Webcomics roundup

As I mentioned in another post, I read a lot of webcomics so I thought I'd post a little about that. There's a variety of stuff to find online but, this being the internext, you may not be surprised that it skews towards the nerdly and weird. Let's jump in:

I probably don't have to mention xkcd. This is simply because if you'd like it, you've probably already heard of it. Generally pretty nerdy, with my favorite being this one. Can be hit or miss and occasionally sappy.

You may not be aware of Dresden Codak. This can also skew to the nerdy but more often to the mystic. The artwork is also pretty great. Check it out. In general, this isn't a particularly funny comic but rather just has cool ideas, art and characters. It recently concluded a very long and neat story arc called "Hob," which begins here. But before diving into that you should tool around a little in the archives to get a sense of the characters. There are no other story arcs so just pick one at random that doesn't have "Hob" in the title.

Next up is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, or SMBC. SMBC is one of my absolute favorites. It's got no story arcs or characters, just one-off jokes. They are almost always funny, sometimes spectacularly so. The topics of humor can be just about anything but expect the weird and/or profane and/or gruesome. Also great science jokes. It would be impossible for me to pick a single favorite SMBC, but this one speaks to me. One more thing, after you read a given SMBC, look for a little dark red circle below the comic and to the right (not all SMBCs have one but the link in the last sentence does). Clicking on this button reveals a black & white "votey" comic, an extra punchline to the main comic. These extra gags are sometimes much funnier than the main joke.

The next offering, Questionable Content, is a little different from the previous ones. This one is way more character and storyline based and not necessarily as funny. The artwork really evolves over time as does the focus of the strip. But the main gist of it is a group of young adults, cracking wise and talking about music in between bouts of drunkeness. It started out with a big indie rocker theme but the obscure band jokes have died out a bit and it should be readable by anyone. My favorite character, by the way, is Hannelore (or Hanners). She started off a little boring but has come out of her shell a bit. I like her because she has the best expressions, with some recent examples here, here and here. The second link is indeed drunk sledding on cafeteria trays, and is my current desktop wallpaper.

OK, that's enough for now. I've got a bunch more of these, so I'll probably do another post like this in the future.