Freak Angels (Vol 5)
It’s Friday, which means time for a Friday Fun Thread. Friday, at least in my life, also means a new installment of Freak Angels - the weekly web comic by Warren Ellis (writer) and Paul Duffield (illustrator). Today it reached its 131st episode. You can read from episode one over at FreakAngels.com.
Hanna introduced me to the comic a couple of years ago and I freely admit it’s become addictive. The basic set-up is this:
23 years ago twelve strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment.
6 years ago, the world ended.
This is the story of what happened next.
We have a cast of “freaks” (the cohort of twelve) who’ve established a post-apocalyptic haven for survivors in the Whitechapel district of a flooded London. There are wonderful gadgets, great characters, there’s angst, violence, and general psychic wackiness. If you want inspiration for your next steampunk outfit, you really need look no further than KK’s flying gear.
Have any favorite web comics you’d like to share? Put links in comments and give us a line or two about why we should care. TGIF everyone, and have a lovely weekend!
omg how great! I am psyched to get new pointers from the harpies.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. It’s sciency.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/
http://gunnerkrigg.com/index2.php – or read from the beginning here: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive.php
Gunnerkrigg Court. I can’t remember how I came across it, but it’s brilliant. Antimony Carver starts at a new school and then it all goes insane. Robots, tree-wolves, trickster gods and a great heroine. What more could you possibly want?
Freak Angels looks great, I’m always up for something new to procrastinate at work with…
Well, of course:
xkcd.com – also science-y/geeky
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com
It’s more of a blog, but her illustrations are hilarious.
penny-arcade.com – not always my favorite but sometimes extremely funny
Kagerou: Teenager Kano is tasked with saving another world while battling his own inner demons. (http://www.electric-manga.com/)
And Sarah Ellerton just finished up Phoenix Requiem, a Victorian-inspired ghost story. (http://requiem.seraph-inn.com/)
elibard I quit penny arcade when things got crazy over “rape wolves”. Is it better lately?
Yeah, I mostly just read archives that my friends send me, so I admit I don’t read penny arcade regularly.
Freakangels! Love!
I’m also still avoiding Penny Arcade; I left it a while ago because of some lower-level misogyny, but the Dickwolves thing really nailed the lid on the coffin for me.
My recommendations:
Cat and Girl: http://catandgirl.com/ Thoughtful and introspective.
Questionable Content: http://questionablecontent.net/ The great grandpappy of hipster webcomics.
Hark! A Vagrant http://harkavagrant.com/ History and literature and all-around awesomeness!
I could go on. I read about a hundred webcomics. But I could quit any time, seriously.
http://www.namesakecomic.com/2010/09/02/prologue-cover-3/
Above is the link to the beginning of Namesake, and dark and very interesting re-telling of the Wizard of Oz (and Alice in Wonderland, etc.) Written by women, it is well done and absolutely wicked.
xkcd is a fantastically random geeky comic, with stick-figures! There’s usually a second joke/comment in the alt-text.
If you’re in grad school, Piled Higher and Deeper will either be funny or make you headdesk in recognition.
Something Positive is probably the only thing I read regularly where “equal opportunity offender” doesn’t seem to equal “excuse to let actual beliefs about real people fly”. I like it because it often works with my own (twisted) sense of humor and most of the characters are drawn with empathy (though not with sympathy). That said, it definitely has dark humor and not everyone will like it.
Comics that aren’t updating but with archives that are worth reading include Shaenon Garrity’s Narbonic (Mad Science! Love! Focus on kick-ass female characters!), Aerie’s Queen of Wands, and Ursula Vernon’s Digger (it’s about a surly wombat! Vernon’s good at not making her too human). Shaenon Garrity draws Skin Horse now (my partner says it’s about “a federal agency tasked with civil services for non-human sentients” in either the same or a related universe as Narbonic). Aerie now writes for Punch an’ Pie, which focuses on two more minor characters from Queen of Wands.
Thanks, everyone, for being patient with moderation! Our filter is hoiking on the links. I’m trying to clear them out of the queue as quickly as possible.
I’m looking forward to checking all of these out later in the weekend!
I don’t see it yet, but if there’s some delay due to links someone might have already posted it. I like Girl Genius. It’s steam punk-y with lots of mad science. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php (Sorry if it doesn’t show up as a clickable link, I don’t know the code for that if it needs it.)
Cowbirds in Love! http://cowbirdsinlove.com/ Probably the most adorable comic ever. Also the dude who writes it is really nice.
My favorite: http://cowbirdsinlove.com/46
links are already up but I will second my favorites:
Questionable Content
Girl Genius
Hark, A Vagrant!
Piled Higher and Deeper
And here’s one I haven’t seen: Girls With Slingshots. I started reading it because it’s drawn by a friend of a friend, and it’s pretty funny. A talking cactus, a ghost kitten that portends DOOOOOM, and a slightly off-center view of being a 20something trying to figure yourself out.
http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/
Seconding Digger and Girl Genius! Love both of those.
I also love Family Man, http://www.lutherlevy.com/ , starring a self-deprecating and system-questioning half-Jewish academic in 1700s Germany and the university’s brilliant, strong-willed, and very female librarian. Also there are wolves.
Oh, a couple others I like:
Lackadaisy: Prohibition with cat people! The art is lovely and the story is good. Updates are kind of slow though. http://www.lackadaisycats.com/
Flaky Pastry: It’s about three roommates in a more modern but fairly magical world. There are elves, goblins, dragons, humans (of course), wizards, time travelers (I think), etc. I think it’s fairly light hearted fun. http://flakypastry.runningwithpencils.com/
My favorite webcomic of all time is [http://scarygoround.com/sgr/|Scary Go Round] and its latest incarnation [http://www.scarygoround.com/|Bad Machinery]. The huge cast of characters (including the plucky and adventurous Shelley Winters and the sassy Amy Chilton), awesome art, and weird British humor is just my style. I would recommend going back to the very beginning of SGR and read it all straight through. I dare you to get through the story of Zombie Shelley and not get hooked.
Already suggested by @Kari and others – Hark, A Vagrant! is absolutely amazing. Especially the Nancy Drew covers.
I am posting this on behalf of Hanna who was having problems with WordPress (#@$&! WordPress!):
Sinfest
Sluggy Freelance
My Cardboard Life
Scenes from a Multiverse
Wondermark
Kevin and Kell
As a librarian/archivist, I’m kind of professionally required to read Unshelved, too!
The Secret Knots is my current favorite webcomic, I wish it was updated more frequently! (Though its earliest strips are a bit heavy on the “it was all a metaphor for some dude’s girlfriend breaking up with him” thing. The newer strips are more consistently awesome. Lots of magical realism and surreal circumstances.)
Awesome thread: I love my web comics!
Get ready to lose days in the archives of the following sights (and the print versions make the best bathroom books ever, fyi):
Perry Bible Fellowship – random, irreverent, and wonderful one shot comics – “Far Side of the web generation”
http://www.pbfcomics.com/
Behold the glory of Dinosaur Comics. The same clip art visuals, daily for almost a decade, serve as hilarious conversations about sex, philosophy, religion, history, literary adaptations…I <3 T-Rex!
http://www.qwantz.com/
I haven't spent that much time on her website, but Liz Prince's slice of life one shot comics collected in "Will You Still Love Me if I Wet the Bed?" and "Delayed Replays" are some of the most smile inducing things ever. It's all so cute and fun and banal – I have such a girl crush on her, lol.
http://lizprincepower.com
My favorite movie is “Labyrinth” and I ADORE this fancomic, called “Girls Next Door”. Features characters from Labyrinth, Phantom of the Opera, Neil Gaiman, Lord of the Rings, Sweeney Todd, Pirates of the Caribbean, Le Mis, you name it.
http://pika-la-cynique.deviantart.com/gallery/772068?offset=144
I heartily second Gunnerkrig. Not just for its female lead and mythic references, but it’s chock-a-block with strong and interesting female characters, including a best friend who’s an engineering whiz. As opposed to chicks fighting or whatever while wearing small amounts of clothing and enhanced boobage. It’s nice to have an alternative.