Webcomics: S/D

Kerr found this one and posted it on the chatz thread. It's amazing:
http://nedroid.com/2009/05/party-cat-full-series/

The Nedroid stuff is hilarious sometimes.

I think the only webcomic I read regularly now is Hark, A Vagrant. http://www.harkavagrant.com/

Kate Beaton is awesome.

Anybody ever read Bad Machinery? A lot of webcomics wear out their welcome with me really quickly, but Bad machinery is a long-form serial narrative and quite enjoyable if you don't mind something that adults and teens could both like: http://scarygoround.com/index.php?date=20090921. That narration drops out really quickly (was surprised to see it there).

Whoa - I didn't even know John Allison had anything new. I loved Bobbins and Scary Go Round, I don't know when I lost track of him!

OH man, I envy you getting to read a whole bunch of it at your own pace! I've not read his earlier stuff, but my brother who reads a lot of webcomics thinks Bad Machinery is a big step up from SGR.

SGR definitely went through good and bad patches. I really don't know how I missed this! This is a good week to find out about this, I have a big block of free time on Thursday.

I've been digging Allison's work for a few years now -- I really think he's brilliant.

Daily webcomic checks: Bad Machinery, Diesel Sweeties, Scenes from a Multiverse*, WIGU and/or Overcompensating depending on what Rowland is focusing on at the time.

*currently sporadic while Rosenberg's wife is going through a difficult pregnancy

A lot of webcomics wear out their welcome with me really quickly

Also, I'm with you on this. This was probably what happened with me and Sluggy Freelance, mentioned at the top of the thread, and I still have Order of the Stick in Google Reader because when I first saw it I thought the whole conceit of "D&D characters talk and think in game-mechanics terms" was hilarious, but I haven't actually clicked on the link to read the comic in ages. I don't think it got worse, the novelty just wore off.

Bad Machinery so good!

Yeah, Bad Machinery is definitely a step up from his previous stuff, which was always pretty fun. Shame to hear that it may not be successful enough for him to keep doing it.

I'm really tempted to just slowly link-dump this thread... forever

Shame to hear that it may not be successful enough for him to keep doing it.

Wait, what?

I never got into scarygoround at the time but I've been following Bad Machinery for the past few months and really like it. The author is a master of the end-of-week cliffhanger, too; the last several end-of-week episodes have got me slightly jittery over the weekend wanting to know what will happen next, which is something I've only had fairly rarely from webcomics before.

(Have since been reading the sgr archives in an attempt to fill that craving, and I like sgr and have no idea why I never read it at the time, but it's definitely not gripping me as much as BM)

BM and Cat & Girl are the only ones I'm checking recently. Have had other favourites, some of which I got bored of, some of which just stopped being updated. And I read BM every time it updates, whereas once a month or two I'll think "not checked C+G for a while" and have a binge.

xp

http://sgrblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/super-static-feedback-party.html
http://sgrblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/thanks.html

how often does BM update?

Mon-Fri at the moment. It was Mon-Thurs up to last week, but now he's experimentally doing 2 shorter strips on Thurs+Fri instead.

Very cool! I love a good frequently updated comic!

what's the name of the sci-fi comic with a vague interest in posthumanism - ? sort of halfway manga-styled? semi-experimental page layouts? whimsical sense of humour? never updates?

Shame to hear that it may not be successful enough for him to keep doing it.

That is really too bad! I hope he sticks with it. I'm as puzzled as he is that it's not more popular. His art is really appealing, but the writing of the kids' dialogue is what really got me hooked on it. I almost prefer it when the stories are just the kids hanging out and talking.

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Mostly. I just spent half an hr reading Bad Machinery and just got annoyed/bored, anyway. Daily Dinosaur made me laugh in two pages.

what does sustainable popularity mean in webcomics terms versus print?
if you were making a comic for a college paper, sustainable popularity would mean 80% of the student body do not want to murder you.

what's the name of the sci-fi comic with a vague interest in posthumanism - ? sort of halfway manga-styled? semi-experimental page layouts? whimsical sense of humour? never updates?

-----they were all like that

I think I know which one he's talking about. the protagonist was a young woman and there was a whole plotline with an escaped robot and time travelers dressed strangely? i can't remember the title.

I think it's Dresden Codak

Finally had a chance to read all of Bad Machinery - so much fun. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Rob.

dresden codak, yes! thank you both

gosh, he's updated three times this year already

That is really too bad! I hope he sticks with it. I'm as puzzled as he is that it's not more popular.

Here is Adam Cadre speculating about why it is not more popular - http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/13081.html

I was going to comment on a few things in that Adam Cadre blog post but I see it's a response to the first (?) story arc, so no need for me to point out bits which don't fit with later arcs.

There's a link to a much more glowing followup at the bottom, and I read it and followed all the links to referenced strips and they all made me laugh out loud, even though I'd already read them and laughed out loud at them all, and felt briefly kind of sad because I guess the current arc hasn't made me laugh out loud, but that's ok, because it's made me feel other emotions. (Maybe so much so that I don't even remember the lols, actually, because they probably didn't just go away.)

holy hell I hadn't seen the name Adam Cadre in close to a decade

who on earth is adam cadre? is he english? the article made me wonder if most of the class stuff involved in the characterisation had gone over his head.

'bad machinery' is like actually good good! i am kind of surprised. also most of the people who read scary go round and wouldn't read it sound like dicks.

he's another of the old-school rec.arts.comics.* posters from the heyday of Usenet who made a name for himself writing interactive fiction; he's an American and IIRC kind of strange

ohhhh. i've played 'photopia'! the name seemed familiar from somewhere.

Dan you said that exact thing last time I posted an Adam Cadre link in like February! I was thinking of making a thread, actually, 'writers who are linked to on ilx by exactly one specific poster', like Morbs and Dennis Perrin would be the most famous example? I don't agree with AC about very much at all but there's something about the way he writes I keep coming back to!

hahahaha hi dere I am old

ok i like bad machinery now. it's a bit twee but the art is really nice.

I've been reading Allison's comics for a few years, really enjoying them, but had no idea about his thin skin until reading that essay (and its followup). I like this Cadre person -- he writes long sentences so I don't have to.

he wrote I-O and Varicella. nuff said.

Haha the main interaction I found in the archives between Adam and me was me yelling at him to stop feeding a troll.

plus ça change...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/599092525/the-order-of-the-stick-reprint-drive

I ... did not expect a webcomic reprint Kickstarter to exceed one million dollars.

i wish they were going to more webcomics like this one, but hey, stick figures make people happy, so who am i to argue
http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic+index

webcomics make it v hard for me to be cool

Life is so much gentler and richer w/the hatin' coming on in dave cool levels of apoplexy. I appreciate the rastraint.

don't know what dave cool has against When I Am King and Pup but would enjoy engaging with his restrained analysis

yall lost me

I'm not too surprised by the Order of the Stick thing - people who remember D&D fondly are probably a pretty good demographic at this point, and it's managed to write a pretty epic storyline with jokes in every one of 600=-odd strips. They have an enormous and devoted forum/community - but then who doesn't?

never saw pokey the penguin raise $1 million on kickstarter. just sayin

three word phrase is hit/miss but sometimes really great: http://threewordphrase.com/gregor.htm

so good: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=338

SFP is a gem, glad you like
this harvey james's stuff is pretty cool, great faces and color

I also power-read SFP, was fucking great. Very happy to have discovered that.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/5/18295369/webcomics-xkcd-questionable-content-dinosaur-comics-90s-internet-social-media

Recommending - story starts here

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjMM_ONr1JZ/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Oh, that looks great. Really nice art. It's hard to find good narrative webcomics these days, but I have enjoyed both Ninecrow and Everything Is Fine. They're both horror, Ninecrow has great art but feels a little traditional story-wise, whereas Everything Is Fine isn't amazing art-wise but does manage to be pretty genuinely disturbing at times.

nice to see false knees having a go at a real story

Ninecrow starts off rough in both writing and art, but gets good by the end. Looking forward to Book 2 whenever it happens. Hoping this gets a Netflix adaptation someday, feels like its made for TV

Everything is Fine is great so far, still going through it