Webcomics

"Look behind you! A three headed monkey!" I shouted. My captor didn't believe me, until he heard the horribly croaked english words spoken through three mishaped mouths groaning "Kiiiilllll.... uuuussss....."

• 37. I read quite fast when I enjoy what I'm reading. I got through two 800 page fantasy novels in about three days . The main problem is that if what I'm reading doesn't have either A) Awesome kung fu, B) Knights riding people down, C) Giant kick-ace robots blowing crap up or D) Boobs, it has to be pretty damn special for me to enjoy it.

One of the best ways to tell a potential nerd from a nerd-lite/diet-nerd is to ask one simple question.

"Which Webcomics do you read?"

If someone can tell you who Gabe and Tycho are, they are a genuine nerd. If not... Well they've got some catching up to do, haven't they?

I'm a bit of a webcomisseur, myself. My list of regular-part-of-my-waking-up-ritual comics I check on a daily (or less, if it doesn't update daily) basis is as follows:

Non-Adventures of Wonderella
Commissioned
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Dominic Deegan (I got into the habit of reading it early on, when it was actually funny. It's still well written, just not what I traditionally go for)
Evil Inc.
Giant in the Playground/Order of the Stick
Least I can do
Looking for Group
MacHall (now dead. It's creators have moved on to Three Panel Soul)
PvP Online (same as Dominic Deegan. Now, the humour just isn't my style, but I'm still in the habit of checking it)
Questionable Content
Sam and Fuzzy
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (I love this one)
Something Positive (this is one of the rare ones that has completely changed tone since it started, but I think the change has actually been an improvement)
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
The Noob
Three Panel Soul
Weregeek
Xkcd

As someone who's read ALOT of webcomics (including their 'making of' bits), I like to think I'm as expert on the matter as someone who doesn't make one can be.

Alot of webcomics suffer from what I define as:

"Attritionus dramaticus"

As the stories go on, they seem to kinda forget the whole 'funny' thing they had at the beginning, instead going for highly dramatic stories with overarcing plotlines and save-the-world stakes. This is fine if you start with it, but shifting gears so awkwardly just feels odd. Especially to new readers who go through your back catalogue in a couple of days. The reader is left sitting there going "Double Ewe Tee Eff mate? It goes from punning every page to dramatic fights for the sake of the world."

I think to the author, it can seem like a natural progression.
A) Funny comic
B) Put threatening character into the comic for the sake of a joke
C) Threatening character still around, make him do something threatening
D) Main character (who up to this point is quite bumbling) is the only person who knows about the situation, and has to end it himself

Every now and then, you get webcomics that start off kind of amusingly, but just... degenerate. El Goonish Shive started off as a kind of amusing High School romp through the wacky days of a couple of students. It soon degenerated into a "save the world" fight situations between half human, half animal hybrids, involving high school students who happened to be either incredibly powerful martial artists (for some reason), have fathers involved in secret government projects, or somehow be incredibly supernatural. Not to mention the RAMPANT super-tech pseudo-science guns that change people's gender, and the amazingly confused sexuality of everyone involved in the story.

WHAT.
THE.
F**K.


Some Webcomics, on the other hand, manage to handle sensitive and serious issues very well. Ctrl-Alt-Del might've alienated a few readers with it's non-joke storyarc where the main female character has a misscarriage of the baby she's having with the main male character, but I think the story was very tastefully handled, as well as the fallout of it all.

Another example is in Questionable Content, where the "Afraid of a relationship but otherwise very friendly" female character revealed in a flashback why she has relationship issues (I won't spoil it, I'll just encourage everyone to read it), and is encouraged by her friends to seek therapy about it all. It was NOT funny by any means, but it was very well written and tastefully handled, not playing light with the serious subject matter at all.


In short, just like everything that anyone can indulge in, there's alot of crap out there, but if you sift through it you find some gold.