Also, I am really surprised no one has put down Oglaf (NSFW, must be 18 or at least pretend to be in order to read). Updates on sundays, some storylines (will that apprentice dude ever wake up?) but mostly porny gag postings.
Prince of Cats: A gorgeous story about gay teens in love, growing up, cats and a magic wish. The comic is also beautifully drawn and handpainted in gouache. Worsted for Wear: A frankly adorable GWS-style comic about a knitting circle! It's really fun if you're into knitting or crochet, and even if you're not, it's still a great story about women coming together and helping one another move forward in life (though you may not understand some of the jokes) Phoenix Requiem: Mystery, religion, love and the undead in a victorianesque setting. The art style is gorgeous and the story is very intense and compelling. Inverloch: A kind-hearted and soft-spoken Da'kor (a goat-like humanoid fantasy race) goes on a quest to find his elf crush's long-lost fiancé. He joins paths with a cold and mysterious policewoman, a thief with a heart of gold and a fiery-headed teenage witch. An older comic from Sarah Ellerton, the author of Phoenix Requiem. It's a lot simpler in terms of both art and plot, and can get really troperrific, but still makes for a fun read. Dreamless: Eleanor has a secret: when she falls asleep, instead of dreaming, she sees the world through the eyes of Takashi, a boy who lives on the other half of the world. A short graphic novel with art by the aforementioned Sarah E. and writing by Bobby Crosby.
Oglaf is hilarious. Wicked sense of humor, absurd sexual or other NSFW situations, and has a wide variety of sexualities to boot.
Some Forum adventures (suggestion-driven webcomics that run in a similar way to the early MSPA, and are indeed hosted on their forums). Most of them are read via forum threads, and quite a few of them also have mirrors on a sister site to the forums, where the story can be read more like a traditional webcomic. All Night Laundry - Who knew how much horror and other strange things one can find late at night at a laundromat. Superego (mirror) - In which ten colourful people do strange things in a strange abandoned hospital for strange reasons. Ontological mystery. The Human Game (mirror) - A story about people and masks and horror by my good friend Friday. An ontological mystery in which eight people get told that they're awful by a mysterious overseer, and everyone has something to hide. Camaraderie (mirror) - A minimalistically-pixelarted story about some people who find themselves kidnapped for the sake of something very sinister. By another of my good friends, Nix. There are others, and other webcomics, but I am in a bit of a hurry and also I don't want this post to be five miles long.
Trying Human by introducingemy is probably my fave besides Homestuck. It's about human/alien relationships, alien abductees, Majestic 12, area 51... basically alien stuff. Emy has put a lot of work and research into this comic and it's basically really awesome. I used to read a bunch of other webcomics but I haven't stayed caught up.
Mmmm. I have been webcomic binging. Picked up Monster Pulse, so thanks for the recommendation. Also started reading the following: Lapse - Fairly new comic about ghosts Here be Voodoo - Interesting story about black magic/voodoo. Perspective is primarily from the view point of a doll Hominids - Pre-historic setting. Some interesting culture clash and setting going on. Full color, beautiful art Chirault - Fantasy adventure. Lotsa magic and demons and stuff.
Oh man, most of mine have already been mentioned, but hopefully I can add some new ones that I also enjoy: Helvetica - Cute comic about cute skeletons where "when you die, you don’t remember anything in life, and your first word(s) is your name." Stopped updating for a while, but it's back now on a weekly schedule! It appears to update on Fridays, from casual observance of my RSS feed. Agents of the Realm - Magical Girl themed, but in college Sfeer Theory - Wonderful art, involves wizards and an empire The Phoenix Requiem - I used to love this, but I fell out of it after a while! It's a victorian supernatural setup, and currently completed. Monster Pop - A world with monster people, takes place in college Thea Mania - If you love greek mythology, you'll love this. The author is a-gnosis, they're on tumblr and deviantart Happletea - a joke a day type setup, deals with mythology, religion, etcetera Delilah Dirk - Adventure and action in 19th century Turkey Em Carrol - some delightful shorts in here, some good horror This is what I could think of off the top of my head.
ooh, webcomics! I used to read dozens but I'm down to just a few ... or I was until I clicked on some of the links in this thread. Here are a few of my favourites: Prague Race - "There's another world, hidden from human eyes. A world filled with magical wonders and beings!" Most of which will kill you. And, if you're human, cut you up and sell you on the Faerie black market. So of course that's where the main characters wind up. Beautiful greyscale comic, lots of dark humour, fair amount of body horror. Leppu also has a completed 24-page comic up here that's quite a fun read (more body horror ... seems to be a theme, hm). Todd Allison and the Petunia Violet - Petunia Elkwood came to Melbourne to find herself, but instead she found Todd Allison, a cranky young man investigating a series of bombings committed by the mysterious and elusive "Violet". Nozmo has a distinct and colourful art style - my favourite part is the hilariously exaggerated expressions - and her writing is just as fun. She's got two unfinished comics and a complete one-shot that I enjoyed just as much when they were running. Strangers and Friends - Hemu and his grandfather move from London to Wootton Basset just in time to become suspects in a series of murders. Fortunately, they know what the culprit is. Unfortunately, you can't just tell people that one of their friends is probably a demon unless you want everyone to find out about your secret identity as a demon-hunter. Scary Go Round/Bad Machinery/Bobbins - All three set in the fictional town of Tackleford, where weird and mysterious things (malfunctioning Hell portals, man-eating monsters, etc.) keep happening. The format is a little more like that of a comic strip, but there are distinct story arcs. The characters involved cover a couple of generations - the main characters in Bad Machinery include younger siblings and students of the main characters in Scary Go Round. Aaaand a few interesting ones that are just starting/not being updated/I haven't read much of: Snowbound - I met the author in the Inkblazers chatroom (IB is gone but the chatroom is still lively, which is good because I am the worst at bookmarking) and the artist is Mayshing of E-Depth Angel (which I haven't kept up with but recall as being a fun read). Mysterious bald kid, girl with magical snow powers, I think monsters are going to attack them? The Unfinished Case of Owl McDooey - Another project by someone I know from IB. Teenager Owl goes missing, PI Freddy tries to find him. Hasn't updated in a while, but you never know! I really like the art style. Hidden in Plain Sight - Lovely art, time travel maybe? I haven't read enough to know what it's about. There's a flying guy and a cute girl and lots of plants.
O Human Star - Alastair Sterling sparked a revolution in robotics and died before seeing its fruits. Sixteen years later he is resurrected in a robot body and tries to get used to the world that has utterly changed. Including his old partner Brendan. Very diverse cast, nice monochrome art style. Run Freak Run - An Inquisitor investigates supernatural occurrences in fairytale Spain and gets tangled with various factions who may or may not like her very much. By fairytale I mean the Grimm-ish, creepy stuff. Quite a lot of vaguely body-horrory stuff. Piled Higher and Deeper - a comic strip about the trials and hardships of PHD students. Doesn't really have an overarching storyline. Fey Winds - a foxgirl, elf and mercenary walk into adventures. Relatively lighthearted, always funny. I'm seconding Stand Still Stay Silent and A Redtail's Dream. Those are awesome. edited: fixed a typo
It looks like the other posters have hit most of the webcomics I've read/read (e.g. PHD comics, Widdershins, DoA, SSSS). Here are some of the others I read. The Last Halloween - Like Prague Race, it's got a sort of grim art style and premise, but is still really silly. The idea is that the Phagocyte is dead, and scary monsters roam the earth trying to kill their marks (which constitute all humans). It's been going on for quite some time, and yet some characters have only just started caring. Not a Villain - A hacker responsible for killing millions (I think; number unknown) tries to redeem herself and prove to the world that she's not a villain. Slightly Damned - A story about Death, a dead person (Rhea), and a seriously confusing family of demons. Really funny. Saint for Rent - A story about someone who owns an inn for time travelers, and the time travelers. Can get confusing as a result. Demon/Fleep/Bookhunters - Jason Shiga's site. The first is ongoing, the other two are finished. Shiga was a pure math major, he's smart, and he's put that into all his characters (seriously. Two of the protagonists, possibly the same person, are accountants and absurdly fast at mental math, besides being really clever). Even Demon, which is a bit of a superhero story, is, for almost its entire duration, a battle of wits. Warning about Demon: 287 deaths (many offscreen, though), including several suicides. Lucidstuck (mirror) - Dreams. Levels of dreams. Dreams that project the dreamer to the realm of the dead. A talking bird who is also a sword. Along with Superego (someone else posted it earlier) and Fortuna (below), one of my top 3 MSPAFAs. Easier to understand if you have read at least the first couple acts of Homestuck. There aren't explicit references, but it shares some of the same mechanics, though applied pretty differently. (note: Fortuna doesn't have any relation to Homestuck besides the site, like Superego; they are totally independent) Fortuna (mirror) Snarky AIs, AIs named after (and sharing personality traits with) Greek and Roman gods, and AIs that break the fourth wall (though no one else can). And they're all the same group of AIs. It's got typos and grammar mistakes all over the place, but, if you can tolerate them, it's fantastic. Updates really slowly, though. Snowflakes - Finished, though somewhat abruptly and unsatisfactorily. A bunch of orphans live in the mountains. One thinks she's a Viking. Hilarity ensues. Precocious - A school of evil geniuses, pretty much. Functions mostly on a basis of short 1-2 week storylines. Conspiracy Friends - I cannot possibly do this comic justice in this post. Just read it if you like blatant ridiculousness.
I don't think anyone's mentioned Vattu or Rice Boy yet. I need to catch up with Vattu, but Rice Boy has been done for a while and I would describe it as vaguely Sandman-esque. They're by the same person. Link
Most of those I'm reading / have read at some point have already been mentioned (Homestuck, EGS, Erfworld, Drowtales, Inverloch, The Phoenix Reqiuem, Skin Deep, Stand Still Stay Silent, A Redtail's Dream, Gunnerkrigg Court, Girl Genius, Slightly Damned, xkcd), but I noticed there are some that haven't been mentioned yet: Directions of Destiny - On Hiatus since ages. Magical School sorta thing, would need to reread to get back into the plot. Cascadia - lost and abandoned, sadly, I remember that it was utterly beautiful. And nothing more ::/ Carciphona - High Fantasy sorta story, with some politics. Magic is forbidden under pain of death, and there's one demon-bound sorceress running about trying not to get killed by the magehunter. Formerly named "Blackbird", but was renamed because some Manga nabbed the name. Bird Boy - Story about a young boy who turned out small for his age, in a world of snow and things that hunt men. Tower of God - All that you desire is at the top of the tower, and 25th Baam really only wants to find his friend Rachel again, who disappeared into the tower. (Invokes a trope I've seen around a lot in korean stories - apparently normal/underpowered protagonist who, by some twist, is actually really special and reaches frightening powers once he gets the hang of the twist) Heavy on the politics side, but so. damn. good. We have about a dozen greater factions and everyone has their own agendas it's a gigantic mess and Baam really just wants to find his missing friend. Loads and loads of characters.
Oh man, Directions of Destiny! That comic was the prettiest thing I had ever seen and I loved it. Didn't it get rebooted at least once? And if we're linking to webtoons (which I was for some reason categorising with manga instead of webcomics) I recommend: Cheese in the Trap - College student Seol (also spelled Sul sometimes) is surprised and alarmed when Jung, an older student, approaches her in a friendly manner. As their relationship progresses, we're shown the reason for her caution in a series of flashbacks to their earlier encounters and the events that resulted from them. It's a romance, but the author explores the way people think and how that colours their interactions with other people, which I find very interesting. CW for stalking and some violence. Also, uhhh ... I am a doofus and it didn't occur to me earlier that I could link to ... my own comics.... A Girl & Her Shadow (complete at 111 pages) - A cranky little girl and her pet/friend/monster-under-the-bed grow up together. Maria (co-authored and drawn with @Key, incomplete, if you want to wait until it's finished come back in like ... ten years) - Magical girls fighting murder robots! The girls are Marias, the robots are SWARMs, which means we really wanted their initials to spell "swarm" Stealth Weapon And Reconnaissance Machine. Rina, the Maria of the (fictional) town of Senkawa in (non-fictional) Gifu prefecture, Japan, is retiring, and so the company that sponsors/produces the Marias is holding a tournament to determine who will replace her. Enter our heroine! Additionall prologue-ish thing here.
ohohohohoh I just remembered a cool comic i read a couple years ago lemme find it FOUND IT FreakAngels. bloody amazing. if I recall, it's mutant-based, semi-post-apocalyptic? complete. brilliant. read it.
Ok I don't have anything better to do rn so here's, like, the first half of my list (I'll make a token effort to delete ones I've seen already. If I put one in that's already been posted, it just means you should read it more) FINISHED: dominic deegan: awesome. if it's been previously posted, then I'm posting it again. It's also really incredible to watch the art change. gets punny at points, so you sick sick people who like puns will probably enjoy it. Epic: my summary ability is apparently real bad today. uh, bad choices made while drunk turn into some pretty A+ life choices (some misunderstandings apply) Comedity 2.0: Reminds me a lot of Mac Hall. slice of life webcomic, with some weirdness. (and penguins!) Dreamless: Oh hot damn, you really should read this. Lovely art, incredible storyline. Oh man. I've used this in class before, but I can't remember why. The Silver Kiss: Remember that one "kids" vampire book by...annette klaus [sic]?. Yeah, this is a webcomic version. probably more manga style than anything The Gold Rider of Pern: the gay pern webcomic you never knew you needed Not Finished: Plume: Cowboys. Magic. It's awesome. Looking for Group: I'm pretty sure this has been already recc'd. It's great. Shortpacked: Nerds. In college! Grayscale: Dragons. Shapeshifters. Really pretty shading & color. Yasss. True Magic:A group of peasants get fed up with the constantly marauding nobles. This is hilarious. A Girl & Her Fed: OK. So she's real good at fighting and also a psychic. He's a product of the worst sort of government bureaucracy and also the internet. This is a terrible summary, but in what other webcomic are you going to see a koala talking to the spritely ghost of Ben Franklin about politics? Nowhere. Black & Blue: Reminds me of a particularly gay version of Farscape. Like 80% more angst. Lackadaisy: they're cats. it's prohibition. shit happens (gorgeous art) Chirault: I know this looks like a pretty serious fantasy comic about demons and fighting and conspiracies. But trust me. They're all nerds. Sunset Grill: It's the future. Aliens! The Mob! Some other stuff! Also everyone's pretty jaded, which I love, except for like 3 characters, which I love even more. Supernormal Step: This one time I had a dream I was in this universe. It was AWESOME. (oh yeah, it's about superheroes).
