100 Greatest Webcomics Thread

So I’m actually going to look through the comics we’ve reviewed to see how they’ve held up over time. I’ll be hitting it issue by issue.

February 2003 issue reviews:

Bite Me by Dylan Meconis. I really like this one but I have a hard time right now imaging it being one for the ages. Still — very funny even on re-read.

Checkerboard Nightmare by Kris Straub. There might be an argument there – the relentless meta of it and its ongoing webcomic community critique. Straub also did Modern Humor Authority (also very meta) and since has gone on to make Starslip Crisis.

The Shadowlark Symphony. I did find a new URL for it b/c it’s old one was dead.

Narbonic by Shaenon Garrity. I love Narbonic and it had a very successful run. It was a very good fit to the serialized format.

Nowhere Girl by Justine Shaw. Very good and early recognition from the Eisners for a webcomic. I think this has to be on the list, doesn’t it?

Movie Comics – sort of a Penny Arcade for movies. Lost at this point as its URL is now an ad site and there’s no google lead to a new URL.

Bueno the Bear. A cute absurd comic – like its contemporary Pokey the Penguin.

Fleep – re-purposed from an alt newspaper run to Modern Tales.

March 2003 Reviews

Bill Mudron’s Anne Frank Conquers the Moon Nazis. Awesome and yet still only the first chapter done.

Heads That Shine – it’s in spanish, the site is changed (can’t find the comic). I just don’t remember it. Not a good sign I think.

Demonology 101. Maybe – this was really well done and Faith has gone on to more good work.

Cat and Girl by Dorothy Gambrell. Maybe, yeah.

Return to Sender – loved it but Vera’s never going to finish it.

Apocamon by Patrick Farley.

Dicebox by Jenn Manley Lee

Same Difference by Derek Kirk Kim

A few suggestions:

Dinosaur Comics
Perry Bible Fellowship
Achewood

What’s that infinite canvas comic with the little king guy?

When I Was King – by Demian 5

100 Greatest Webcomics ever (so far)? It depends on how pretentious you want to be when choosing.

If you want some super-pretentious webcomics that are hard to understand unless you have some sort of geekery under your belt, here’s a short list:

Cat and Girl (minimalistic art, deals with politics and culture, but as a partial NPR listener I can understand some of the humor)
Dresden Codak (Art is very awesome. Story starts out kinda funny, but latest story arc has walls of text with trans-humanist stuff I can barely understand and a Mary Sue-ish character.)
xkcd (don’t even try to read this one unless you know something about computer programming or internet memes. Then again, anyone can do stick figures.)

[To Be Continued when my brain ain’t crashing]

My additions:
Gunnerkrigg Court
Superbly written, great art, consistent and frequent updates. Tom shows the rest of us how to tell an engaging serial in webcomic form.

Three Panel Soul
Matt and Ian are one of the strongest webcomic teams on the web, always a wonderful blend of humour and insight.

The Adventures of Dr McNinja
Good, crazy fun.

And I want to add my voice to the chorus in favour of Dresden Codak’s inclusion.

I’d add Toy Division to that list… there’s just nothing else like it.

And perhaps Local girl’s Day in Pictures

I’d like to add my own webcomic, but that’d be a little more vanity than I can handle.

"Sin Titulo". This is a really good web-comic. It updates sporadically. This will normally drive me away from a web-comic but I give this one the leeway.

"User Friendly". This is my daily fix. I even log on at home to keep up with it.

OK, I’m not sure about the next two given the way some people may react to Zuda.
"Bayou" and "High Moon". If you have seen either of these two you need no explanation. If you have not seen either, you need to visit and check them out. I’m not crazy about any of the subsequent winners.

That’s about it for me. I used to read "PVP" but I got tired of the too frequent "guest artists".

Thanks for the suggestions – we’re in brainstorming mode so I’m adding pretty much everything at this point. Once we have a large number of comics I’ll start thinking more about how to shape the list for the final article.

I just added the five Eisner Best Digital Comics nominees — I thought they were all possibilities.

FreakAngels and Templar, Arizona, and not just because I reviewed ’em.

And how about Scary Go Round? If Gunnerkrigg is there, Scary Go Round should be too. I find them complementary.

Bee Power/Droop and Horribleville
Kate Beaton
Minus
Octopus Pie
Crazy Buffet

Some favorites that I would put on there because they’re influential:
8-Bit Theater
Order of the Stick
Irregular Webcomic!
MegaTokyo
Fanboys (by Scott DeWitt)
The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
Cyanide & Happiness

You forgot Copper. For shame. I don’t think I even need to justify why it would be in the top 10 of any such list. It’s just that awesome.

You also forgot Girl Genius. (Unless you’re not counting it since it started in print.)

Something Positive seems another obvious choice for placement on the list, as do Sinfest, Roomies!, Piled Higher and Deeper, and Little Dee.

Dreamland Chronicles by Scott Sava deserves a spot, since it was named best webcomic of 2007 by Broken Frontiers.

I second 8-Bit Theater. Definitely one of the best sprite comics.

Sexy Losers by Hard/Clay deserves a nod as one of the most influential adult webcomics of all time. Space Moose also deserves a mention for the same reason.

Fetus-X has earned WCCA nominations for the art, so it probably earns a place.

Fans! by T. Campbell remains one of my favorite comics. The plot is quite clever and the art styles and comic layouts it explores is fascinating.

Polymer City Chronicles was the first gaming webcomic. Not sure if that alone gets it status with other comics like Penny Arcade, but maybe on the lower half of the top 100?

Sparkling Generation Valyrie Yuuki a hilarious send up of the magical girl genre. Also won a WCCA for the superhero category.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

It’s just a brainstorming session at this point so no one’s really forgotten anything. I didn’t try to make a full list in one sitting because I’d rather have everyone else help with coming up with ideas and I purposely am going through back issues of the ComixTalk site to see what we covered (and what I should suggest for the list) and that’s taking me time…

I’m still hoping to build a really big list so that I can later figure out how I’m going to write the 100 webcomics list article for later this year so I hope we can keep a good discussion going here in the forums.

Man – forgot about this!

Anyone want to throw more ideas on to the pile? C’mon…

Surely you can’t leave out Girls With Slingshots?