A few months ago I was browsing some website which linked to a webcomic and WHAMMO! I discovered a whole new dimension of the online experience. Well, rediscovered - there was one webcomic which I read when I was, what, 11 years old. However, for some reason it never led to me reading other webcomics. But now I jump from webcomic to webcomic, trying to find my next favorite webcomic. Sure, most of them are not that great, but when you find a winner …
Anyway, since many of you are on winter vacations after a good, long, tough college term, and I can’t exactly send you holiday gifts … I’ve decided to share my favorite webcomics. In alphabetical order. Since I’m on vacation, I am looking at at least one new webcomic series a day, and I hope that this list of favorites will grow. If anyone else here reads webcomics, share your recommendations too.
One note : Most webcomics change over the years, and most webcomics worth reading change for the better. For this reason, I give some examples/descriptions of the following webcomics during their later phases, in case the beginning of a webcomic turns off a would-be reader. However, I will not spoil major plot points. I just want to whet your appetites 
Dominic Deegan is a grumpy seer. His grumpiness is not helped by the fact that most of his friends and family are optimists. Or the fact that his cat Spark thinks the most important thing in the world is keeping him well-fed. Or the fact that he thinks that the majority of the human race are bumbing idiots. However, beneath his grumpiness, he has a warm, beating heart.
This is a fantasy/humor webcomic. The earlier comics are more humor oriented, whereas the later comics are more plot-oriented, but Mookie (the artist) does a good job of blending the two. Personally, I think he does humor better than story. The non-humor dialogue can sometimes get a bit repetitive, and the stories are flawed. However, they are still pretty good stories, and I have delayed more than one pressing chore by plowing through the archives of this comic on the edge of my seat. For example, I find the “Storm of Souls” story-arc sort of tedious - but I love the “War in Hell” story arc which followed. All and all, this comic is a winner.
I submit the following examples : a very early comic, a later comic in the middle of a story arc (don’t click to see the next comic - catch up in the archives first), and a tender moment with a punchline.
El Goonish Shive follows the lives of a group of teenagers in the town of Moperville. They face many ordinary teenager problems - such as how to handle a crush, or sleep deprivation, or how to come out of the closet, or how to deal with divorced parents, or having to put up with people interrupting your computer game. They also face some rather non-ordinary problems - such as dealing with a evil goo monster, how to get access to a de-witchery diamond, or what to do when your soul is younger than your body. Sometimes the ordinary and the non-ordinary problems get mixed up, such as when a girl is worrying about getting her boyfriend pregnant (that’s right, I said a GIRL worrying about getting her BOYFRIEND pregnant).
Man, I love this comic. It has a lot of humor, but it’s main focus is the characters and the stories. What really makes the comic great, though, it how well it captures the teenage. Teenagers are unstable people with lots of energy and a passion for the random, who are still discovering their place the world, and who can be brilliant and amazingly stupid at the same time. Teenagers are the kind of people who think the school elevator is a great place to throw party (this example is drawn from my life, not from the comic). However, this dynamic is, at best, watered down in most stories which are about teenagers. Not here. Did I mention that I love this comic?
The later comics have much better art, as well as better stories, better dialogue … well, they’re better. But I love the early comics too.
Anyway, examples, yesss : an early comic, a comic from the first major story arc, and a good example of the teenage dynamic referenced earlier (particularly randomness)
Maytag is a jester, which is basically a type of commedian. But unlike most jesters, Maytag is female. While in her costume, she is extremely outgoing, but as soon as she takes it off her personality does a 180 and becomes very shy. She lives with Bernadette, a swordswoman who teaches self-defence and also works as a bodyguard sometimes. Together, they go on adventures in the fantasy world of Flipside.
I have a hard time figuring out why I like this comic so much. It’s got very little humor, and the characters occasionally get on my nerves. But the artist clearly cares a great deal about these characters, and I suppose that gets me to care about them too. Also, the later comics have some fairly subtle internal character struggle, for both Maytag and Bernadette - and that’s why I read this comic every time it updates. I want to see how Bernadette and Maytag grow as characters as they world view changes, both individually and together.
I can’t really give examples for this comic. The individual pages don’t make a lot of sense without context.
This is a steampunk adventure (well, the comic’s creators dislike the term steampunk, but I’m using it anyway), in which Europe is run by Victorian mad scientists. They have a tendency to fight with each other, which has brought a lot of grief on the population. One’s social rank is determined by both birth and whether you have the “spark” - the qualities which distinguish a mad scientist from an ordinary person.
Enter our heroine, Agatha.
She has led a sheltered existence up to now. But when she gets mugged in her hometown of Beetleburg (which is somewhere in Romania), and shortly afterwards Baron Wulfenbach (the dictator of almost all of Central Europe) takes over the town, Agatha is thrust into a series of struggles and adventures.
This comic is SO MUCH FUN! It has lots of brilliant humor which is seamlessly woven into a compelling narrative. And I love the art. This has the best art of ANY webcomic I’ve seen. And it flows with the story as seamlessly as the humor. In fact, all of my recent avatars have been pictures taken from this comic. I also love how this comic has protagonists & antagonists rather than good vs. evil - all of the “good guys” have some not-so-heroic traits (including Miss Agatha), whereas most of the villains have redeeming values. A lot of the conflict is driven by characters not knowing who/what is a lesser evil - and sometimes the characters guess wrong.
Rather than gushing any more, I’ll get straight to the examples. This is a good example of the excellence of the art and how it contributes to the story. The carmage is balanced by the goofy expression on the baby’s face. This picture also says more than 1000 words about Klaus’ character. For an example of Girl Genius humor, see this comic. Oh, andthis recent comic shows another nice, dramatic contrast in one image. I cut off the top of this page because it would be confusing if you weren’t following the story, and while I was at it I whited out the dialogue because … well, the dialogue was not what I want to pull attention to in this page. This scene is even more dramatic when you know the context … without spoiling anything, all I can say is that Agatha has just gotten out of a very bad situation, and is relieved. She does not know that the man behind her was thrust into an equally bad situation minutes before, and he thinks the only way out of that situation is murder.
Gah! It’s past midnight local time. I should be asleep by now! Ah, I guess this shows how much I love these comics, that I would spend over two hours writing a textkit post about how great they are. But I must go to bed. “Miracle of Science” is also about a society plagued by mad scientists, though it’s set in the solar system a few centuries from now rather than in Victorian Europe. In fact, mad scientists suffer from an identifiable and treatable disease. But they can cause a lot of havoc before they recieve treatment. Our hero, Benjamin Prester, is the best of the Vorstellen Police, who excels in using his understanding of the mad science disease rather than brute force to catch criminal mad scientists. However, when a new threat to the solar system arises, Benjamin has to work with Caprice Quevillon, a Martian, to catch the mad scientist. And, the Martians in this space opera are really awesome.
Last but not least …
I don’t like most gaming/RPG/D&D/etc webcomics. This is the exception. This follows the adventures of a new play in Clichequest, an online video game along the lines of UltimaOnline and EverQuest.
I love this comic too, but I’m also getting really sleepy now, and thus I’ll wait till tomorrow morning to do this comic justice. In the mean time, you can start reading it.
(I spent some time contemplating whether I like you or hate you for introducing me to these comics you know 
