Charming comics

Thanks to Maktaaq for turning me onto the witty, whimsical comics of cartoonist and illustrator Tom Gauld.

New Gargoyles trade paperbacks are out!

After months of waiting, two new Gargoyles trade paperbacks were released last month. There are new books from both the main Gargoyles series, Clan Building Volume 2, which collects the last of the published single issues plus four more issues that were never released individually, and the spin-off, Bad Guys Volume 1, which collects all the single issues of Bad Guys plus one new one.

Disney raised the cost of the Gargoyles license in the middle of the production run and Slave Labor Graphics wasn't able to renew, so the previously unpublished issues were allowed to be released in the trades only through a fortunate loophole where they are included as "bonus material." No more issues are currently in production, and the future of the Gargoyles comics looks uncertain — but at last we have a complete set of the Clan Building and Bad Guys arcs, and we get to see the conclusion of Redemption, the Stone of Destiny arc, and the very first Timedancer story with Brooklyn's journey through time. This isn't a cheap knock-off or filler material, but the true, canon continuation of the story as penned by creator Greg Weisman. It's a great set of wonderful new material, required reading for any Gargoyles fan.

Get the full collection:

Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume 1
Gargoyles: Clan Building Volume 2
Bad Guys Volume 1

A great place for reconnecting with the Gargoyles universe is Station Eight, a hub which links an active comment room, info about the comics, a Q&A with Greg Weisman at Ask Greg, and the comprehensive GargWiki, which might be useful for keeping track of the comics' sprawling cast of characters if you can't remember your Canmores from your Constantines or need to brush up on the Battle of Bannockburn.

Existential funny pages

Surprisingly brilliant: Garfield Minus Garfield.

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Via The Office of Eternal Distractions at Hanttula.

Excellent webcomics: autobiographies and angst

Barefoot and Pregnant is a collection of comics by Erica Moen, including DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Diary. Erica doesn't hold anything back.





Scutmonkey by Michelle Au relates the trials and tribulations of the author as a med student during her clinical rotations in various hospital units. A brief peek into a life of stress and strangeness, told in a simple, charming style.






TRACED by Tracy White presents earnest retellings of episodes from the author's adolescence, from the trivial to the life-changing, "guaranteed 95% true".






Imitation of Life is a comic journal by Neil Babra, one of his many series at neilcomics. Single-page vignettes and moments-in-time.

Ironic, absurdist, and brainy webcomics

The enigmatically-titled xkcd is an increasingly beloved Internet darling with a devoted following, and as usual I'm late to the party. But what a party. This "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language" is both smart and sweet, irreverent and good-natured, an unashamed celebration of geekery in its highest forms -- curiosity, wonder, and a particular way of looking at the world through a combination of scientific analysis and niche culture references. It's also funny, which is a plus.







I can't not also include this one -- it's a classic. (Here's the folks at Language Log debating the punchline, included because I'm a language geek.)





Dinosaur Comics is a talky, clip-art style comic addressing an eclectic range of subject matter with zany energy. Enthusiastic T-rex philosophizes while stomping things, straight man Utahraptor acts as the voice of conscience and dramatic foil, and bystander Dromiceiomimus sometimes chips in, too. It also employs the fairly cute gimmick of using the exact same sequence of panels for every strip, which must be a great timesaver if nothing else.






David Malki's Wondermark, sometimes traditionally comic, and sometimes bizarrely abstract or simply surreal, derives its success from the calculated juxtaposition of stuffy, Victorian-era illustration with biting postmodern irony.







The Perry Bible Fellowship is a collection of comics by Nicholas Gurewich, whose bright candy-colored world is severely twisted and strange. Apart from his brilliantly dark imagination, Gurewich is also a very talented illustrator.

Gargoyles lives again

Gargoyles went off the air in 1996. If you thought it was all over and done with, you have some catching up to do.

SLG (Slave Labor Graphics) is publishing TWO all-new series of Gargoyles comics, with new canon stories penned by creator Greg Weisman himself: there's the GARGOYLES main series, with #1-7 out so far, and the new spinoff series BAD GUYS, which just debuted its first issue and has the second due in February.

Lily Allison assembled this excellent teaser trailer for the GARGOYLES: CLAN BUILDING VOLUME ONE graphic novel, which collects the first six issues of the Gargoyles comic in one trade paperback.





Here are a couple more trailers, while we're at it. A general GARGOYLES comic teaser by Greg "Xanatos" Bishansky:





And a BAD GUYS comic teaser (in B&W, like the comic itself) by TricksterPuck:





I made a handy Listmania list gathering all the comics and dvds available from Amazon.com in one spot. (Buena Vista has so far released all of Season 1 and Volume 1 of Season 2 on dvd -- we're still waiting for the release of Season 2, Volume 2 to complete the series!)

Check here for a schedule of past and upcoming release dates for the comics.

Your one-stop shop is the Gargoyles Comic Website, where you can find out how to order issues of the comic, join the mailing list to be notified when new issues are released, read up on the Gargoyles backstory, and more.

A little sample of the art from #5, "Bash". And lest you worry it's some peculiar pan-Disney Aladdin crossover, be at ease -- it's just Halloween. Always an exciting night for the gargoyles.

The fan community is still active over at Station 8, where fans congregate in the old Comment Room, and Greg Weisman still regularly answers questions, posts ramblings, and shares an ongoing "This Day in Gargoyles Universe History" feature at Ask Greg.

So, there's plenty to see. Good times for a Gargoyles fan.

Four epic RPG webcomics

Sometimes I don't quite succeed in keeping this blog ungeeky, so today I'm presenting a selection of exceedingly geeky webcomics based on role-playing games.

I just recently discovered The DM of the Rings, which explores what Tolkien's classic work might look like as a D&D campaign with a bunch of easily-distracted players and an exasperated DM.

Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign.

The comic is assembled entirely from movie stills, and hits all the right comedic notes. Great stuff.
Via The spectacularly obtuse blog.





Two more nice RPG comics can be found at Giant in the Playground, both silly and fun: there's the graphically impressive Erfworld, a parody in the most overwrought high fantasy tradition, and the minimalist stick-figure comic The Order of the Stick, an AD&D "metagame" comic where the characters argue over xp, stats, and rolls.

EDIT: Now that I've gotten deeper into reading it, I just had to amend this post to add that the Order of the Stick is the best thing I've seen in a long time. LOVE it. I wasn't nearly enthusiastic enough about it at first, but it's really something.







Reading these, I was reminded strongly of that other geeky favorite of mine, 8-Bit Theatre, the epic webcomic that retells, more or less, the story of the original Final Fantasy game in a highly irreverent fashion, taking swipes at roleplaying, rpgs, and the whole fantasy adventure genre along the way. (I originally mentioned the comic in my "Excellent webcomics: strips and dailies (Part 2)" post.)

This is part of the first strip. Looking back, even though it's all based on the same remixed 8-bit graphic set in all its primitive glory, the graphic design has come a long way in the current strips. Creator Brian Clevinger has certainly had a lot of practice, with over 900 strips and counting.





Dear me -- revisiting the archives, I've just realized that this is in fact my third time posting this comic. And the last, I promise. With a bookmark stash like mine, there's no excuse for reruns.

Excellent webcomics: strips and dailies (Part 2)

Now for Part 2: computer-generated comics. (Here was Part 1.)

Real Life is another of my old favorites. Based on the sort-of real life of cartoonist Greg Dean, this comic has it all: wacky roommates, gaming, time travel, talking computers, plots for world domination, and more. It's the ultimate geek's comic, but I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.




Also by Greg Dean: The Forge, an epic tale drawn in the Real Life style, about a hapless weaponsmith and his talking, souled sword. It was originally created for and hosted by an online sword merchant, but it's a great bit of comic storytelling that deserved a site of its own, so they finally gave it one.




Cat and Girl is a sweet, stylish, absurdist, episodic comic in black-and-white. A cat and a girl philosophize through a series of strange, random adventures with names like Cat and Girl Broaden their Horizons" and"Cat and Girl Sell Babies for Profit".




8-bit Theater is a very long, silly, hilarious epic comic that retells the story of the first Final Fantasy game -- sort of. With a cast of zany characters like the hyperactive, sword-obsessed Fighter, malicious schemer Black Mage, shifty, legalese-spouting Thief, and gorgeous, painfully virtuous White Mage, the comic reenacts the lengthy quest of the Light Warriors, with all the familiar monsters, villains, NPCs, sidequests, and detours. Now that I think about it, this comic perhaps should have gone into the last batch, with the graphic novels and epic sagas, but the episodic humor is scripted like a comic strip. Spoofs and pastiche abound. Whatever you want to call it, it's very well-executed, and if you liked Final Fantasy or even if you didn't, give it a try.




Scary Go Round is a very nicely drawn story-based comic centered around the adventures of a group of British university students. Divided into thirty chapters and counting, with a new strip every weekday, it makes for a nice long read. I've only scratched the surface myself, but I like what I see. Solid stuff.




Diesel Sweeties is a "pixelated robot romance web comic" with the following storyline: robot loves girl. Robot grapples to understand perplexing human behavior. Perplexing humans behave perplexingly. Other stuff happens. Sometimes it gets a bit raunchy.

Excellent webcomics: strips and dailies (Part 1)

Last time I covered some of my favorite webcomics in graphic-novel format. These are short strips and four-panel comics of the type you might find in your daily paper, if your paper were cool enough. I had so many, I had to split it up. This is Part 1: hand-drawn comics.

Ever since I discovered it, D.C. Simpson's Ozy and Millie has been one of my very very favorites. The influence of Bill Watterson's masterpiece Calvin and Hobbes is apparent in this anthropomorphic series starring a pair of precocious fox-children, serene straight-man Ozy and plucky troublemaker Millie, as they ponder school, bullies, politics, zen, and the meaning of life. It's wise, irreverent, funny, and brilliant. Start at the beginning of the archives and read through -- it's the only way to go. You can also check out House Rules, a selection of O&M strips in color, or I Drew This, D.C. Simpson's political cartoon series. He also has a livejournal.




The Girl in Black is a very nice strip about the titular darkly-clad girl and her hirsute boyfriend. I love the drawing style, and the characters are likable and ring true. A pity the comic isn't in production any more...I'd love to see more.




Little Dee is a traditional newspaper-style comic strip, about a little girl who is adopted by a family of animals. Cute.




Questionable Content is another of those day-in-the-life comics about a group of mildly angsty twenty-something friends. This one is pretty cleverly done. Oh, and there's also a pet robot.




PhD is Piled Higher and Deeper, a "grad student comic strip" with massive archives stretching back almost ten years. From to writing the perfect thesis title to stealing food from seminars, It's the entire graduate-school experience distilled into comic-strip form.

Excellent webcomics: sagas and series

I don't link to nearly enough webcomics, though I enjoy them very much and have a sizeable collection of links. So it's time to start putting them up, starting with long-running series. These are mostly graphic-novel type comics, all of them worth your time.

(A ways back I did do "Comics to blow your mind", which I really recommend seeing if you haven't yet.)

First is Demian5, a fantastic artist I only just discovered today. Most of his work requires a subscription to view (a measly $3, which I will have no problem shelling out one day when I have the time), but available for free is the wonderful medium-length series "When I Am King", a stylized hypercomic in an innovative sidescrolling format, using animation, 3-d rendering, and other sophisticated effects. With only visuals and no text, the comic follows the adventures of the king of a sunny, Egyptianesque country, an amorous giraffe-dragon, two quirky guards, a pair of sultry village women, a gaggle of children, and some bees. A large portion of the narrative involves the king's quest for his loincloth or a suitable replacement. There is quite a bit of nudity, sex, and scatological humor, but it's all so charming and abstract that only the most dour of Puritans could manage to be offended. Well, maybe some of the moderately dour ones, too.




Faith Erin Hicks's Demonology 101 was one of the first webcomics I ever read, and it's still one of my favorites. An adopted demon girl named Raven copes with high school, friends, and an epic struggle between a resistance group called the Network and the dark Powers that Be. Very nice artwork and a well-executed, engaging story mixing dark themes with humor make this one a winner -- plus, as Faith points out in her intro, it's the longest completed story-based online comic out there. So there you go.




The Green Crow promises to be a fantastic webcomic someday. It's an epic reworking of Peter Pan, with an impressive admixture of literary and mythical allusions and historical tidbits. Unfortunately, there's not very much of it -- just Part One of Book I, with Book I on a two-year hiatus, and Books II and III slated for 2009 and 2015(!), respectively. Now that's some planning ahead. But go and enjoy what there is, with some professional-quality art, terrific character design, and skilled storytelling. If only there were more!




Justine Shaw's Nowhere Girl is a beautifully drawn, very moving story about a troubled young woman named Jamie and how she tries to make sense of her life. Everything about the comic is impeccable -- great characters, wonderful art, flawless design. Highly recommended.




NYC2123 is a striking, two-tone graphic novel designed for the PSP. It's about a grim, future, technopunk Manhattan and the lawless barge cities outside it, ruled respectively by martial law and organized crime. A good, solid sci-fi story with some nice worldbuilding, not to mention some very stylish artwork.




Jenn Manley Lee's Dicebox is a new discovery for me. I was at first taken with the skillful, detailed artwork, and quickly drawn in by the futuristic world and interesting cast of unusual characters. The series also incorporates an element of mysticism and symbolism that adds some spice. I'm still reading, and you should, too.




Indigo Kelleigh's The Circle Weave is another new one for me, but after one chapter, I'm hooked. It's a long medieval-fantasy epic with some smashing artwork and great storytelling. What more do you need to know?

Varia

I've just finally caught up on the archives of my latest obsession, 8-bit Theater, a sprite webcomic based on Final Fantasy I. Tonight I finally made it through all 574 back episodes. Enough nostalgia was also stirred in me to prompt me to download a rom of the original NES game, which I started playing tonight. I've had vague urges to play it again for some time. I do still have the game and my Nintendo system somewhere, sealed up in a box in the back of a storage unit where I can't get it, but I don't know why it never occurred to me to download the rom before.

For years I loved Final Fantasy, without even knowing it was part of a series. When I saw ads for FF7, I was blown away. And also a little confused. How had my beloved childhood swords-and-sorcery epic turned into a futuristic techno-world? Time passes, I guess.




And now a series of links with no thematic relevance...

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the latest trends in controversial young adult literature. There's Rainbow Party, the book about a teen oral-sex party that's sparked plenty of debate, but that's just the beginning.




Deadprogrammer's Cafe tells the story of How the Starbucks Siren Became Less Naughty.




I've just discovered an entertaining and informative blog called Fascinating History, which is quickly becoming one of my favorites. A recent entry discusses Elizabethan Food.

A columnist at the Globe and Mail vents his frustration with the relentless verbing of nouns.

Google just released Google Earth, the amazing satellite-imagery software that used to be Keyhole. Unlike the subscription-only Keyhole, Google Earth is all free. You can spend hours just exploring the planet in high-resolution photographs (not everywhere, of course...but just give it a couple years and it'll be really amazing). Some places, like the Grand Canyon, also have 3-D elevation. There's a lot you can do with this thing.




What is EPIC? A video from the Museum of Media History in the year 2014 presents a sobering and thought-provoking future history of the media. See where we're headed.


reading: haven't finished anything yet, still plodding along on Fast Food Nation
saw: Three Kings; 30 Days; Donnie Darko; Matrix: Revolutions; The Office (American); Undeclared
playing: Final Fantasy I

music: the Shade: Wrath of Angels soundtrack, very nice music to a game I've never heard of but found free to download the other day
beverage: Twinings Prince of Wales tea