Webcomics

This picture (which I am aware is not flattering) will make sense once you get to the entry on FreakAngels.


Webcomics are awesome. I read a lot of them, usually on Saturdays. Saturday is my designated web-comic day. However, if I find a new one that I like, I'll read it from the beginning until the most recent one so that I'm all caught up. I've been doing that recently with a new one that I found. So today instead of books, I'm going to talk about all of my favorite web-comics. Well...most of them. I don't have all day to do this.

• E-merl. E-merl is weird but awesome. It's a 3-panel comic (4 with the title, which is always pertinent to the joke), pretty simply illustrated, lots of bright colors (always important) with subjects like "Other Names For Roses That Would Not Smell As Sweet". Yeah. Awesome. Minimal swearing, not too much that would frighten the kiddies. Pretty tame, but very clever. It's updated Tues/Thurs
  
• Questionable Content. Definitely start at the beginning as this one is a continuous story with new characters and plot lines added consistently. It's also very clever, but it's more focused on the people and their relationships. Sort of like a sit-com without any actors and it's usually much funnier (excluding Seinfeld, which wins at everything forever I don't care what anyone says. Seinfeld formed me as a person). It gets updated pretty much every day Mon-Fri, although when they guy who does it is busy, the very offensive Yelling Bird will take over. I follow him on Twitter (along with the other characters who update occasionally). YB is horrifying. QC is one to check out; swearing and sex are involved, so if that's gonna bug you, don't read it.
• xkcd. A classic among web-comic aficionados. Lots of mathematical and literary references -a lot of it will go above the average reader's head, but it's really hysterically good. Also, hypertext. Never forget to read the hypertext.
• FreakAngels. One of my personal favorites. Warren Ellis writes it, and he's just undeniably brilliant. I also follow him on Twitter, and he's a very interesting alcoholic. FreakAngels follows the story of a bunch of twenty-somethings who accidentally caused the apocalypse, kind of. They all have these undeveloped powers they use and they can communicate telepathically. A lot of it deals with them trying to rebuild a working society from scratch, politics and human/kind of super-human relationships. It's so well done...I'm totally not doing it justice here, but I love it. I love it so much that I bought a FreakAngels tank top using my coffee money. That should be enough to get you to read it.
  
• Bite Me!. Vampires before Twilight. Real vampires, not faggots. It's a completed comic, so it took me about 45 minutes-1 hour to get through the whole thing. It's well-written and -illustrated. Funny, fast-paced and clever, I really enjoyed coming across it. Also the author makes fun of Twilight (hypertext. NEVER forget hypertext. It makes comics 10x better). Some swearing/risque humor. Nothing shocking, but funny as hell.
  
• Penny Arcade. A classic gaming comic. I game very little (L4D. Foreva.) but even I crack up reading PA, because it's just that good. It's funny and cute and silly and crude and hilarious. The story arc is sort of continuous, but you don't need much background to be able to really get into the humor. Swearing is rampant. Get over it.
  
• Pictures for Sad Children. Not my favorite. It's a little predictable, but occasionally there will be one that just sucks you right back in to its universe. It's got some real gems, and that alone makes it worth reading right through it.
• This image specifically: Dude Watchin' with the Brontes. I laughed for about a minute straight when I read this. It's just... gold. Absolute gold. If you're a literature nerd like myself, that it.
• Least I Could Do. It's just funny. There's a lot of sex in this one, fyi. The characters are awesome though, and it's really well illustrated. If you go back to the very beginning and read through it, you can see where the illustrator changed and it really made all the difference in the quality of the comic. I enjoy it.
• Dresden Codak. Heard of transhumanism? This is where you need to go to find out about it. It's an extraordinarily well-done comic. All I should need to say to get you there and reading it is that there is a character named Tiny Carl Jung. Yeah. I love DC.
• Girls with Slingshots. I just started reading this one yesterday. It's pretty sexual and there's lots of swearing, so no-go for kids, but it's good. It's funny, well-drawn and realistic. I'm getting a kick out of reading it. One of my favorite parts about GwS is that the characters are aware of their status as characters in a comic -much like my beloved Deadpool. It adds a slightly bizarre but ultimately interesting element to the stories.
  
• Last but not least is Wondermark. Wondermark is just plain weird. Also, hypertext. WM is really, really funny and clever, especially if you like off-kilter humor and things called a Piranhamoose.
  

Those are the comics I read most regularly, although there a few others scattered here and there that I'll check in on. Be sure to read at least some of these -they will take your day, shake it by its humor gland and force it to be awesome.
I'm not even kidding. Maybe a little.

Additionally, I love picnics. :)