Online Comics | ||
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It's strange: Some of these writers/artists were/are published in Newspapers, won awards, been published in books
(see Plan 9 Publishing) (and the rest should be) but I still see these comics, perhaps because of how I was exposed to them,
as having a fresh, rough, homey feel. I think it's sort of how people think of Abraham Lincoln as the straight talking, rail splitting, country man; even though
he was a lawyer who rode the circuit, represented big businesses, was savvy enough to be elected president and fought the Civil war inspite of his generals.
I like to think these artist are making these comics for the love and art of it, not for crass commercialism. I've since gone back and added the word "Some" in It's strange: Some of these writers and the comment (and the rest should be). When I first wrote it it did apply to all the artists I had listed. Then I added some more people. One of the artists pointed it out and asked if I knew that artist. I didn't but it turned out I got lucky and that person had been involved with an award winner strip some time before. ...I just put them on because I liked the work! I had just gotten lucky! I went back and added the some etc. but really, these are the artist I really like: I may be biased but I think they deserve awards. I hope to add some more entries soon. | ||
| Ozzy and Millie | David Craig Simpson M/T/W/R/F Brief Hiatus |
I really enjoy this series. The humor tends to be sophisticated and sometime involve Zen concepts.
For some reason this site sometimes gives an Error 403, access permission denied. This is a temporary conditiom, try back later. Ozzy, short for Ozymandias, is a young arctic fox kit who was adopted by a dragon. The good news is that dragons know lots of cool ancient wisdon; the bad news is that cool ancient wisdom isn't necessarily very practical (especially when the scsool bully is trying to stuff you into a garbage can, and succeeding). Here are some of my favorite episodes: How an eccentric, sporadically employed, single male dragon was able adopt Ozy Reunion: Ozzy and his dad must travel to a sector of the globe long forgotten by time- -where old hatreds still seethe and old ways remain the stuff of routine: Idaho How to get out of being engaged to your cousin the dragon...or why dragons REALLY breath fire Never argue theology with a Dragon see in particular This strip. The effect of Craig Simpson not being syndicated...or the cause. and also here. (He's not bitter, is he.) The 'comfort' of being adopted by a dragon. Truth in advertising...and the truth about dragon bread Millie and the 'Dread' Pirate Locke decide to take over the house, in a military coup Millie finds her father It turns out her behavior IS hereditary! |
| GPF | Jeffrey T. Darlington M/W/F |
A series with a bent towards computer geek jokes and a running story line about spies, Science Fiction and Time travel.
One of the great all time strips - because you can't do that on paper! Keep an eye on the terminator head in the last frame for about 8 seconds while the time line that created it is healed.<G> |
| Kevin and Kell | Bill Holbrook Daily |
A series set in a parallel universe of intelligent animals. Kevin is a rabbit, Kell is a Wolf, they're married...after that it gets complicated. Actually, it had to be explained to me that the title was a homophone for 'Heaven and Hell' Origin of the World Geeks of the world revolt! I just think this one is cool. |
| Accidental Centaurs | John Lotshaw Weekly (?) Hiatus |
A SF/Fantasy story about people transported into a parallel universe and transformed into centaurs...accidentally.
Origin story for Accidental Centaurs Actually they aren't centaurs, they only think they are. |
| Venus Ascending | S. Belmar M/W/F Hiatus |
A parody of "Space-trek" style stories, a captain picked to fail as part of a plot, a sabotaged crew (they raise misfits to a NEW level, the only thing they raise).
This series is kind of new but it's fun. The science officer is a chicken.Not a coward mind you! Dang it, Jim, I'm a Doctor not a Doctor! (NOT a typo! The trouble the writer went through to set up this joke is amazing.) The Captain gets sentimental...but she knows where to draw the line Norm thinks he's Harry Potter, commander Cluck is the science officer and these two guys deserve having their heads messed with.Guess which is the science officer. Norm finds out the Lasagna is cursed, the captain knows how to handle this The real reasons panels spark on starships. |
| Freefall | Mark Stanley M/W/F |
An Alien, a robot and a talking dog walk into a bar...
Help, I'm being rescued by Sam and Helix. Please save me! |
| Misfile | Chris Hazelton M/W/F |
Also by Chris Hazelton. While I haven't quite figured out Building 12 (I'm not sure I'm supposed to) the problem with misfile is how to explain what I have figured out. Apparently, if an Angel messes up your paperwork it's worse than when a computer does, because the Angels' files define reality rather than describe it. And this is just the angel who would have messed up your paperwork (or at least someone's paperwork). Emily spent the last two years as a high school grind, spending all her time studying to get into college (she even skipped her prom to study)... until an angel misplaced some pages from her file that describe her last two years and erased those two years. Now she's back to being a sophomore and wonders if it's worth going through it all over again, or if maybe she should try living instead. Ash has had his file placed in the wrong cabinet, which means everything about his life has changed. Personally, I suspect a higher power messed up everyone's paperwork (the Angel's included) so everyone can learn something...but I'm not the writer/artist so we'll jsut have to watch and see. Explanatory material. |
| Sluggy Freelance | Pete Abrams Daily |
Another confusing one. How demons aren't going to take over the world
for fun and profit (note: demons have very strange ideas of fun! And they idea of profit is strange too.)
By the way: Did you now that the Four Horseman of Inconvenience are Indigestion, Insomnia, Impotence and Incompetence? And that it all goes down from there? |
| The Wotch | Anne Onymous and Robin Ericson M/W/F |
The character Anne is the Wotch. That's like a witch, only better. Unfortunately she's still a little young and inexperienced...and maybe a little clumsy when it comes to magic, and there are dark forces afoot anyways, so unintented consequences are to be expected. |
| Kagerou | Luka Delaney Weekly? |
Beautiful art, deep story, interesting characters. A look into the mind of someone who may be insane enough to see the world as it really is.
I almost created a section called 'InActive' to put this in but apparently it has started again. Hooray! |
| Arthur, King of Time and Space | Paul Godzikowski Daily |
The humor is good even if the art isn't impressive. The idea is that the story of King Arthur is too big to be told just once and it has to repeat through history. So while some of the strip occurs in ancient Britain some also occurs in the far future (onboard the starship Excalibur). Some strips have jumps between time zones built into them. Probably the most important thing Merlin taught Arthur Heavy weighs the crown...but this is one aspect I didn't expect. The key to leadership: never ask anything of those under you that you won't do yourself... Captain! Captain! The engineers...they can not take much more of this! |
| Errant Story | Michael Poe Weekly? |
This story is set in a complex world of Elves and Humans, of magic and guns, of love and hate. |
| High School Changed Me | Joseph Fanning M/W/F Hiatus |
MSF High School is a very strange high school that trains heroes for the entire galaxy.
We've got a dark elf who was betrayed, an android watcher (well, 4 bodies and one mind, it's supposed to be confusing) and so far we've just about covered how they got to MSF High School. |
XKCD |
Randall Munroe M/W/F |
"A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." (Written by a cynical rocket scientist.) How interesting is your life? (This is philosphy) An excellent and concise explanation of "SQL Injection" "Bass" (or "Revenge") Gary Gygax obit Feynman's zombie explains mythbusters (and if anyone would complain modern physicists have stringy brains... or end up as a zombie, it'd by Ricahrd Feynman. Python has soul? Dngerous science Babies James Bond and the Centrifuge Wikipedia article on XKCD |
Tux and Bunny |
Shadowydreamer Daily |
This is done with digital images photoshopped with thought bubbles. |
| Exiern | Weekly? |
Hot art |
| Xylia Tales | ? Weekly? |
A fairy tale... the kind with monsters and romance |
| Corporate version | ||
| Dilbert | Scott Adams | Dilbert. If I have to explain who/what Dilbert is then you wouldn't understand the explanation. |
Suspended (indefinitely) | ||
| String Finger Theatre | Keith D. Jones |
What do you do if you want to make an Internet comic and all your can draw is a stick figure?
Apparently you do a comic using stick figures. Who live in a flatland like 2-dimensional world and make snide remarks about the artist, the (lack of) audience, and their own existence.
It's interesting, but occasionally rather slow.
First strip It's not quite the way I would have done it: For one thing, I'd have made the characters distinquishable, like giving the 'contract hero' a cowboy hat and one of the other characters a bowtie or something. Also the images would have fit completely on my screen (no guarantees about anyone else's monitor). Still, it's interesting and very imaginative. note: the link takes you to a random strip. Use the archive link in the lower right to go to the menu and find particular strips or arcs. |
| "Syntax Errors" | Damon Reisberg Hiatus |
Suspended (due to wife having a new baby)This strip is prepared using Photoshop and Maya (a three dimensional addon package). This is used to give the images a raised or embossed appearance. |
| Building 12 | Chris Hazelton Monday Hiatus/Completed |
What would happen if X-Files knew they were humorous? Why, they'd have ended up investigating building #12. Other than that, I still haven't figured out what is going on yet. OK, I've read the back issues and figured out more of what is going on. But the above is too funny (even if inaccurate) to remove. So here is a more accurate, and hopefully also entertaining, explanation. Imagine a college where the administration doesn't care about the students and complete chaos rules. ...right, imagine college. Now imagine a dorm where all the people who don't fit in (the insane, the majors in abnormal psychology and the, well, losers) are all dumped. ...right, building number 12 (or dorm 12). Now imagine the world makes no sense (i.e. imagine the world). Great. Now you know about the comic Building 12. This is drawn/written by the same person as Misfile (below), the talented Chris Hazelton. The black and white artwork is excellent and the occasional color covers are great (and very hot). |
| Corporate version | ||
| Crossgen | various |
Out of BusinessThis is Crossgen, a major comic book producer who have an extensive on line presence. They'll let you browse quite abit but they do sell subscriptions (reasonably priced). Crossgen makes really good use of color. And they are noted for their good writing. I was a big fan of their series 'Mystic' and went online to find out why I couldn't find any new issues: the good news was I could read it online, the bad news was they cancelled the series. Aarrrgh! Not only can you read their books online but if you want to practice a foreign langauge (like German) they've translated the text into several major languages. It's interesting, the scanned versions displayed on my screen are just a little to small to read the text, but they've got a techinque to fix this: if you hover your mouse cursor over a speech bubble it enlarges to a reasonable size. Crossgen had a great site, a good look, interesting stories and great art. I really thought they'd revitalize comic books. It is now all Past tense. details Wikipedia article on Crossgen |
| About Online Comics | ||
| Wikipedia article on Online-Comics | Various | The Wikipedia is written by people who tend to be active on line and many of them love the online-comics and have written extensive entries for them. This is a great list of links to online-comics. |
| Miscellaneous Links | ||
| My friends at DragonKingdoms.com | Sharon Cyboron |
Custom art work: Greeting cards, 8x10 prints, T-shirt transfers, hand painted slates, jewelry, etc.
Sharon followed an interesting path to becoming an artist. First she went to school for business marketing (it was her dad's idea). [She tells me she still uses it begrudgingly.] Then she went to school as an English Major, with related work in puppetry (UCONN has a noted program in puppetry). [News to me, I thought she had a fine arts degree.] She actually travelled as a puppeteer (she misses the creativity of perfoming, she doesn't miss the schedule of performing). Now she is following her mother's footsteps and developing her own style of art. Sharon has developed a technique of combining traditional painting with graphic arts (using computer for image processing) for her prints. She has one piece that is interesting because, although you'd never notice unless it were pointed out to you, she painted one quarter of the border and then used the computer to rotate that quarter and insert the other pieces of the border. The only question we had was "Will anyone notice that the four quarters are identical?" No one has. |