Links
First, an exchange banner for The Water Phoenix King. Please plaster it everywhere: your website, your office, the handicapped stall at the local Dairy Queen, and so on. Just right-click to save the picture on your computer.
My first webcomic, a science-fantasy adventure. Follow the journeys of a former revolutionary who finds his earlier adventures following him to the farthest corners of known space.
You’ve got your vampires, you’ve got your romance, you’ve got your archaeology…it’s everything you could want. A fun, action-filled webcomic.
One of the smartest webcomics updating right now, a science fiction story about the legal and social ramifications of mental transference.
A beautifully drawn, lavishly colored fantasy webcomic. Though the creator obviously has no interest in rushing, the glimpses of the dualistic fantasy world are captivating and the human characters warm and intriguing.
Taking place in a pseudo-Celtic land wracked by a less-than-optimal succession, Cealdian also has some absolutely jaw-dropping art. Seriously, with this art, Cealdian could skimp on the story–but it doesn’t.
A smart comic that quickly moves past its Lovecraft- and D&D-inspired roots, Dark Places captures perfectly the dread of being in darkness deep below the earth, something glossed over in most other fantasy fiction. Also observe the stark black-and-white art that nonetheless doesn’t feel like a Miller or Mignola pastiche.
I’ve followed Flipside for years, and it never fails to entertain: a fantasy world with modern touches, the story follows a warrior-woman and a slightly unstable jester, chronicling their misadventures in violence, sex, and magic. Warning: boobs.
Everyone reads Girl Genius, but it still deserves a mention here for its combination of fantastic art and a clever story set in a “gaslamp fantasy” world ruled by mad scientists called Sparks. I had a hard time finding a banner that wasn’t plastered with the awards this comic has won.
A terrific and under-appreciated webcomic, Ironborn is a magitech story about a robot girl who can use magic, studying sorcery in a city that hates robots. This is raw, fun, imaginative stuff.
Probably the best of the “pulp revival” webcomics, Kitty Hawk mixes aeronautics and sewer-delving, recreating the juvenile adventures of the 20s and 30s with a slightly harder, more modern edge.
Another comic that doesn’t need me to sing its praises, The Phoenix Requiem is a kind of Victorian medical romance, with the occasional malicious ghost. While slow-paced, the painted art is stunning and the characters grow on you.
I suspect that when everyone’s forgotten every other comic on this list, they’ll still remember Rice Boy. An enigmatic, beautifully-realized epic about ambition, revelation, and the cruel passage of time, Rice Boy may be the first classic of the medium.
Not just a great science-fiction adventure comic for the casual reader, Runners Universe is a freakin’ graduate course in design for webcomic artists. Sean Wang, the comic’s creator, offers up engrossing information every page on how he puts his characters together, what inspired and motivated him, and how he manages the dual needs of making the best comic possible and getting it done on time. Excellent and–for me, at least–educational as hell.
Like its equally brilliant predecessor, Narbonic, Skin Horse is about mad science, but this tale follows the creations of mad science: a talking dog, an adorably violent patchwork-person, and a nice, normal transvestite psychologist trying to keep it all under wraps.