough* furry *cough* art ... you can see more of her stuff at Metal and Magic. Unfortunately, the Digger archives are pay only and you'll be lost if you start in the middle... Tuesday/Thursday updates, though.

Wapsi Square is an amazing story that's been running for a couple of years now about a bunch of girls, one of whom has really bodacious bazoongas and some interesting and still unknown metaphysical powers. Oh, and the aztec god of alcohol. Weekday updates. Known for friday cliffhangers. Great art.

Girly - A superhero and her newly found sidekick. Awesome art, hilarious story, highly sexy. Some strips are NSFW. Like everyone else, the artist has done a Choo-Choo Bear crossover. Regularly irregular but frequent updates.

The Whiteboard - Probably only funny to paintball fans, but still a great comic with good art. Monday, Wednesday, Friday updates.

I've got more, but those are the best...
posted by SpecialK at 11:19 PM on February 15, 2005 [1 favorite]

Achewood is, in my mind, the best comic out there. It features anthropomorphic animals, but it in no way resembles any comic about anthropomorphic animals that is out there- except for maybe Bloom County, which I've seen it compared to repeatedly. I love the style of storytelling, the characters, the environment, the humor, everything. Definitely read it from the beginning, and give it a little time to build.
posted by thethirdman at 11:23 PM on February 15, 2005

Oh man, Copper. Saw that comic early last year and totally forgot about it...thanks for linking it! So gorgeous.
posted by m0nm0n at 11:45 PM on February 15, 2005

Diesel sweeties is the only comic I read on any sort of regular basis. Sheer pixellated brilliance.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 11:47 PM on February 15, 2005

POKEY THE PENGUIN!! is bitmapped absurdity. It's cute and confusing and can manage to make me giddy even when I have no idea what's going on. It's not updated much these days (months went by without nothing new, then there were like eight new ones, and now there's been nothing for a while again) but there's an archive to enjoy.

Cat and Girl makes mini-statements on society, consumerism, etc. and then makes fun of itself. Manages to be intelligent yet keeps perspective by not taking itself seriously. Plus it's funny, of course.

Alien Loves Predator uses alien and predator action figures instead of drawings. It's relatively new but I love it so far. The premise is the two are flatmates in NYC and uh... hijinks ensue.

My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable and My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable are these weird, surreal, clip art constructions revolving around, respectively, martial artists-in-training at a karate temple and office denizens in office hell. I think I read somewhere someone saying the author of these has managed to turn swearing into an art form and I'm inclined to agree. The latter comic has the added bonus of throwing weird shit and stuff you'd love to do into an office environment, so if you work in an office, it might be theraputic in a way. The same sight is also home to Get Your War On, which you might enjoy if you don't like Bush/the reasoning for the war in Iraq/etc.

Penny Arcade is good if you like video games and swearing. Sometimes the strips won't be easy to identify with if you haven't played the game the authors are referencing (you can usually find out more about that sort of thing from the corresponding news post though) but it's still mostly funny to me. Plus there's this strip, which is a fucking classic as far as I'm concerned and the Fruit Fucker 2000, who not only rocks for the comics but also for watching people's reactions to the shirt.

Mac Hall is similar but with much less profanity and video games but more other human type stuff. There's still plenty of gaming references but probably an equal amount of references to other things in the authors life such as college, work, (the lack of) girlfriends, etc.

I find I like Diesel Sweeties a lot more if I don't read it for a while then catch up in spirts. When I was following it daily I ended up getting bored with it but I'll still recommend it.
posted by DyRE at 11:50 PM on February 15, 2005

I'll have to second Achewood, which I like for its wryness, and The Perry Bible Fellowship, which is usually so wrong yet so funny. Twisted stuff.

Nothing Nice To Say is a new favorite because it's self-deprecating pop culture humor that is actually earnest and funny. (I think Cat and Girl tries too hard to be ironic.)

I like Cutie for the artwork but it's a weekly/monthly digest of many comics from many artists, not a daily webstrip. It's probably not for everyone, but there's some great stuff in there, eyecandy-wise and wit-wise. There are some treasures in the archives from the "old" site, too.

I also used to read Mr. Serpent, the serpent, which was just weird but remains memorable.
posted by Lush at 12:23 AM on February 16, 2005

Penny Arcade is good if you like video games and swearing. Sometimes the strips won't be easy to identify with if you haven't played the game the authors are referencing (you can usually find out more about that sort of thing from the corresponding news post though) but it's still mostly funny to me.

I read Penny-Arcade pretty religiously, I even check it on the off days with the small hope that maybe one of these times there will be a surprise. But you know what? I. Hate. Video. Games. Can't stand them, rant all the time about how worthless they are, etc, etc (don't have any problems with the programmers however). So yeah... I think you can enjoy PA without being a gamer.

My personal list is topped by S*P, followed by Queen of Wands and PA (all of which have already been mentioned). For a long time (maybe 1998-2002) I read User Friendly pretty religiously. But then it got old and I don't bother anymore.

I'm also a huge Jerk City fan, but ever since they took their break last September (IIRC) I haven't been able to get back into the rhythm. You've got a love laughing at your desk, only to laugh harder while trying to explain to your co-workers why cloroxing hookers in the bathtub is funny.

Also along the same lines is Sexy Losers. Great art, but be careful because many of the plots are adult and just... disturbing.
posted by sbutler at 12:46 AM on February 16, 2005

A number of the ones I love have been mentioned here already, but an obscure one that it's often very neat is Slow Wave. It's a 4-panel strip drawn by a guy based on dreams people send him in Email. (And on a "reader submitted" theme, there's Exploding Dog, which are created from sentences readers submit via Email. I'm partial to the earlier drawings for whatever reason.)

Also, I feel that everybody should be reading Bob the Angry Flower.

While Penny-Arcade has been mentioned several times, I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned Megatokyo, since there's a lot of audience crossover. And, in the same vein as P-A, there's VG Cats.

I also like Return to Sender for the art style and the artist's humour (she was included in Flight, just like the guy who did Copper, which was already mentioned. Speaking of, definitely check that anthology out; the artwork throughout is positively amazing.)

In a completely different vein, one of the longest-running webcomics out there, Goats just stays awesome year after year. (There's also Sluggy Freelance, which has been online for many years and has a huge following.)
posted by ibidem at 2:42 AM on February 16, 2005

My personal favorite is Unshelved, although I can't say how funny non-librarians will find it.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:58 AM on February 16, 2005

I enjoy Scary Go Round for it's dry wit and strange plot twists.
posted by black8 at 3:32 AM on February 16, 2005

Oh! Don't forget Prison Funnies, which has caused me to spit beverage all over my keyboard many times!
posted by black8 at 3:34 AM on February 16, 2005

Check out Wigu (now "Magical Adventures in Space"). I also read Achewood, Something Positive and Scary Go Round pretty much every day.
posted by teleskiving at 4:54 AM on February 16, 2005

Bob the Angry Flower, Penny Arcade, Perry Bible Fellowship and certain White Ninjas.
posted by frenetic at 4:59 AM on February 16, 2005

penny arcade and blockheads.
posted by joedan at 5:25 AM on February 16, 2005

In addition to a few of the ones already mentioned, Elephantitis of the Mind (RSS) and Get Your War On (RSS)
posted by revgeorge at 5:52 AM on February 16, 2005

A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible: a weird dreamy strip with beautiful art. The one called Paul's Science Corner is a personal fave: "Instead of burning things into ashes, it burns them into reptiles!"
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:27 AM on February 16, 2005

Jonny Crossbones.
posted by timyang at 6:51 AM on February 16, 2005

Partially Clips is another gem out of the witty stock-clipart genre.
posted by brownpau at 7:09 AM on February 16, 2005

Nukees, for all-around great storytelling with a nice dose of physics geekery.

College Roomies From Hell!!!, again for its fairly intricate storytelling. The only problem with this one is that to understand what's going on requires reading much of the archives... and the art on the early strips is kind of painful.

Fans!, written by the inimitable T. Campbell. Unfortunately, it's ending soon... but I just had to mention it because today's strip features Scott McCloud being strangled by Dekko.

And although it's not a webcomic per se, Websnark is worth watching. I've been turned on to at least three or four other strips by reading this guy's commentary.

Finally, I'll second the recommendations of Something Positive, Scary-Go Round, Sluggy Freelance, and Goats that others have made above.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:10 AM on February 16, 2005

You Damn Kid! is good and has been unmentioned so far. It's a nostalgic (yet really, really funny) strip about growing up in New England. Updates have been spotty of late (as is the way of the Webcomic) so start with the archives.

On the dorky front, there's also 8-bit Theatre, which is a recreation of Final Fantasy 1, VG Cats which is a weekly about video games, and Ctrl+Alt+Delete which is about video game(r)s. I like all three because they're often filled with that surreal violence that kids these days ask for and Robocops approve.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:11 AM on February 16, 2005

Oh! As to the "reader-submitted" theme, I have to add Pathetic Geek Stories (likability = self-explanatory).

There is also Scott McCloud's The Morning Improv with titles suggested by users. Consistently excellent.
posted by Lush at 7:35 AM on February 16, 2005

Has anyone mentioned Chris Bishop's Her yet? Lovely minimal art, wonderfully dark humor, an occasional Clockwork Orange reference, and DIY randomizing strips. And comments.
posted by brownpau at 7:56 AM on February 16, 2005

Did I miss Toothpaste for dinner? Drew cracks me up, topics range from politics, coffee, office foibles and the like.
posted by AllesKlar at 8:16 AM on February 16, 2005

Here's my bookmark list. Many of these have been mentioned before, but screw you all, I'm bored at work

Achewood You know how you thought adult life was going to be when you were a kid? This is life lived like that... except by cats and stuffed animals and squirrels and robots, and with a certian saddness.

Goats Absurd fun.

Dilbert Still really funny about once a week.

Overcompensating The daily diary comic of the mad genius behind Wigu, Jeffrey Rowland. ("Cowboy poet is *too* a real job!")

Magical Adventures In Space Actually this is whatever J. Rowland is doing at the moment. Curently a Topato Potato adventure.

Scary Go Round Funny and silly and occasionally touching. Read it from the beginning.

Toothpaste For Dinner Drew's daily drawings, small life, small stories.

Diesel Sweeties 8-bit pixalated fun. Porn and drinkin' and music and sexin and robots.

Penny Arcade Profane genius nerdery.

A Softer World Arty.

Cat and Girl A comic possibly about being too smart to be happy. Also about an anthropmorphic cat that likes to eat paint.

Comic Strip Also profane.

Death to the Extremist The Dogme 95 of web comics. Follow the adventures of an ill defined black blob named 1 and an ill defined white blob named 2.

Her (girl vs pig) Because violence is always funny.

The Perry Bible Fellowship Never explain the joke, never appoligize.

Spamusment Recently mentioned on the blue, comics from the subject lines of spam.

Exploding Dog Pictures drawn from reader submitted titles.
posted by Capn at 8:17 AM on February 16, 2005

Those who enjoy scarygoround will probably enjoy Bobbins, the previous strip by John Allison (Scarygoround artist). It's unfortunately discontinued but the archives are still up in all their anglophilic glory. Features most of the characters from Scarygoround.
posted by sid at 8:58 AM on February 16, 2005

What? No Stoopid Pigeon?!

Stoopid Pigeon is the sort of awesome sometimes depressing surrealist thing that Bob Burden might do if he were working a shitty job in Chicago.

I think it's the most underrated/unknown comic out there. I love it.

The Perry Bible Fellowship is another favorite, linked here already numerous times.

the ALL NEW Independent Cowboy Justice Brigade, while holding the record for having the longest name of any comic ever, also holds the record for maximum amounts of awesome in a small confined space. The record is: pants. Plus I wrote some of them.
posted by zerolives at 9:04 AM on February 16, 2005

I can't recommend Sluggy Freelance enough. It's funny, has really cool sci-fi/fantasy-ish story lines that sweep over months, and includes a switchblade-weilding bunny. What more could you ask for? You should really start reading from the beginning, or from the start of a chapter (there's a dropdown on the front page), otherwise it won't make much sense and you'll probably lose interest. It was updated 7 days a week for many years, but recently dropped down to 6. Pete Abrams puts an incredible amount of work into it, and it shows.
posted by Sibrax at 9:14 AM on February 16, 2005

James Kochalka's American Elf is a must-read.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:11 PM on February 16, 2005

These are some of my favorites:
PVP Incredibly funny and popular comic set at a gaming magazine with your typical "geeky" characters. Oh, and they have a troll as an intern.
Liberty Meadows Think Bloom County, but turned to 11 and with 10x better art. And slightly edgier humor.
Diesel Sweeties Fun with pixelated pictures and sensitive robots.
SinFest Lots of testosterone, playa-hatin', and puppy vs. kitten action interspersed with special appearances by god and the devil.
Penny-Arcade More Rated-R fun online than you can shake a stick at. Bow down to the Fruit F*cker!
posted by crankydoodle at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2005

Ozy and Millie. Calvin-and-hobbsey, but funnier.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:29 PM on February 16, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the recommendations everyone. It's a good thing there's not a lot going on at work because it doesn't look like I'll be getting a lot of work done in the foreseeable future.
posted by nooneyouknow at 4:50 PM on February 16, 2005