Webcomics To Get You Through the Winter

Autumn is finally here, and we all know what that means. Despite initially being energized by the arrival of cooler weather, soon we’ll don our favorite tees and sweatpants, huddle under blankets, pull our comfort food close, and hole up for the winter. So of course it’s time to find engaging entertainment. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about today. Do you have a few minutes to talk about the magic of webcomics? Great!

https://xkcd.com/1770/

Everyone knows about XKCD (aka Randall Munroe). It’s the first webcomic I remember reading, some 10+ years ago. This velociraptor cartoon had me howling. I printed it out and hung it in my office. I read a few entries, then promptly forgot all about XKCD until I saw someone walking around with this shirt. XKCD has several books out now, including the hilarious Thing Explainer, but I haven’t read any of the others. I don’t know if Munroe’s hover captions are included in the books, so I keep coming back to the site.

The first webcomic that kept me coming back for more was (is) Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half. It’s not SF, but it is damn funny. And relatable. And revelatory. All done through silly, simplistic artwork. So it gets a mention here, because Hyperbole is the webcomic I didn’t know I needed. I don’t recall when I first started reading it, but I remember obsessively checking the site for updates. (Thankfully some publishing house recognized Brosh’s talent; Hyperbole is also available in print.) Allie Brosh stopped updating it, because she said she’d done what she came to do, but the site is still available, and the comic threads hold up over time.

Reading Brosh’s webcomic is when I fell down the rabbit hole. There are all kinds of webcomics. Most of them are serialized, not reliant on standalone cartoons like XKCD or Hyperbole, so they require starting from the beginning.

I wouldn’t have found these next two without someone having recommended them to me. LARPTrek is perfect for fans of Star Trek:The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and RPGs. Josh Millard created each panel using character still frames from The Next Generation. In TNG the series, on occasion everybody would get together and play poker. Here Geordi LaForge has drawn everyone into playing an RPG of…Deep Space 9. YES. Each TNG character role-plays as a DS9 character, with devastatingly hilarious results (Troi playing Quark, Wesley Crusher playing Odo) — especially when Millard included Lwaxana Troi and Reginald Barclay. Here’s a taste:

You can read the rest of that comic here. It’s easy to see that Millard’s humor was spot-on. He also continued some of the same character & story arcs found on both series, and made sure to play adult humor off Wesley Crusher’s naivete. (Sorry, Wes.) Although Millard is no longer updating the comic, there is still a smashing good time to be had. (Mostly. It’s now archived only on Tumblr, and Tumblr has new rules about “adult content,” so a few may not show up. Sob.) So order up tea, Earl Grey, hot, and click on through from the beginning.

Monster of the Week is perfect for X-Files fans (like me) because it’s about The X-Files. Artist Shaenon draws and writes self-aware, humorous (and sometimes painfully truthful, especially when it comes to treatment of Dana Scully/Gillian Anderson) recaps of X-Files episodes. The art is…well, adorable. As a reader can see from the site, this is only one of Shaenon’s ventures; the comic is up to Season Six as of last year, and may continue depending on Patreon support.

Serious Engineering is a serialized webcomic that began in 2013 and picked up steam a couple years later. SE’s compelling protagonist and underlying plot about medical debt makes for an addictive webcomic with relevant social commentary on everything from healthcare to the ethics of robotics. A diverse cast rounds out this webcomic by Roman Jones and Viky Machacku, who continue to update the ongoing storyline about Corelle, a neurodiverse teenager who works at a chicken factory on the weekends to help her mother pay rent, and who happens to be a technological genius who alters and sells gaming consoles on the side. When she starts getting strange, painful spots on her hands, she seeks out a new job with healthcare benefits, and lands work with the strange Polaris Robotics, cofounded by Corelle’s hero, Rex Serdyuk.

There are plenty of SF serialized webcomics, and this should help you get started.

For more standalone goodness, Nathan W. Pyle’s work can be found on Facebook, and if you have an account there, I highly recommend following his page. If you’re having a tough day, scroll through Pyle’s cheery offerings about an alien family, which pokes fun at normal human everyday stuff like suntanning, but also highlights the endearing moments. It hits all the right notes. If you’re a fan of the SNL “Coneheads” skits starring Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin as aliens, and if you enjoyed Third Rock from the Sun (also starring Jane Curtin, what a coincidence), you will enjoy Pyle’s cartoons, soon to be released as a book called Strange Planet — just in time for end-of-the-year holiday shenanigans (and yes, I will be looking into purchasing a copy for my library).

Second to last, I enjoy another standalone comic from Simkaye, aka Carissa Kaye Powell, whose cartoon revolves around an artsy, food-loving (of course!), anxious raccoon freelancer. This one isn’t necessarily SF-related, either, but it is adulting-related. It’s a wonderful tribute to the anxieties around creativity, deadlines, and general get-off-your-ass-no-I-donwanna feelings. Also, to pizza. That’s got my vote for sure.

And lastly, worthy of inclusion here is Super Indian. Written by the extremely talented Arigon Starr of the Kickapoo Tribe, Super Indian began life as a radio script and is now immortalized in comics. As of this writing, the archive is down, but I wanted to include it so more people would bookmark the site and come back to it (according to the website, Starr is currently at work completing Volume 3). Volume 1 is collected in print and available for sale. Super Indian stars Hubert Logan, a bingo hall janitor who is imbued with powers after eating government-augmented cheese. Be prepared for total upheaval — if the cheese isn’t a clue, the nemeses that Logan encounters while protecting his community aren’t puffed-up super villains, but, say, evil anthropologists.

I have more, but I’m going to stop there. The rabbit hole has to come to an end sometime, right?

Now you tell me — what strange, wonderful, and engrossing webcomics have you discovered?