On-Line Comic Strips

Hi! Literally hundreds of comic strips are published online. Some of them are so bad, you don't have to wonder why they're not syndicated. Others are so good, you would rather read them than some of the ones in the newpaper. Many are actually syndicated strips that are published (1 or 2 weeks behind) on the web as well. Others (the vast majority, actually) are somewhere in between -- they appeal to a particular group of readers, and the artists don't want to go to the hassle of syndication. It's true: on the web, anybody can be a publisher.

Of course, sometimes the point of a comic can be completely lost on its audience. Bill Bickel has a weblog called Comics I Don't Understand.

I've found several comics online that I read daily (or whenever they come out). Here they are, in the usual order I read them.

• User Friendly: The Comic Strip, by Illiad
  User Friendly is a strange little strip about the staff of a Canadian ISP, Columbia Internet. The strip focuses on so-called 'Geek Humor', which in this case usually means pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft humor. Which is OK, but I kind of wish it would advertise itself as such. ;) Still, it's quite funny, and I enjoy the charcters and the humor (usually).
• FoxTrot, by Bill Amend
  FoxTrot is the popular syndicated strip, now 11 years old, about the Fox family. Bill Amend is the master of the double punchline -- the last panel of his strips often include not one, but two punchlines. And young Jason Fox is probably the biggest (if not the only) sci-fi geek and overacheiving student in all of syndication. I read FoxTrot online because the Democrat and Chronicle doesn't carry it.
  FoxTrot is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. I read several other comics at Universal's web site, GoComics.com:
  • The Pink Panther, by Eric & Bill Teitelbaum
    The Pink Panther is a Sunday-only pantomime strip based on the popular cartoon character.
  • PreTeena, by Allison Barrows
    PreTeena is about a preteen tomboy named Teena and her family and friends.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Reprints of old TMNT strips by various artists/writers.
  • Heart of the City, by Mark Tatulli
    Heart of the City features the irrepressible young girl Heart, growing up in Philadelphia with her mom, nanny, and best friends.
  • Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson
    Come on, you know what this is. GoComics.com is presenting the full run of Calvin and Hobbes day by day, ending sometime around 2016.
  • Citizen Dog, by Mark O'Hare
    Citizen Dog was another syndicated strip, which I first saw in the Medina (N.Y.) Journal-Register. It featured a dog named Fergus and his human, Mel. In the world of this strip, dogs and cats and fish can talk, and no one notices that this is odd. My favorite charcter was one of the neighborhood cats, Cuddles. Alas, Mark O'Hare has ceased production of this excellent comic, but GoComics is re-running it from the beginning.
• EverCrest, by Drysart
  EverCrest is an entertaining little strip, but only if you have an interest in the online roleplaying game EverQuest. It's not incredibly well-drawn, but the illustrations have a certain charm that I enjoy. Unfortunately, it's been a while since Drysart posted a new strip...
• Kevin and Kell, by Bill Holbrook
  Kevin and Kell is about a different Earth -- one in which the animals have taken over, and become anthropomorphic, but the laws of nature -- particularly those of predator vs. prey -- still remain. Kevin is a rabbit, and Kell is a wolf, but they fell in love over the Internet. The strip is about their marriage, their children, and the animals around them. One of the oldest online comic strips, Kevin and Kell is now over SEVEN years old!
• Ozy and Millie, by David Simpson
  Ozy and Millie is a cute strip about a young arctic fox (Ozy) and his best friend, a red fox named Millie. Ozy's dad is a 100-year-old dragon. Ozy's adopted. The strip is very well-drawn and quite funny (in an off-the-wall kind of way). Very close to syndication-quality, if you ask me. Think of Calvin and Hobbes with a bit of Pogo and FoxTrot thrown into the mix. And of course, there's a bit extra that the artist brings into it that makes Ozy and Millie unique.
• Real Life, by Greg Dean
  Real Life is a semi-autobiographical strip. The artist, you see, is also the main character. He does his drawing on the computer, so the artwork is very clean but a bit repetitive. The key to the strip, though, is in the humor, and since it comes from 'Real Life,' it's that much funnier.
• Superosity, by Chris Crosby
  I'm not sure I can explain Superosity. It's about a guy named Chris. He has an IQ of well under 100, and he wears a cape just like a super hero (with 'SC' on the front of the outfit). One of his friends is a talking board with an IQ at least double Chris's, who can create time machines and dimensional portals. Chris has other friends, including a punk turtle. Chris's favorite TV show is ALF. ALF is from Melmac.
• The Adventures of Mayberry Melonpool, by Steve Troop
  Another syndication-quality strip, Melonpool is about a group of aliens stranded on Earth. Not much else to say about this one. =)
• Towne Pub: The Comic Strip, by Bobby St. Jacques
  Better known as Phinn, the artist is one of my friends from RIT. At RIT, a group of us wrote collaborative stories together on RIT's computer system. One of those stories was about the Towne Pub, and Phinn recently decided to turn it into an online comic. The coolest part is that my own characters will eventually be appearing in the strip! Wow! I highly encourage you to check this one out, since Phinn needs all the hits he can get! =)
• As If!, by Mimi and Jet Wolf
  This strip is about the two authors' alter-egos -- a pair of teenage girls growing up in the '80s, surrounded by big hair, Pink Floyd, and John Hughes movies. Hunter is rebellious, independent, easily angered, yet creative and loyal. Angela is naïve, empathetic, determined, and also creative. They make a wonderful pair.
• Angst Technology, by Barry Smith
  A fine strip about a small game development company and the eccentric folk who work there. Not terribly original, perhaps, but the characters are unique and hilarious.
• Penny Arcade, by Tycho Brahe and Gabe
  Yes. It's true. I, too, am compelled to read this thrice-weekly strip. I can't help myself. The jokes, dealing as they do with the latest computer gaming news and events, are often over my head, but darned if I don't care. It makes me laugh often enough to be worth it. Blargle.
• Rusty Shrapnel, by Christina Znidarsic
  Hey, it's another comic strip about the college-student artist and his or her wacky friends! OK, so strips are often numerous days apart due to the normal time constrants of college students, but the art is nice and the gags are just close enough to reality to be funny. Too bad there've been no updates in well over a year.
• Acid Reflux, by Emily Bingham (I think!)
  I know, it's not the best name, but Acid Reflux is still a good strip. It's fantasy-based, but with plenty of anachronisms thrown in. It's about a young God who gets her own universe for her 5th-millenium birthday. Unfortunately, it's a hand-me-down from her older sister, who's neglected it for the past 1000 years. Well poor God ends up trapped inside the universe (whose name is Irving) and has to figure out how to run the thing. Fortunately, she has some friends along to help her, including a fledgling mage, a headstrong fighter, and a young woman who becomes God's very first disciple!
• PvP, by Scott Kurtz
  PvP is about a fictional gaming magazine of the same name and the people who work there. Nice, funny strip, well drawn, and the focus is on computer gaming and roleplaying, so it's got a lot of good geek humor.
• Alice!, by Michael McKay-Fleming
  Alice, the star of the strip, is an 11-year-old free spirit who can't keep her imagination contained -- despite the efforts of her best friend, Dot (an unabashed realist). An imaginative, syndication-quality strip, with lovable characters. How can you go wrong?
• You Damn Kid, by Owen Dunne
  WARNING: Not for kids! This is a very adult strip about ... well, about being a kid. Ironic, perhaps, but true. I'm not saying there's sex and violence and all that, but there are enough expletives and minor nudity to make it PG-13 at best. Still, it's got plenty of funny material, with jokes that really hit home sometimes.
• Avalon, by Josh Phillips
  A very serialized strip about life at a Canadian high school, the stories can get a bit soap-opera-ish at times, but at heart, this is still a comedic strip. The characters are pretty well-developed and easy to identify with, and although the situations can get to be pretty outrageous sometimes, they aren't so unrealistic when you think about it.
• Gene Catlow, by Albert Temple
  Gene Catlow is a humanoid cat, living in the city of Furriston, somewhere near modern-day Vancouver. Until recently, furries were fourth-class citizens of the world, but the last few decades have seen them make huge strides toward asserting their rights. But Gene, with help from his mate Catswhisker and best friend Cotton Taylor, still must fight against prejudice from humans who can't respect the rights of the furries.
• Spooner, by Ted Dawson
  Spooner used to be syndicated, but then Dawson moved it to the web. A recent attempt to raise money to keep the strip going failed, so now the site features old strips from the syndicated run. Spooner and Roxanne are newlyweds who love each other deeply, but can't always overlook each others' faults. The stories really hit home sometimes, but are still very funny.
• Lizard, by Dave Kelly
  I can't explain Lizard. I'm not even going to try,
• Count Your Sheep, by Adis!
  A cute, bittersweet comic about young Katie, her mom Laurie, and the imaginary friend they share, Ship the Sheep.
• Wapsi Square, by Paul Taylor
  A confusing, complex, intricately plotted strip full of great characters, funny situations, and mystical revelations. I'm not sure how else to describe Wapsi Square.
• Freefall, by Mark Stanley
  Freefall is a science fiction-humor strip, with incredibly detailed storylines that drag in-continuity days out into years of real time. But the characters, including a con-artist alien pilot, a naive robot, and an anthropomorphic wolf engineer, are worth it.
• The Order of the Stick, by Rich Burlew
  The titular Order is a classic Dungeons and Dragons adventuring troop, whose exploits are illustrated in stick-figure style. Although rife with hilarious takes and spoofs of D&D conventions and rules, it's the characters and plotting that make this strip worthwhile.
• GU Comics, by Woody Hearn
  GU is a series of single-panel strips focusing on the foibles of the MMORPG game genre. It initially only featured EverQuest, but has since expanded to riff on any MMORPG, or the daily lives of the people who play them.