Good Webcomics I should read?

[Vinyadan]

I have been reading a few webcomics, but there always are some new ones out there. Which ones would you recommend me to read?

Spoiler: If you want to check what I have already tried

Show

OotS, Sluggy Freelance, Drowtales, Out At Home, Living to Death, Trixie Slaughteraxe, Slightly Damned, Goblins, Erfworld, Tails, The Wave, The Ebola Files, Lackadaisy, EGS, Digger, Accursed Dragon, Girls with Slingshots, Dominic Deegan, Star Power, that one comic with Conan fighting Santa and a white seal, Least I Could Do, Gutters, Looking for Group, Gunnerkrigg Court, Questionable Content, McNinja, The Phoenix Requiem, Jack Cannon, Unsounded, Xkcd, Sorcery 101, Strong Female Protagonist, Rusty & Co., Girl Genius, Darths & Droids, DM of the Rings, Schlock Mercenary, Menage a 3, Eerie Cuties, Boulet, Dilbert, Mom's Cancer.

[Fion MacCumhail]

everything on this list has been recommended by at least one person.

[Zyzzyva]

Widdershins! Brought to you care of TCAF, where I met the very nice author!
Fey Winds! Brought to you care of TCAF, where I met the very nice author!
Oglaf! Brought to you care of... well, actually, they weren't at TCAF. I'm pretty sad about that.

[Admiral Squish]

I made a thing for this exact purpose!
Reccommendations.

[Lethologica]

Having read The Phoenix Requiem, you might enjoy Sarah Ellerton's other webcomics, Dreamless and Inverloch, if you haven't already.

Freakangels is complete, as is One Over Zero.

Wilde Life updates MWF; The Forgotten Order only on Mondays.

Prequel will update eventually, I'm sure of it, while Broodhollow is sadly dead, but worth following as far as it went.

I'll throw in D&D Aangvanced and Poppy O'Possum to hit that nice round 10.

[eschmenk]

If you enjoyed Digger, you might enjoy Rice Boy. It's very surreal, though. More info: TVTropes page and a review and goodreads page about the printed book. It's completed. There are a couple of other comics by the same author there.

Freefall is obviously done as a hobby, but it's a lot better (IMO) than you might expect given that. TV Tropes page.

Flakey Pastry is a fun fantasy comic that updates once a week. It's not one to take seriously, but you might enjoy it. TV Tropes page

The Meek (TV Tropes page) (review) and Mare Internum (TVTropes page) are both by the same author/artist and both get good reviews. Updates can be a little sporadic.

The Glass Scientists (TVTropes page) is a fun well-drawn comic that seemed to become popular quickly. The author/artist's real job is at Disney, which shows through in the comic. She's a storyboard artist.

Having read The Phoenix Requiem, you might enjoy Sarah Ellerton's other webcomics, Dreamless and Inverloch, if you haven't already.

I read Dreamless. I'll point out that Sarah Ellerton did the artwork, but she didn't write it. The artwork was fine, but I didn't care for the story as much as I did for The Phoenix Requiem.

I second the recommendations for Wilde Life and FreakAngels.

I also second Admiral Squish's recommendation for Guilded Age. (TV Tropes page)

[stsasser]

Achewood

Some of the best writing (occasionally with no dialogue) on any webcomic I've seen.

[Anteros]

It would help if you told us what kind of comic you were looking for, or at least which ones you enjoyed out of the ones you read. There's so many out there these days that it's hard to recommend just one thing without knowing more about what you like.

[evocurio]

Table Titans is a good one as far as fantasy adventures go

[adamzeira]

Dumbing of Age, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal are both great

[Jastiv]

Well, I'm looking for more good web comics to read, but I can't really find much of anything new I like.
I don't know if I can pinpoint what I like so much, but rather what I'm tired of and don't care about reading.
1) anything I used to read in the newspaper
2) black and white cartoons, especially if they are realistic or anime style.
3) things with no plot, random dialog and no punchline
4.) mostly action cartoons with no dialog
5.) Anything that follows the plot of a story I already know and doesn't change the story in any significant way, example fan web comics,


Now here is a list of things I like in web comics
1) fully colored illustrations, it doesn't mater if the art is "good" or professional looking, just as long as you colored it in already, I want to read a web comic not a coloring book.
2.) I prefer pixelated or more simplistic art styles, not like the traditional western super hero comics, or anything too realistic or that looks like the artist spent too much time on the drawings and not on the plot. Anime style can be ok depending how it is done.
3.) dialog, no dialog, forget it.
4.) original story line, but nothing you can get lost in that is too hard to follow, I want to be able to turn to almost any random page in it and get sucked in right away even if I did not read the beginning.
5.) fantasy setting, preferred, but not required.

[tony9x]

Here are a few that might work for you:

The Sanity Circus - fantasy, with some light horror elements.
Tigress Queen - romance and politics (the author also has a fantasy comic, but it's not hosted on Tapastic)
Unravel1 - fantasy adventure
Tales of the Lost Souls1 - fantasy comic with traditional watercolour art

[factotum]

Apart from the fantasy setting, I'd say Schlock Mercenary meets all your requirements. Girl Genius does complete with the fantasy-ish setting (it's more steampunk, but it's closer than Schlock is).

[Lethologica]

About 2/3 of what Vinyadan has read and about 90% of the recommendations so far meet those criteria, Jastiv. I'd say you're spoiled for choice.

[ImperatorV]

Well, I'm looking for more good web comics to read, but I can't really find much of anything new I like.
I don't know if I can pinpoint what I like so much, but rather what I'm tired of and don't care about reading.
1) anything I used to read in the newspaper
2) black and white cartoons, especially if they are realistic or anime style.
3) things with no plot, random dialog and no punchline
4.) mostly action cartoons with no dialog
5.) Anything that follows the plot of a story I already know and doesn't change the story in any significant way, example fan web comics,


Now here is a list of things I like in web comics
1) fully colored illustrations, it doesn't mater if the art is "good" or professional looking, just as long as you colored it in already, I want to read a web comic not a coloring book.
2.) I prefer pixelated or more simplistic art styles, not like the traditional western super hero comics, or anything too realistic or that looks like the artist spent too much time on the drawings and not on the plot. Anime style can be ok depending how it is done.
3.) dialog, no dialog, forget it.
4.) original story line, but nothing you can get lost in that is too hard to follow, I want to be able to turn to almost any random page in it and get sucked in right away even if I did not read the beginning.
5.) fantasy setting, preferred, but not required.

Will Save World for Gold sounds like it'd be up your alley. Pixel sprite art style, D&D setting with a unique plotline drawing heavily on the characters' various origin stories. Most pages are dialog heavy. The story quality starts out fairly generic, but becomes more unique and interesting as it moves forward.

Best of all, from my perspective, is that it updates five days a week, and in the over a year I have followed it the author has not once missed an update (although he does sometimes post three days worth of updates at once and then skips updates on the next two days, usually when something dramatic happens).

[Vinyadan]

First of all, thanks to all those who have suggested me something to read. I didn't say what my tastes were, but that's because I look forward to trying new things, even things I wouldn't normally think of trying.

Since other people are using this discussion to search for something new, I'll add a very short opinion about what I've read.

OotS: Probably already well known. D&D, Parody, synthetic art that looks good anyway, probably the best dialogues in a webcomic.

Sluggy Freelance: I'm reading it now and I am liking it. It's a very good comic, with some clearly defined main protagonists. Occasionally it does derail characters to create interesting situations. Funny adventures and paranormal adventures are the big thing here. The comic will probably end or change form this august. It's been running since 1997.

Drowtales: one of the comics I read most obsessively. The first part was very good, the second part was markedly worse, the third part just began. Full colour manga about sayan drow clans.

Out At Home: sitcom-like comic. Very funny, it was ended before the author ran out of ideas. It's now offline, but can be read through the Wayback machine. Full colour.

Living to Death: the slice-of-life sequel of OAH. Currently on hiatus. It hasn't lasted as long as the other one, and has a vaguely grim outlook. Full colour.

Trixie Slaughteraxe: surprisingly good story and dialogue for a rather shabby art. Fantasy with a hint of politic plottings.

Slightly Damned: cool comic in full colour that is probably full of nintendo references I can't get because I never played the games. The beginnings are very good and deal with a nonhuman girl who isn't bad enough to go to hell after death, and is instead sent to the paradoxical area of the slightly damned. There's no one else there but a very silly demon. The ideas and execution are very good, although IMHO the story gets much slower when it expands beyond its initial premises.

Goblins: started as pencil, quickly went full colour, currently has one of the best colourists out there. Lines may charm or disgust depending on taste, the style is somewhat derivative of the illustrations in the early D&D edition manuals. The story of a group of D&D Goblins who try really hard to make it in an adventurer-dominated world. Generally good script, glacial RL pacing, lots of laughs and horrific violence.

Erfworld: full colour, fantasy wargaming webcomic. It's good, but it's sort of confusing to reread. I never can find where I stopped reading, and there also are some diary or text parts that I'm not sure if they are needed to understand what's going on.

Tails: a story about a US-Chinese guy who'd like to be a comic artist. It's well made and sometimes disturbing. It's a graphic novel. It's now complete. B&W.

The Wave: The story of a US-Korean guy who signs a contract with an alien and ends up living as a zoo animal in his dimension, which is the meeting point of alternate dimensions to his own. Very good, B&W, only the first part is online, the second part is complete but the author wanted to go for paper publication.

The Ebola Files: hilariously bad. Not to be reread, and very woody art, but the author seemed to notice the train-wreck he was building and decided to consciously roll with its non-sequitur absurdity. Black and blue humour. Colour. Manga-like.

Lackadaisy: one of the best comics out there, about anthropomorphic cats running a speakeasy in Prohibitionist St. Louis. Good characters, good dialogues, amazing art, a load of research about how things worked back then. Veeeery slow updates.

El Goonish Shive: started out as something of an action comic that quickly opted for very introspective characters. The first years were imho very good, but major mistakes in reveals built up false expectations (Lord Tedd...) while the story wanted to talk about another storyline, that was anyway horribly slowly brought forward. In practice, I keep reading because I like the cast, but it's all sooooo slow now. I still recommend it, because these are the only major flaws, and there's been a lot of work put into improving. B&W, colour, fantasy, transformations, X files.

Digger: Again, one of the best. A graphic novel about a wombat who thinks like an engineer and has to do stuff that have very little to do with his job, dealing with gods, adolescents, and food. Seriously, it's worth reading. Complete, and not too long. B&W. Hugo award. Fantasy.

Accursed Dragon: Good comic about a man who was turned into a dragon a long time ago and has been trying to return human doing good deeds, an activity he sucks at. The first part is B&W, and features a good cast of good guys and a memorable cast of bad guys with more than two sides and generally well made personalities and a few plot twists, as well as an excellent sense of humour. The second part is colour and is a mess. The language used by the characters is now as convoluted and opaque as possible. The story is exposed in such a way as not to make any sense until a final explanation. The characters don't really have anything understandable about them. It's almost like a different (worse) comic. The same author has written more webcomics which I enjoyed reading, like Funny Farm (slice of life with anthropomorphic animals), Banished (sci-fi guy dropped alone on a desert wild planet meets robot and must survive) and Laptop and Ferret (about a laptop and a ferret).

Girls with Slingshots: good strip slice of life comic about a girl. Starts out quite realistic but soon accepts a couple fantasy elements. It's good, but I don't think I was in the target audience. It's now complete: new pages are colour versions of the old ones. It's generally held in high regard.

Dominic Deegan: started out as an anime-like comic about a seer having to solve problems with his non-hard powers, which is quite interesting. Had a few good stories, then became increasingly less subtle and more repetitive. The comic is something of a myth around here because of the snark community that formed around it. I think it was the most discussed comic in this board after OotS. B&W, Anime, Fantasy, Magic.

Star Power: From the same author as DD, but with a different artist. The writing quality is very jumpy. In general, it's an inoffensive silver-age sci-fi superhero comic. Full colour, very nice alien designs.

that one comic with Conan fighting Santa and a white seal: can't remember the title for this one, but it was well talked about. Full colour, very good art, probably top tier in the webcomic world. I found the parodic elements too on the nose, but it made for an interesting read with a final plot twist. Well made, complete, and not boring.

Least I Could Do, Gutters, Looking for Group: all from the same author. LICD is a slice-of-life daily strip about the author's self-insert having lots of sex and winning anything and everything, being successful and not having to answer for anything wrong it does, and obviously he also has a very big ****. Looking for Group is a full page comic about the adventures of a pure elf ranger and the evil author's self-insert, an unbeatable ultra-powerful lich that makes a lot of jokes, kills people very often and doesn't have to answer for what he does. Gutters is a satirical webcomic about the comic world, which you will only understand if you read a huge lot of superhero comics and remember the authors and so on. I actually read all of these comics for years and then dropped all of them. LICD is charming, if completely removed from reality, exactly because of how removed from reality it is. The protagonist is a self-obsessed idiot, but that's the point. When you stop liking this kind of character, you stop liking the comic. (You may also take issue with the depiction of women). LFG started off with about 20 pages of very good jokes, then had a few hundred pages trying to build up a plot, then threw the plot into the toilet and smashed the toiled with a bulldozer. There's no general project here, be warned. The characters suffer from schizofrenia, so that they may in any occasion prepare the stage for the lich's jokes (that aren't that good anyway). All comics in full colour.

I'll give an opinion about more stuff when I have time.

Spoiler

Show

Gunnerkrigg Court, Questionable Content, McNinja, The Phoenix Requiem, Jack Cannon, Unsounded, Xkcd, Sorcery 101, Strong Female Protagonist, Rusty & Co., Girl Genius, Darths & Droids, DM of the Rings, Schlock Mercenary, Menage a 3, Eerie Cuties, Boulet, Dilbert, Mom's Cancer.

[Durkoala]

Now here is a list of things I like in web comics
1) fully colored illustrations, it doesn't mater if the art is "good" or professional looking, just as long as you colored it in already, I want to read a web comic not a coloring book.
2.) I prefer pixelated or more simplistic art styles, not like the traditional western super hero comics, or anything too realistic or that looks like the artist spent too much time on the drawings and not on the plot. Anime style can be ok depending how it is done.
3.) dialog, no dialog, forget it.
4.) original story line, but nothing you can get lost in that is too hard to follow, I want to be able to turn to almost any random page in it and get sucked in right away even if I did not read the beginning.
5.) fantasy setting, preferred, but not required.

I'd like to reccommend The Property of Hate, a surreal webcomic starring an ordinary child and a man with a television for a head that is a bit like The Phantom Tolbooth.

The colouring is beautifully vibrant, but the art style is quite complex and often incorporates shifts of style and perspective tricks. Aside from, that it fits the list fairly well: There's a lot of really good dialogue practically splashed around, the story is... mostly unrevealed in terms of scale and the world, but clear on what is happening, and fairly easy to pick up if you read the first few pages. It's a very non-standard setting, so I'm not sure if that fits your criteria for fantasy or not.

On the whole, the characters are amazing, the world is fascinatingly odd and it's the best journey involving a child hero and a self-described monster that I've seen in ages.

[stsasser]

Lackadaisy: one of the best comics out there, about anthropomorphic cats running a speakeasy in Prohibitionist St. Louis. Good characters, good dialogues, amazing art, a load of research about how things worked back then. Veeeery slow updates.

Minnor pont, but Tracy Butler is very explicit that her characters are not anthromorphic cats, but feline-ified (?) humans. Everything else is spot on, plus some very funny stuff, both in the main story and the side comic responses to fan questions, for example . Veeeery slow on the updates, but the time she takes shows up spectacularly on every page.

My $.02

[eschmenk]

@Vinyadan: One that I didn't mention earlier that you might like is Kevin and Kell. It wouldn't be out of place in a newspaper (according to Wikipedia, it actually runs in one), but it's more clever than most newspaper comics. It is the longest running daily webcomic. TV Tropes page.

I would echo the praise for Lackadaisy, btw.

I'd like to reccommend The Property of Hate, a surreal webcomic starring an ordinary child and a man with a television for a head that is a bit like The Phantom Tolbooth.

I was intrigued by your write-up, so I googled it and noticed that it has some very good reviews online. It sounds like one to check out. BTW, I mentioned Rice Boy in an earlier comment, which is apparently where the other got the idea for a character with a TV for a head. You might want to check that one out.

[leoryff]

No one's mentioned Sandra and Woo. I am sad. It's a bit like Minitokyo, but the focus is on a girl and her talking pet raccoon. I swear it's better than it sounds, it's really one of those things you;d have to try.


Another good one is JL8. A tumblr mini comic centered around 8 year old versions of Justice League characters. Again, it is better than it sounds.

[Freed]

No one's mentioned Sandra and Woo. I am sad. It's a bit like Minitokyo, but the focus is on a girl and her talking pet raccoon. I swear it's better than it sounds, it's really one of those things you;d have to try.

While Sandra and Woo is an amazing comic, a lot of the strips are in black and white/greyscale and OP said they'd rather not read comics with that coloring. However, Gaia is on that site, and that's also really good and in full coloring. (Gaia is also in a fantasy setting)

[Celestia]

I always recommend 1/0 to everyone. It is a cerebral experience unlike any other that covers topics like philosophy, religion, and existentialism. It has admittedly crappy black and white art, but the beauty is in the dialog. The rest is simply a vehicle. It is one of the greatest webcomics ever made.