Web Comics

Shelley and I are in dire need of new comics to read in the morning. I need something to read as I eat my morning cereal, and the back of the box just isn't stimulating enough for that time of day. It seems like all of our favorites are disappearing. I know that there is a huge variety of comics out there, but it's hard to judge a strip from looking at just a few comics. Even the great ones like pvponline and penny-arcade have their low periods. I need to solicit people for their top ranked comics so I can eliminate time spent reading the crap that's out there. To get an idea of where my interests lie, here's my thoughts on the comics that have occupied my bookmarks in the past.

Sinfest has to be the most under appreciated comic out there on the net. The jokes focus on gender roles, religion, philosophy and rantings about the establishment. God making fun of the devil with a silly sock puppet would have to be the epitome of Tatsuya's work. Unfortunately, Sinfest now seems to be only updated roughly once every two weeks, which is sad because that would have to be the top ranked in our list. It's not the traditional comic which duals as a personal blog for the author, so we don't have any idea why Tatsuya has abandoned us. Maybe I'll buy one of his books on amazon and give it away for a birthday present, I'm sure that will make all the difference and we'll be back to the daily comic submissions.

Angst Technology had to be one of the better comics out on the net. It was composed largely of gaming, and IT related jokes but it also mixed in a healthy dose of substance abuse (caffeine), office politics and slapstick. I thought that it disappeared two years back so I axed it from my bookmarks. Now I find that in 2005 a whole schwack of new strips had been created. Even though the strip hasn't been updated in 9 months, I think I'll continue to check back on it. It amazes me how often I see those strips taped up to cubical walls around Calgary offices.

Foxtrot finally got the axe today. I really don't know why I ever bothered to bookmark it in the first place. I really don't think that I have ever laughed at one of the strips. Perhaps a half chuckle once in a fortnight, but nothing to ever warrant bookmarking it. The sight hosting the comic strip is quite interesting, you have to wonder what is going through the heads of the advertisers when they riddle the site with pop up and under, and annoying flash adds that blare sound and flashy images. Oh well, I'm going to suppress all of my memories of Foxtrot. Hopefully with time the memories will disappear to free up space for other bits of information that have slightly more value than a family circus comic.

You'd think that if the ucomics site bothered me so much that I'd steer clear of it, but sadly Calvin & Hobbes keeps me coming back. I'm really surprised that that type of comic could be so popular as the jokes tend to be a little too high brow for the Sunday morning comics. Great way to learn new words though, how does that 6 year old know so much? Too bad the authors been in retirement for almost a decade now.

Sluggy Freelance has kept my attention right from the start. This comic has been around since '97 producing a descent comic 6 days of the week. This one definitely takes the award for most consistent. Oddly, I don't remember ever laughing at any of the comics, but somehow it keeps my interest. The value of the comic is more in the character development and story telling that is perfect in the mornings like Saturday morning cartoons used to be. I don't recommend this one to anyone unless they are willing to read through nearly a decade of comics.