Anyone who knows me will know that I am a very avid fan of webcomics. I know what I like and I wanted to share a list of my favorites. Many of these I've been reading for years, some almost eight since I picked them up in college.
Currently reading:
Questionable Content is a slice-of-life humor comic that I picked up at the start of my college years, and still read. The attraction lies in the strong characterizations and young-person-savvy humor, for me, even though at first the strip was heavy with indie music references and humor that may seem dated now. Not that I minded at the time; the strip's creator, Jeph Jacques, has inadvertently introduced me to some new bands through mention in the strip and in his newsposts with comics.
Sam & Fuzzy is an alternative comic that, when I started reading, was a joke-a-day strip, but thanks to some interesting recurring characters and the opening of some very interesting plotlines, has become quite the impressive story. Absurd and extreme humor abound, along with deep drama and tension in the later cohesive plot arcs.
If you're looking for a joke-a-day comic rife with nerd, geek, engineering and internet humor, I would recommend XKCD. Randall Munroe, a former consultant for NASA, started the comic to show off doodles from his college notebooks, and eventually created the stick-figure, pun-steeped, and often impenetrably nerdy comic we all know today.
Megatokyo
The definitive webmanga. Although notorious for his often slow update schedule, Fred Gallagher has transformed Megatokyo from its initial concept of a gag-a-day strip for an anime news site into its own massive story encompassing, commenting on, and often poking fun at and subverting many anime and manga tropes and themes. Gallagher gives his characters believable motives, serious emotions, and drops them into situations that challenge them as much as they do the reader.
Ctrl-Alt-Del
I'm no longer sure this comic is in the right category now; I just read today that the comic will, in a fashion, be rebooted. But for the past ten years (damn, has it been that long?) Ctrl-Alt-Del has been a great geek/gamer comic with an opinion on every slice of nerd, gamer, and otaku culture, with likable and occasionally unpredictable characters.
Dead Winter
Only one comic about the zombie apocalypse has kept me intrigued from the beginning - and that is the fabulous Dead Winter. Boasting a central cast of characters with serious backstory and depth, the struggles of this ragtag band have kept me on the edge of my seat for months now.
Diesel Sweeties
A classic gag-a-day (or running-gag-a-week, depending on how long R. Stevens' attention span lasts) strip with fun pixel art and characters steeped in their own unique attitudes and identities, Diesel Sweeties is another comic that deserves its long-runner honors. Although some humor may be obscure, it's often best that way.
Historical references? Check. Geographical humor? Check. Making fun of the differences in societal standards in Victorian times versus now? Really big check. HaV jabs at history, war, kings and queens and presidents alike with a goofy and often affectionate wit. Drawn by the talented Canadian lass Kate Beaton, laughs historical await.
Created by the mysterious Ohioan known as Drew, Toothpaste For Dinner is a bizarre strip in laugh-a-day format with simple art and a penchant for finding the strange and uncomfortable side of humor as often as poking fun at everyday and mundane things. Also very self-deprecating/-referential.
Meredith Gran's ongoing comic about the lives of two Brooklyn twentysomething girls who couldn't be more different captured my attention thanks to its evocative art and great and deep characters. Hipster humor and general silliness make this a fun read, while Eve's romantic and social struggles bring a seriousness to some chapters.
Menage A 3
Ongoing comic about a virginal comic book geek nearing 30, which pairs him with the skinny punk rawk chick and the Amazonian-figured Quebecois as roommates? What kind of story is that? It's a sexy one, duh! Also hilarious - generally lighthearted sex comedy abounds. With characters as fun and still human as these dudes and dudettes are, it's tough to pull off well, but Ma3 does it, as contra-worksafely as possible.
Players of tabletop RPGs may enjoy Order Of The Stick, a stick-figure comic revolving around the adventures (literally) of a six-player-character band of heroes out to save their world from certain doom. Hilarious, action-packed, and with a quasi-realistic viewpoint towards war and fighting, the story and all of its little subplots fascinate me to no end. While much of the humor and drama revolved around the D&D 3.5 edition rules and quirks thereof in early chapters, well-developed and real characters take over and drive the story like a pack of marauding goblins (literally).
Read occasionally:
Danielle Corsetto writes an all-around awesome strip about love, sex, relationships, and drunken antics (sometimes all at once) from a uniquely feminine point of view.
Between Failures
Another slice-of-life comic, this story follows a group of employees at a big-box store, and their misadventures and antics. Good characters, but the art has changed some, seemingly to make it easier to draw.
The wife of Toothpaste For Dinner creator Drew, Natalie Dee does a similar joke-a-day strip alongside her husband. Although it's similar bizarre humor, the character thereof is significantly different.
Finished, hiatus, or stopped reading:
Ai-Yai-Yai
A tale of romantic fractals, let alone mere triangles in a Japanese high school in the 1970s, Ai-Yai-Yai was an interesting webmanga that has now been on hiatus for years. I don't know whether it'll ever get picked up again, but its' later chapters feature some very intriguing character development.
Keychain Of Creation
Currently on hiatus, KoC is another adventure comic based around a tabletop RPG, albeit the Exalted platform in this instance. Unique art and an interesting extrapolation from the Exalted canon make for an entertaining read.
Scary Go Round
John Allison was the author of an excellent slice-of-life/adventure/British comic running from 2002 to 2009. Boasting some of the best art I've seen in a webcomic, British humour abounds and the strange and decidedly non-sublime plotlines kept me amused and intrigued for days on end. Allison currently writes a new comic called Bad Machinery at the same web address, but I have to admit to not being as interested.
Generally a joke-a-day strip about a really odd cast of characters. I stopped reading it during a period where the author became somewhat unfunny, and I was looking for something new.
Not a humor comic; this is a dramatic story about the titular characters and the failure of their relationship. It's a good read, but the story has been finished.
