Webcomic Wednesday* is a series of posts I’ve been thinking about for a while, as I read a lot of webcomics and want to share them with you so that you too will read them. This series will probably be irregular, but who knows?
*No, Webcomic Wednesday isn’t the most original name, but when you love alliteration….
Let’s start with a few of the regular, self-contained webcomics I read. I usually share these on Magpie Mondays, so you may recognize them.
A Softer World. A great three-panel strip by Emily Horne (the photographer/designer for the strip) and Joey Comeau (the writer). I love their description of what A Softer World is:
A Softer World is a comic that was created by Emily Horne and Joey Comeau so that people would recognize them as important artistic geniuses. Sometimes the “comic” is sad or harsh. It should be noted that this is in the tradition of George Simenon’s ‘romans durs’ (or ‘hard novels’) and not in the lesser traditions of comics like Peanuts or anything else not French. Comeau is a French name. (Pronounced kuh-moe, by the way. Joey is very important, please say his name correctly. Emily is also very important but her name is easier to pronounce.)
Everything works together so well—the layout of the panels, the division and sometimes repetition of the photographs, the tooltips (used also by Wondermark and xkcd–by the by, a tooltip is the technical term for mouseover text: a caption appears when you run your cursor over the image. It’s the zinger punchline.). Here are two strips from last week that I particularly enjoyed:
xkcd. Tagline: “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” A hugely popular comic by Randall Munroe, and for good reason. A lot of the math and science jokes escape me, but I usually catch on to the sarcasm and language (I got nothing to say about romance). Here’s Munroe’s biography for context:
I’m just this guy, you know? I’m a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the other way around.
He knows his stuff and has a wicked sense of humor. To wit:
You’ll have to click the comic to see the tooltip!
Wondermark: An Illustrated Jocularity. David Malki ! knows what I like: Victorian illustration with surrealism and sarcasm. Malki ! himself is an interesting chap; he’s “been a professional movie trailer editor, a volunteer search & rescue pilot, a freelance firearm specialist for film & television, and a picture-framer. Sometimes all at the same time.” We have a past job in common! He describes his webcomic thus:
Wondermark is created from 19th-Century woodcuts and engravings, scanned from my personal collection of old books and also from volumes in the Los Angeles Central Library. Most of the books are bound volumes of general-interest magazines such as Harper’s, Frank Leslie’s and Punch, but my collection also includes special-interest magazines such as Scientific American, Sears-Roebuck catalogs, storybooks, and primers.
Two from last week—be sure to click through to see the tooltips!
948; The Ceaseless Onslaight (I may have uttered this last line myself!)
#952; In which Everybody is Lasered
Help Us! Great Warrior is a webcomic by Madéleine ♥ Flores, whose work overall I adore. The comic “is about a very powerful and Great Warrior who lives in a village with the villagers she protects. Not everyone is smart but everyone tries to be brave,” which really undersells its greatness. Great Warrior isn’t always what we expect, but she’s always what we need. Below are the first panels of a couple of comics—do click through to read them and fall in love.
Flawless Defense!
Thunder Thighs
Emily Carroll has made several appearances on the blog (well, technically, her art has made several appearances). Wolfen Jump presented a new piece by Carroll recently, which was cause for celebration (any new Carroll art just makes me giddy). Grave of the Lizard Queen is a wordless webcomic—you can see it below in its entirety, but you’ll have to click the link or the image to go to the site where you can see the comics by clicking on the various burial items. So much love.
