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More ongoing stories, this time from the fantasy genre. Quite a few take place in a modern world similar to our own; for more high-fantasy-esque settings, check out the roleplaying and D&D-based recs.
Sorcery 101 – family drama in the suburbs, as entangled with mage organizations, vampire clans, and other supernatural struggles. Does a great job combining elements like “high school teacher mentors one of his students” and “…in learning how to live as a werewolf.”
Holiday Wars – a teenage girl finds herself thrown into a globe-spanning conflict between the manifestations of holidays, as kicked off when the Easter Bunny kills Santa Claus.
Sugar Bits – the princess of the realm of candy sweetness disappears, and our gingerbread-man hero plus some friends from the realm of courage must set out to find her. This is one that you mostly read for the shiny and detailed art.
Spare Keys for Strange Doors – more from the suburbs, and the occasional alternate dimension. Serialized tales of a couple of professionals who get called in to help with supernatural problems.
Guilded Age – a multi-species band of adventurers try to wrangle the politics of a land full of fantasy kingdoms straight out of the D&D model. Meanwhile, there’s a sinister hidden purpose to their adventuring, one that the characters might not even be able to comprehend…although the readers will.
Lots of ongoing stories I follow, so they’re being broken up by genre. In this case, science fiction. Your recommendations welcome!
By the way, some of the recs left in comments on earlier posts are starting to make their way into the new ones. I take a look at everything that gets linked, and have gotten into a bunch of gems that way.
Waterworks – a concerned citizen goes to the local waterworks to find out what’s up with her showers. Turns out it involves teleportation, high-tech gadgets, and possibly aliens. An original story that borrows the Homestuck format and structure.
String Theory – what starts out appearing to be a slapsticky comic about mad scientists takes a leap into the serious, and the art shoots up in quality with it. When the main scientist tries a prank that ends up actually killing people, he finds his own death faked and himself captured by old enemies, with only one potential friend who knows he’s still alive.
Spacetrawler – six humans are selected to come vote on behalf of Earth in the intergalactic council, and find themselves unraveling a galaxy-spanning, even universe-spanning, conspiracy. Wonderfully detailed art, great humor, heart-rending seriousness, and quite a bit of sex with aliens. Hands down one of my favorite webcomics, even among the ones I’m reccing.
Power Nap – in a world where most people are freed of the need to sleep, our hero is one of the few who still need it. Which makes him a candidate to participate in some kind of bizarre dream-based goings-on. Lots of action scenes, some great monsters.
Shadoweyes - in a futuristic city, a teenage aspiring vigilante stumbles into mysterious morphing powers. Now she can patrol the city as a superhuman urban legend…but there’s a catch to her abilities. Striking artwork, lots of atmospheric darkness.
There’s now a But I’m A Cat Person group on deviantART! Join, submit your own art, or just watch to keep tabs on the BICP-related works other people are posting.
Some long and finished tales to curl up with over a weekend.
95 Gallons – from the artist of Phil Likes Tacos, the story of a fish who decides to take over the tank. It’s a complex and devious plan that involves running the economy…which means first he has to create an economy from scratch. Good times.
Kid Radd – a video game sprite explores the mechanics of the larger gaming universe, and, because of a fortuitous error in his code, becomes the target of a cross-game conspiracy. This one is notable for having, in lieu of still strips, beautiful and carefully-crafted pixel animations.
1/0 – a strangely meta story about creating a webcomic ex nihilo. The artist chats with the characters, which include talking molecules and manifested puns, while generating them and building up their world. Digs into the nature of writing and the relationship of artists with their art, which I realize sounds dry, but I swear, it’s also funny.
Digger – a wombat aims her tunnel the wrong way, ends up in the temple of a dead god, and finds herself becoming the lynchpin of a struggle that goes deeper than anybody realizes. Also, teaching ethics to a shadow-eating baby demon. If you liked Bone, go check this out (and vice versa!). Love the artwork.
Most of what I know about D&D, I’ve learned from webcomics.
The best roleplaying parody comics riff on the absurdities of gaming mechanics while developing a story and characters that you end up getting into for their own sakes. Here are a few.
RPG World – Comedy story, sort-of finished; some arcs get abruptly dropped, and you can tell there was more material planned but never written. Endearing cast of characters, nice expressive art style.
ADVENTURERS! – Comedy story, finished. Another charming cast (the wizard was always my favorite). Not the greatest artwork, but there’s some surprisingly effective use of color nevertheless.
What Is Roleplaying – comedy story, finished. Featuring some great creative manipulation by the players of their items and abilities.
The Order of the Stick – comedy story, ongoing. Recced this one already, but I’m happy to do so again. Amazing worldbuilding for glorified stick figures.
Elf Only Inn – comedy, probably abandoned. This one’s about a group of people on a roleplaying forum online, starring character types from “the one who wants to do a serious high fantasy story” to “the one who just wants to come up with new ways to over-power their character.”
The Misadventures of Okk – comedy, abandoned. Crack, no specific quest or campaign, but the world runs in part on D&D-style mechanics. Something about the art works for me perfectly — I’ve reread it just for the characters’ expressions.
Any similar strips you follow? Link them in the comments!
