kane_magus | Another big post about webcomics that I read (Reply)

(Post started at 12:20am. Post posted at 3:05am.)

Man, I haven't written a big post about webcomics that I read for almost a decade now. Let's remedy that.

No big intro lead-in this time, so I'll just jump right into it.

As of right now, I'm doing an on-again-off-again archive bing of Depression Comix. When I last left off, a month or so ago, I was right at the 200th comic on that, which seemed as good a point to pause as any. Basically, it's not a comic that I want to just sit and read for hours at a time. But I can relate, most definitely. More than I'd care to, honestly. :/ What a cheery note to start on. >_>

Anyway, moving on.

Here is my list of comics that I am currently following, in the order that they appear in my bookmarks (which is not in order of when I started reading them or in orders of least-to-most or most-to-least favorite or anything even vaguely resembling that).

Penny Arcade. I read this one mostly due to inertia now. It still gets a chuckle from me now and then, and they have on-point commentary on current events in the video game industry, more often than not... but things like dickwolves and such have soured me on it a little bit. Not enough to stop reading it, mind you, but still. I suppose I still like it well enough. *shrug*
MegaTokyo. Again, this is mostly an "I've been reading it for this long, so why stop now?" sort of thing. It would be better if it updated more than once every three to six months, of course, but... yeah. It's to the point now where if any characters beyond Piro, Largo, and Ping (and even Ping is iffy, since she changes her appearance so often) show up, I'm like "Who are these people, again?" That's MegaTokyo.
Dumbing of Age. The current comic by David Willis of Roomies!/It's Walky!/Joyce and Walky! and Shortpacked! fame. New universe, completely unrelated to the old Walkyverse, aside from having the same characters (in appearance and name and some character traits, at least, if nothing else). One of my favorites.
Does Not Play Well with Others. Eh... it's another following-out-of-inertia comic, I guess? By Michael Poe of Exploitation Now and Errant Story. I guess I like DNPWwO okay, but it's not as epic in scope as Errant Story was. And I guess I've sort of grown out of the humor somewhat, maybe? I'm still following it, though, so...? *shrug*
El Goonish Shive. I'd have to say that this one is by far my favorite of the ones that I'm currently following, possibly of all time. Genderfluid magic and transgender sci-fi rayguns are still the big draws, I guess, but I like it more for the characters and their interactions with one another, regardless of whatever sex/gender they may happen to occupy at any given moment.
El Goonish Shive: NP. Newspaper-ish style comic, which contains (usually) non-canon, wackier stories set in the main comic universe, or in video game/movie parodies starring the characters from the main comic.
El Goonish Shive - Sketchbook. Er... not a comic, per se. Just whatever sketches that Dan throws up, on occasion. Still cool, though.
Flipside. I think this one might have hit a patch of Cerebus Syndrome lately (not that it was a gag-a-day from the start or anything), but I still like it.
Girl Genius. Just as epic and broad-spanning as ever. Has a bit of a Loads and Loads of Characters problem, but it's still one of my current favorites.
Order of the Stick. The first "new" one since the last post, if you don't count follow-ups from previous comics I used to read. Don't let the art fool you. (Not that there's anything wrong with stick figures in the first place, mind you. ;p) This is a comic (very loosely) set in and using the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, starring a "typical" adventuring party consisting of a warrior, mage, thief, bard, and ranger. I like the more epic-in-scope comics to gag-a-day comics and this one is more the former than the latter, though it's still rather funny, too.
Erma. This comic basically asks and answers the question of "What if Sadako Yamamura/Samara Morgan (or a similar, but legally distinct character) married a human and had a kid?" Very cute. Also very creepy, at times. Increasingly epic in scope, as well. I like it a lot.
Rubi Whipple. This is the comic that Starline Hodge started, after putting the long-running Candi on (probably permanent) hiatus. It's about a witch named Rubi who has a curse that prevents her from being able to fall in love with anyone, lest bad things happen, and (so far) her attempts to live with and try to break that curse. What there is of it so far is pretty cool.
Pixie Trix Comix. Basically the direct-indirect sequel to Menage a 3 ~~(with which it shares a website, obviously)~~ and companion strips Stick Dilly Buns and Sandra on the Rocks. And... eh... I'm reading it, but similar to late-stage MA3 and SDB, I'm finding the humor less and less... well... humorous, I guess. I'm seeing the patterns and cliches and recycling in the stories. I'll stick with it for now, but... meh, we'll see, I guess. Not as NSFW as it used to be, since they tend to hide the naughty bits now, due, I think, to advertising issues they've had in the past.
Awkward Zombie. A gag-a-day strip mostly about video games. No more, no less, really. I like it.
Three Panel Soul. A bit of an odd duck, in that it mixes random gag-a-day stuff with a sort of semi-ongoing storyline about a witch and her daily life. I like Jo. She's cool. Wish there was a dedicated comic about her, without the intervening and interrupting randomness. But the randomness is cool, too.
Nerf NOW!!. Still a mostly gag-a-day comic about video games, starring gender-bent Team Fortress 2 characters. Not much else to say about it that I didn't say in the last post.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Surrealist humor in the vein of The Far Side. Did I say that in the last post? *checks* Yep, I did. That's still what it is, sure enough.
Laws and Sausages. A new comic, which has been updated more and more sporadically lately, written by Zach Weinersmith of SMBC and his brother Greg. It's about politics. It tries to explain political concepts and terminology. It also tries to be humorous as well. I like it, but it's probably not going to be everyone's cup o' tea.
xkcd. I have to admit, more and more often lately when this comic has a page that is just a bunch of text or graphs or whatever, my eyes mostly just glaze over and I usually give it a pass for that day. I still (mostly) like the stick figure-based comics, though, I suppose?
Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi. Another "still reading due to inertia, mostly" comic. Update schedule is sporadic, and I've mostly grown out of whatever references the comic makes, when it still makes them.
Grim Tales from Down Below. Copy what I said about PPGD and paste it here, except with more emphasis. When the original writer(s) left/got booted out/whatever from this comic, it went downhill quite a bit, sadly. (Bleedman just does the art, which is still pretty great, but he apparently doesn't give a shit about the storylines anymore?)

Next up is my "Comics That Don't Update Anymore" list.

Perhaps a bit of a misnomer, because some of them did start updating again, at least very sporadically, in spurts, maybe just temporarily, I don't know? I haven't actually checked them in a while. Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to do that, while doing up this post? If nothing else, I can weed out the ones that are just completely dead links now. (I'll just list those with a ~~strikethrough~~, as I don't want to just leave them out entirely...? If they have new urls and I just don't know about it now, maybe I'll try to hunt them up... later...)

In any case, these are comics that I used to read, but don't anymore, either because they ended, or because they had just stopped updating (or were updating so sporadically that I just lost interest) by the time I added them to this list.

8-Bit Theater
Everything Jake
Girly
Exploitation Now
Joyce and Walky! (This one is still updating, in the sense that Willis is reposting the entirety of the Roomies!/It's Walky!~~/Joyce and Walky!~~ strips in one place with added commentary. With the exception of most of the Joyce and Walky! strips, as they are still behind a paywall. Oh well. Maybe some day...)
Alien Loves Predator
~~Sync~~
Active Stupor Heros
Dueling Analogs
Twisted Kaiju Theater (Apparently, the old comics are gone for good, and there is a new comic now? I dunno. *shrug*)
~~Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden~~ (Can be found here now, at least in part if not whole[?])
Fans! (Still one of my all-time favorites.)
Penny & Aggie (Hmm... this one has updated with something else, since last I checked it [at which point it had very definitely ended], so dunno what's up with it right now. Will check more in-depth later.)
QUILTBAG
Shortpacked! (Uh... this one appears to be somewhat updating again, too, despite having decisively ended previously? Okay. ...looks like it's just yearly April Fool's Day posts, mostly.)
Vampire Cheerleaders/Paranormal Mystery Squad (Apparently no longer available as a free webcomic? Meh.)
Problem Sleuth (Homestuck's predecessor.)
Homestuck (I'm not sure if this is my top favorite web comic/anime/game/interactive thingamabob of all time, but it's probably in my top five, hell, maybe top three. El Goonish Shive would be one of the other two, but not sure off the top of my head what would be the third... probably Fans!)
The Homestuck Epilogues (It's the text-only "continuation" and "ending" of Homestuck, but it's kind of its own beast, and of questionable "canonicity.")
Sandra on the Rocks

And here is my "Hardly Updates Ever" bookmark list.

Again, kind of a misnomer as some of these have likely since properly ended (in some cases definitely ended, and I just haven't bothered yet to move them to the above list). Or died. Or resumed updating regularly. I honestly don't know, because I haven't checked them in forever. Not even sure why this is a separate list from the one above, really. It's kind of a more passive-aggressively hostile list than the one above, as I was probably more annoyed by their trickling updates than with the others...

As with the above list, these are comics that I used to follow, but stopped, because they stopped updating. Unlike the above, though, most of these never properly ended (or at least they hadn't when I added them to this list), hence "Hardly Updates Ever."

I also notice that there are some old comics that I used to read mentioned in the previous posts that aren't in any of these lists. Ah well...

VG Cats
Alpha Shade
~~Star Crossed Destiny~~ (Apparently over here now.)
Clan of the Cats (Updating again? Maybe? It has been so long since I last checked these... ;_;)
Errant Story
Axe Cop (Looks like this one got a proper end finally? I'll have to look into this later.)
CRFH (Updating again? Maybe? Certainly new stuff since last I checked, literally years ago, looks like.)
Paradox Space (A Homestuck side thing. Went behind a paywall and I lost interest, but at least the free stuff is still there?)
The Trenches
Candi
Eerie Cuties (Had a proper ending, then they updated a bit more, later, with some side stories, but should probably be moved to the "Comics That Don't Update Anymore" list.)
Magick Chicks (As with EC, it had a proper ending, then updated with side stories. Should be moved to "Don't Update Anymore" list.)
Sticky Dilly Buns (Should definitely be moved to the "Comics That Don't Update Anymore" list. I mean, I guess I could just do that now and edit this post to reflect that before I actually post it, and nobody would ever know I'm just being lazy because it's almost 2:30am as I type this line, but meh.)
Dangerously Chloe (Definitely ended. Copy/paste SDB note to here. This, also, was one of the comics, at least in its late stages, that has sort of started to sour me on the Pixie Trix Comix stable as a whole. Hrm.)
Captain SNES (Has updated since last I checked it, but not recently enough that I'd care to get back into it, honestly.)
Sugar Bits (I guess this one has also ended? *shrug*)
Wandering Ones (*sigh*)
The Perry Bible Fellowship (Lives up to the name of this list the best, probably.)

And... yeah... no, I'm absolutely not going to be adding the "Comics To Maybe Try Later" list to this post. Firefox tells me that there are currently 231 items in that list, which makes sense given that I just add shit willy nilly as it crosses my fancy...

No, wait, I guess I can just copy/paste the bookmarks themselves here... let's see...

Okay... that looks like complete shit, but... *shrug* ...there you go. That's my "Comics To Maybe Try Later" list, fwiw.

Another big post about webcomics that I read

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