In finishing out the Transmission-X trifecta I mentioned two weeks back (but go look! There’s eight other webcomics I haven’t mentioned), and in anticipation of more lovely New England weather, this week I point you to Karl Kerschl’s charming The Abominable Charles Christopher.

It has its sassy moments, and, overall, the composition is very strong. Space is used very well, as in this particularly poignant strip, in a way I haven’t seen used as skillfully in many other webcomics. The wordless strips are often very beautifully done, and that’s particularly difficult to do. While it doesn’t have the splashy, bright colorwork of something like Mike Luce’s Fite! does (though his animals and these strike me as wonderfully similar), the colors Kerschl uses absolutely evoke a wintery feel and are better suited to creating a mood. They’re very effective, and the overall feel is very elegant.

What I especially enjoy are the moments where this elegance kind of contrasts with the characters, when they’re being emphatic with one another or at certain moments in their conversations. The webcomic is still new enough that you can move through the archives quickly, but the work has a depth of detail to it which may make you want to linger over each, to savor them rather than speed through. It reminds me a little of some of the Japanese animation I’ve seen, and I’m not quite certain of where the story’s going (plus, given the range of charaters–from the henpecked bird husband to the ongoing story of Vivol & Moon Bear–there’s a number of different things happening), but I really like this one. It is absolutely worth your time.

Last week I mentioned, briefly, Cameron Stewart’s webcomic Sin Titulo. It’s an eerie little webcomic kind of to do both with family and with memory, and I’m quite taken with it. For me it immediately evoked some other favorites in its very savvy use of pacing; one in particular is Max’s book The Extended Dream of Mr. D..

Beginning midway through June of last year and updating once per week, Sin Titulo is just now getting to the heart of answering some of its questions. Alex, the main character, begins the story by finding out that the grandfather he’s come to visit is, in fact, dead and has been so for more than a month. While looking through his grandfather’s things, Alex discovers a photograph of his grandfather with a woman he does not recognize. In trying to find this woman, he stumbles through a series of events he doesn’t understand that link his grandfather, a horrific orderly named Walter, and the woman in the photograph.

The art is crisp and well-suited to the story, and the pacing is that of someone who has worked in comics for many years; Stewart’s history shows in this particular story. I don’t want to stay too much, since it really is a work that achieves what it does through a cumulative effect (and it certainly makes the reader curious). You should start at the beginning and work your way through. At most, it will take an hour or so, but you’ll likely want to linger longer over the images.

Wahoo! So, thanks to last week’s recommendations, I ended up over at Transmission X. It took me a minute to realize that two of the webcomics on last week’s recommendation list are available through this site (one of them is Karl Kerschl’s lovely The Abominable Charles Christopher, the other Cameron Stuart’s magnificent Sin Titulo. I’ve done a brief toe-dip into their respective archives and hope to add them to the docket for coming weeks.

However, through a somewhat roundabout route (how I found Transmission X), I landed at a charming webcomic called Luz by Claudia Dávila. The image you see above is from early in the series (which started, I believe, in October of last year?), which follows the life of a quirky, smart kid. “Luz is,” as the About Luz link tells us, “a 12-year-old latina girl who tends to be on the serious side and finds herself reflecting on life. She ponders the state of humanity and where we fit in Nature. She is curious, cares about people and animals, and tends to assume the best in everyone.”

It might read as vaguely didactic, but I’m quite charmed by this webcomic. The linework is lovely; simple to process but with a solid use of visual flow and color, plus a great sense of pacing. I haven’t really seen too many webcomics so far which are taking on a responsibility to educate their readers as well as entertain, and I was thinking about this idea during the whole Super Tuesday delegate-updating. I don’t have television, so I spent an evening online following coverage (which is also how I kept up with the Super Bowl; somehow the timing of these two events with Fat Tuesday thrown into the mix was just too perfect), and reading through the relatively short archives.

What’s also kind of neat about Luz is that it’s obviously kid-friendly, and she’s a literate, clever kid; I’m not sure I’ve seen webcomics where there’s this obvious potential for a dual audience. It’s new, kind of nascent, and I’m interested to see where it goes; it’s interesting, relevant work from someone with a long history working in comics and visual media. Take a half-hour or so to read through her archives; I think you’ll find it time well spent.

Or, alternatively, Angry Twinkie (thank you, Dan O.) asks, Where are the reading suggestions? I’ve been lax in my webcomics reading lately, between crazy work things and impromptu astronaut suit photo shoots (it’s actually a Selk’bag, which is kind of awesome), but I also had this horrible moment where I thought, Okay, what do I read now? I have a handful of things I follow, but…what now? It’s been about a year since I started posting here and I need some recommendations. What are you reading lately? What’s caught your eye and is worth checking out?

From time to time I also go poking through the emails; if you click that little ‘let us know’ link over there on the right, those emails generally come to all of us. Periodically I go through and start clicking away; last week that process worked too well, but this week I thought I’d go looking through the older emails that were still lurking in the inbox. Dash Shaw’s quirky, image-heavy Bodyworld jumped out at me from the outset because of its extraordinary color work. It updates once per week, and the story is taking me a little while longer to get; it reminds me, both narratively and visually a little of Dan Clowes and a little of David Lynch (both good things). There’s a blog, of course, for updates and other images (check out the cool Inversions Drawing Game, inspired by Scott Kim), plus some mostly-print-only other artwork.

I feel like he’s an artist I should have run across earlier than now, given his range of publishing and his lengthy history working in self-publishing. Still, point for webcomics: this exposure via his webcomic to his other comics work (a 700-page book?!) is a fairly major boon.

Anyway, you tell me: what should I be reading now, hunkered down in my warm spacesuit in my cold apartment?

I am so late to this party.

It comes highly recommended from both way back (check out the text underneath the comic) and new. Partially, I was immediately struck by how pretty the strip is (I mean, look at this beautiful thing). But as I read through the archives (and it’s new enough that you can read through in one sitting, though you might not want to do so at work if you work in the States), I found myself far more captivated by the changes in style. Sometimes there’s some pencil extras, and I kind of love how she intentionally posts really different styles from time to time. Like this cool one. And sometimes in Swedish too! (and also here).

I’m having a tough time pinning down exactly what it is I like so much about Anders Loves Maria. It’s one of the few webcomics I’ve seen in a while where everything’s working together in a compelling, charming way. Much of it evokes other work I like; it’s a little reminiscent of Scene Language in the way the characters interact, and visually it’s a little like Scary Go Round in places. The characters are great, and I’m excited to be caught up with the archives since it seems like there’s a lot yet to come with the webcomic and with the story. (Go look already, willya? ‘Cause I’m not going to ruin how it unfolds; it’s best if you start at the beginning and work your way forward.)

I’m also totally taken with her writing. While there are occasionally a few minor errors, I think they completely add to the strip’s charm and take nothing away. I’m smitten with the strips written in Swedish, but let me just give you an example of her writing, because I think it’s beautifully written and speaks particularly well to the kind of vibrancy and personality you’ll see in her work:

Rene Engström is a Swedish-Canadian cartoonist-lady living far too close to the arctic circle for her liking. Rene is (for all intents and purposes) married to a lovely man who has blessed her with 2 beautiful children. They all live together in a cute, old house in Brunflo, Sweden. They have a huge vegetable garden and apple and cherry trees and all sorts of berry bushes and a strawberry patch. So when Rene is not making comics, she is most likely catching up on sleep or playing with her family in the garden, picking fresh fruits and vegetables.

The cast page is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a while. Anna, the character you see above, reminds me a little of Sydney from Dykes to Watch Out For (that’s a good thing, folks). The design is crisp, the site easy to navigate; nothing’s overwhelming…and why aren’t you reading through her archives already?

Something kind of interesting crossed my (virtual) desk recently. (It wasn’t Orbitz, though that would have been awesome.)

It was an email about 17 Sensational, Free, and Downloadable Graphic Novels. Last month, someone I know mentioned something that certainly sounded like he had a version of Watchmen on his computer. I kind of shuddered at the thought, but mostly because, well, it’s Watchmen. I so loved reading that book, what with the panel structure and use of color and so on. It wouldn’t be the same, of course, but I feared it might lose something, or the reading would shift. (Well, duh, on that last one: of course it’s going to be a different kind of reading.) But, you know, how interesting. “I wonder what they picked,” I thought, and off I went.

Anyway, Daniel of Daily Bits writes, “I want to highlight a booming segment of the online free culture movement: graphic novels. Each link will take you to a page where you can download or view a high quality graphic novel or excerpt [my emphasis] freely and with no strings attached.”

Shows what I know; I didn’t realize it was booming. (more…)

You know, I realized recently that I’d mentioned Tragic Relief, but I hadn’t really written much about it. It’s a project–and recipient of a recent Xeric Foundation grant–by Colleen Frakes. Her work, according to her bio, has been featured in one newspaper, two literary magazines, seven anthologies, eleven zines, and counting. (But you can see more of her work at cowboyorange.com, and be sure to check out the gallery. That lobster wedding portrait? Yeah. I own it. Full disclosure: Colleen and I are in at least one anthology together and were very nearly classmates.)

I’m predicting that she’s going to be one of the folks to watch this year.

Evidence, you say? Show your work?

Okay. For starters, there’s the fact that Tragic Relief, on issue #5, landed a Xeric. Her linework’s evocative; it’s one of those works that’ll pull you in with a deceptively spare style. It’s a style you’ll see reflected across her work, whether its paintings, illustration, or her comics work. She’s also one of these painters who parts with her work for cheap: she has originals for sale as well. (As if you could pass up these cute things?)

As if this weren’t enough, she’s currently serializing her reincarnated series, Marya and Death, over here. It’s a project she abandoned some time ago to revive online; it’s developing nicely, and it’s interesting to see an artist return to a work that’s been set aside for a little while with fresh eyes and a newer perspective. Again, you’ll see that same spare style, but look at the cool color work Frakes is doing here. It’s worth starting at the beginning and reading through the chapters as they develop. But be sure to also check out her guest strip on Reina Telgemeier’s SMILE, a charming if tragic tale of teeth, tripping, and trauma.

I mean, Happy New Year!

I usually get a little contemplative at the New Year; it seems a decent opportunity to both survey the past year and think about changes for the coming one. It was about a year ago that I was first put in touch with the Fleen folks (read: Gary), and so I thought maybe this post ought to take a quick look back over the previous year, as a refresher on what I read and liked. I think I’ve learned a fair piece about webcomics over the course of 2007, and I have some favorite webcomics finds from the year. I met a whole lot of webcomics folks (and I finally met Jeph Jacques, and the world didn’t end). I survived MoCCA, didn’t get sued, and ended up with a lot of t-shirts. So, yeah. Go webcomics!

But in reading through the archives, my first thought was Holy crap! I completely overwhelmed myself! I figured I’d go poking through the archives, review a little, and try to come up with a witty year-end round-up kind of thing, especially after reading ComixTalk’s People of Webcomics 2007 list (which struck me as kind of a weird list; I’ll leave more discussion to you folks and to Gary, but…yeah, weird, no?).

My math skills are not the awesome, but in the past year it looks like I wrote about nearly 40 different webcomics. I’m not counting the ones I just mentioned in passing or name-checked more than once, or the ones with which I was familiar before picking up this gig. Of these forty-odd, a few, like Tom Humberstone’s lovely Vented Spleen and Juan Santapau’s breathtaking The Secret Knots, are ones that I visit from time to time; they aren’t daily updates. Natasha Allegri’s Normal Life is another. One series ended–Mike Luce’s quirky, funky Fite!–and a handful of the other columns were either about one-shot series, like Israel Sanchez’s Saturday, or the body of work of one artist (such as Mark Burrier or Sarah Morean).

There are, however, a few with which I’ve kept up on a regular basis, and I was trying to figure out why that was. Why those webcomics? I mean, I like webcomics. I spend enough time on the internet; it’s not like it’s tricky to navigate. But in looking back through the archives, I found that there were some that I really enjoyed, like Kelly Vivanco’s Patches, that just fell out of my head (or my browser, I guess). There are a few others that I’m not following, just because the narrative didn’t catch my eye the same way the visuals did. But what I realized is that the ones I follow most regularly are either the ones with feeds, like Box Brown’s Bellen!, or ones that update once per week (cue Teaching Baby Paranoia) and I can remember to check back in. One of my favorites, Matthew Reidsma’s High Maintenance Machine, actually started selling original art within the last month; I could not resist.

I’ve actually spent the time since Thursday, when I was originally going to post, re-reading many of these webcomics, like Karen Ellis’s astounding Planet Karen, one of my favorite finds from this year, and catching up with the series I’ve missed (holy crap, Scene Language, I missed you! & congrats Corey Marie & Tod!). And, actually, I think that’s apt: instead of spending time writing about them, I’m actually closing the year reading them.

I can’t wait to see what 2008 brings.

I realized this week that I needed to backtrack a bit. Last week I mentioned Geeks Next Door in passing, on my way to a larger, different piece. So I thought I’d jog one step back and actually write about it.

It’s billed as “the exaggerated tales of a geek couple and the people who live with them.” The main characters, Jessi and Matt, no doubt based on creators Jessi Bavolack and Matt Pascal, deal with cats, family and accents, and even frat zombies (probably better if you just go look at that last one). They’re often joined in their adventures by Jessi’s younger sister, Maggie, and a character named Barry (who seems to be the only one not based on an actual person).

I’ll keep this short, since that seems the trend here lately: you should have a look at this webcomic. I’ve found it kind of charming and winsome in reading through the archives. It’s still relatively new (ergo, not a whole lot of archives), but the characters are very compelling even though the idea itself (webcomic about a couple and their life? We’ve seen this before…) isn’t new. But, weirdly, that’s part of what makes it distinctive; it feels familiar in a number of ways. The characters sometimes borrow elements from manga, in the way faces (or fangs) look, and the overarching story (couple living together) is one we’ve seen–but these folks have a fun, goofy twist on it: the geek angle. It’s there, without knocking you totally over the head–and that’s one of this webcomic’s strengths: it’s very accessible to a wide range of readers.

There’s also some very nice color work in there, and I’m a sucker for good lettering. This webcomic’s worth adding to your list of reading for next week when (hopefully not if) you’re off from work. Fingers crossed we’re not socked in with snow again…

I went home early yesterday, sick and trying to avoid snow, and promptly got hit with both. (At least the Red Robot socks arrived in enough time to provide some solace while I was excavating my car). So, when I was looking for a subject for this week’s column I thought I’d try something that had worked in the past: Googling “webcomic” and “weird” and “snow” to see what came up. It landed me at an out of date website, but along the banner at the top was this very cute image of two folks smoochin’, and so I clicked: Geeks Next Door by Jessi Bavolack and Matt Pascal. They’ve just finished posting some funny fan art, and I scrolled down to find wee Project Wonderful ads (again, one of my favorite webcomics’ ads appeared there with a link to today’s vaguely smutty comic).

And I clicked on David Best’s Taking The Bi-Pass. It’s an interesting webcomic, started in 2003, centering around a couple and their day to day lives, with a pretty good streak of geek in there. I haven’t read through the entire archives, so I have a few unanswered questions (like, um, the title?), but in time I trust all will be revealed. It updates twice-weekly, and is one of those webcomics which reminds me of other ones I’ve read (in a good way, I mean). Like You’ll Have That, for example. (Here’s one of those odd chronology moments where even though YHT‘s just celebrated its third anniversary, I think of it as ‘older’ only because I was introduced to it before I found Taking the Bi-Pass, published regularly since 2003. I wonder if this chronology issue’s just another facet of reading webcomics and the unchecked potential for new discovery–I mean, literally, every time you get online there’s a possibility of new work out there…!).

The strip does have the occasional webcomic in-joke and I had been thinking it looked kind of Simpsons-influenced, so imagine my glee when I found this Halloween strip. The webcomic’s got a bit of an autobio bent to it, what with Canada, the Maple Leafs, and having kids (there’s a great series of guest strips in the archives which were stockpiled in preparation for a birth), much of which you either have to guess from context or from the notes running alongside each strip (something that Questionable Content, for example, does particularly well, and this webcomic reminds me a bit of that one).

There are moments, however, where it feels a little patterned; one of the tricks that Best uses frequently is to have one of the four panels be the silhouettes of the characters, or to have the characters in one general position throughout the strip. It might not even be something you notice in following on a regular episodic basis; it only jumped out at me as I was reading through the archives. In fact, it’s not unique or specific to Best, and, given his history (hello, new baby!), it’s not something with which I can really take much issue. Particularly when he does neat things like this: look at the arm in the third panel, breaking the frame. I love that.