This is the first post from Contestant #5

There is clearly nothing cooler than a doctor who is also a ninja. That is why Dr. McNinja has to be one of the coolest comics ever. Not only does he save the world from nasty diseases like meningitis, but also from pirates, giant lumberjacks, and even McDonalds. Now he has moved onto raptors. And not just any normal kind of raptor, but apparently tame raptors.

This is, of course, awesome because if anyone has seen Jurassic Park (and who hasn’t??) then they know just how sweet it would be to have a tame raptor. They would be at your mercy, doing tricks for you for T-bone steaks (or ponies), attacking anyone you commanded and ripping them apart, bit by fleshy bit. Plus you could RIDE it. And if you also had MIND POWERS then you could like, maybe control all the raptors, and become Raptiro and kill off all the superheroes, but not Batman or Underdog because who can honestly kill a dog? And Batman would just be enslaved, most likely for sexual purposes. Because everyone, no matter what their sexual orientation secretly wants to have intercourse with Batman.

But I digress. So the current story is about raptors, and who knows what else, since none of us have any idea who it is RIDING the raptors (although if it is someone named Raptiro I will clearly wet myself a little), much less why they are stealing old people’s coupons. The latest update is based on a true story, involving heckling and African American women. Except in real life there was no raptor. And the woman wasn’t so much sitting on a bench as in her jail cell.

While, like me, the most current update seems to steer away from the main point, it is merely one page in a series. Where it will go on Wednesday, we will not know, not until Dr McNinja roundhouse kicks us all in the face with yet another update.

I am willing to bet that it involves a little doggy getting eaten though. Although that is just me. And there is nothing I like more than seeing a froufy dog get his.

This is the first post from Contestant #10

As a college student in the final week of class, I am fighting between a deep desire to be a fangirl slacker and … reality.

Fangirl: Is the package in my mailbox my Wigu book?!
Reality: Oh, grr, paperwork to fill out for my study abroad. Which will be awesome, but … reality bites.

I’m just glad that my webcomics mirror my moods, and do it well.

I’m not sure if Multiplex is meant to be college students. The majority of the characters, according to the cast page, are 19 years old. Which is, of course, how old I am. Perhaps this particular Multiplex is located in a college town, but the characters are certainly pretentious enough about popculture to be college students.

Today’s strip features J.J. Abrams, Lost, Alias, Star Trek, Obi-Wan Kenobi, jumping the shark, and a passerby so frightened by the fanboys that she walks away. If that isn’t college in a nutshell, my friends, I don’t know what is.

If only there had been a reference to 24. WHERE IS THE DEVICE?!

The reality side of college is quite artfully done by Sandra in Friendly Hostility, formerly of Boy Meets Boy fame. The current arc deals with real college problems. Where to sit in a crowded lecture hall? Who would be the least unpleasant person to drag through a group project? Surely it is not the girl whose hair has an absurd poof. And the kid with the Jesus Pencil? Sketchy. The only thing that would have made that arc even better would be running into an ex. But Collin is asexual, so that point is moot.

Oh, college. Where else would I have hours on end to nap and read the entire backlogs of new-to-me webcomics in days? Until next time, ♥

This is the first post from Contestant #3

Silent Hill is running amuck all over my favorite comics today. I was shocked at how well the game was captured, bemused at how much wasn’t. More importantly though, it put me in the mood for disturbing storylines and unsettling characters. No Rest for the Wicked delivered today with a pie-sized helping of both.

Those unfamiliar with the story (which just turned 3 years old) need only extract the best of the Brother’s Grimm, a little Hans Christian Andersen and set about on a quest for the grittiest graphics and dark-darling characters. This is what you’ll find. I admit my impatience with her slowly unfolding story arc these past two months had nearly worn me out. Today she released two comics in tandem in order to allow the plot twist to be revealed without sacrificing suspense.

I like jokes involving eating babies and cannibalizing children as much as the next guy, but today’s plot twist revelation has left me more than a little uncomfortable. Maybe it’s the way Andrael drew the story so that it was only deliciously implied that there was child-eating. Maybe it’s because these characters and their stories are so familiar to me and yet the story is so original and unpredictable. Either way, when I went searching for the scary and the distinctly uncomfortable, I found it.

Reading web comics with an obvious plotline, character development and plausible ending are far more painful than reading the ones that rely on gag strips and cultural parodies that could theoretically go on forever or until the artist explodes, hand poised over Wacom tablet. No Rest for the Wicked feeds on an obsession some of us have with great stories, one page at a time, a spoon feeding of good storytelling. Addicts were never meant to live this way.

This is the first post from Contestant #6

What constitutes “news”? in the webcomics world is a murky issue, at best. Sometimes it can be as hilarious and thrilling as the latest call-to-arms against the day’s Jack Thompson. Often, though, it is more like wondering what substance Jeff Rowland was ingesting when he made the day’s Overcompensating. Such are the lives of the fabulously rich and powerful masters of webcomics, and we are at their terrible, inhuman whim.

Anyway, I was going to write about the news over at Dinosaur Comics today (Monday, April 24th, 2006, for those of you in the blasted, dystopian wasteland of the grim future). Ryan tells us that he has added a new feature to the RSS feed site he created, RSSPECT: “Now you can use RSSPECT to create an RSS feed for almost every single website (or document) on the internet!�? Rock out, Mr. North. I salute you. But not as much, because someone already talked about that.

But I digress. Today marks the St. George’s Day British Webcomic Piss-Up. It’s a get-together for British webcomics to ostensibly celebrate St. George’s Day, but mostly to make comics about swords. Honestly, I can’t think of a good reason not to celebrate swords. Delicious, delicious swords …

Check it out and the comics involved. It’ll do you good, and you’ll get your recommended daily serving of iron. You might find a couple comics of your liking that are outside of the usual community.
I certainly did.

This is the first post from Contestant #2

Tatsuya Ishida has me right where he wants me. Despite the unexplained disappearances, the less-explained reappearances, despite the waiting (Oh! The waiting!), I’m still checking Sinfest every day.
This would make sense, you know, back when Sinfest actually had a frequent update schedule. Nowadays we get our strips in spurts, much like a lab rat being fed pellets by disinterested researchers.
And yet, I’m still going back every day. Why? Because today could be the day that Sinfest returns! You may well be calling me crazy at this point; I can’t say I blame you. Why not check back once a week and save myself the letdown?
Because today could be the day. Intentionally missing a day would be giving up, admitting that I don’t know when Sinfest is coming back.
Today could be the day. Even though the whole Slick’s date with Monique never really got resolved …
Today could be the day. And lo and behold, dear readers: a Sinfest strip dated April 25, 2006! Yessssssss.
And looky: It’s got some sort of alien fembot chasing the Devil with a butterfly net! I’m not quite sure what it means at this point, but let’s get real, here, people. It’s an alien fembot chasing the Devil with a bleedin’ butterfly net. With shit like that, Ishida could stop updates for years and I’d still be there every day. Ishida could egg my house, key my car, slip a roofie in my Piña Colada, whatever! I’m still a-clickin’ on that link in my bookmarks.
And the worst part is, he knows it.

This is the first post for Contestant #8

When I have the desire, nay, the need to read about sarcastic, indignant lab animals I go straight to the source … Able and Baker by Jim Burgess.

It’s guest-week at Able and Baker; so let me refresh your inter-web memory on the subject of amusing research animals.

Able and Baker are a monkey-sheep duo that spends their time working as lab animals for a research facility. (Don’t worry folks; they are there for science! Not for makeup companies or shampoo products)

Able is the egocentric, grand-scheming monkey who dreams of fame and it’s saucy cousin, power. Baker plays the straight-faced foil to Able’s schemes and half-baked ideas. Together they are a formidable pairing whose hijinks know no bounds … none I tell you.

This week Jim has let others draw his comic for him, stating that this is his first guest-week ever. The first guest artist is Forrest from Reality in Repair. Forrest does a mighty fine job at staying true to the character’s personalities, and more importantly, staying true to the hijinks. If prank calling people from space isn’t enough hi for your jinks, then I don’t know what is. His artwork is a little more jagged than Jim’s, which adds a Reality in Repair touch to the comic.

It should be interesting to see how other artists later this week interpret and render his comic about a monkey befriending a sheep.

You know, It’s a proven fact that monkeys make great B. F.F.’s.

(Best friends for-ever fool)

This is the first post from Contestant #7

Dinosaur Comics creator and wonderful human being Ryan North has made an interesting update to RSSPECT (his free, ridiculously simple RSS feed generator for your site). You can now generate a personalized feed from any existing site (for example this strangely topical one I made just now, or this one he’s linked). This thing makes it so incredibly simple for comic authors to syndicate content and updates, and I think he deserves a cookie for his efforts. Maybe even like five cookies. Seriously, somebody get on that.

So, what else. Natalie Dee’s got a few new shirts for sale, limited edition! She will stop selling them May 5th … or will she? It’s a lie. Seriously, every time she has a sale like this I just have to shake my head in some mixture of confusion and rage, because to my knowledge she has never discontinued a shirt, ever, and this is definitely not the first ‘limited time offer’. A pox on thee, wench, and thy unclean merchandise. Maybe even like five poxes.

On to other things. Bunny! Honestly I cannot stress enough how much you should all buy this book. Vaguely similar in style to the aforementioned Mrs. Dee, with a hell of a lot more substance. If you’re looking for a good time run through the archives, it won’t fail to amuse. There are few webcomic artists out there who can write as well as they draw, so a comic of this quality by a single author is kind of a rarity.

Oh, and Scientology jokes never get old. Ever.

This is the first post from Contestant #9

As soon as the word ‘Acid’ was mentioned by Hilary Clinton, I knew that Abe would somehow save the day. I love being right. However, beneath the smugness, there is an underlying worry that Alien Loves Predator is in danger of Jumping the shark.

Take a minute to boo me, throw your rotten tomatoes and broken bottles. It’s okay. I can wait.

Done?

Good.

Mainly, I’m worried about the whole Corinna moving in situation. I know that might seem like a long time ago now, but what with the guest Strips and the baby being born, it feels like the Bill Clinton story line is the first chance we’ve had to see Corinna in action as a main character. The question is, where does the ALP dynamic go from here? Already, it seems like Preston and Corinna are going down the Nials/Daphne or JD/Elliot path of will-they-wont-they sitcom cliché. Of course, they might not. After all, a comic starring an alien and a predator in action figure form tends to be pretty clear of cliché. But if they don’t, where does that leave Corinna as a character? Will she just fade into the background like Ctrl Alt Del‘s Scott? or PvP‘s Robby and Chase?

I hope not. If there’s anyone who can put a fresh spin on a situation, it’s Bernie. Even if sometimes it involves forcing me to imagine Bill Clinton’s genitals being melted by acid.

This is the first post from Contestant #1

I have a lot of conversations that leave me wondering how a garage door opens, especially after that Monk aired. Robots are too literary to watch television, so how did the colloquy in Killer Robots From Outer Space start? Now that I think about it I would assume it would start by walking past a garage door opening, since that is how most conversations commence. But as led to believe the Killer Robots are from space. In space I could not picture garage doors, although they could just be from space, not currently residing there.

I think today’s Killer Robots From Space gave me the best metal picture since the suicidal Arby’s sandwiches. Acrobatic elves climbing on top of each other just to open a garage door, or elves with smug expressions controlling the roller coaster esque garage door opener.

On a side note I listened to the Point of Futility “podcasts‿. They were some kind of awesome. The whole time I was listening I was trying to decide whether there were a lot of inside jokes, or if Max and Nick were just that cool. I finally settled on the latter.

So let’s see: bizarre machines, monsters, battles of wits, mad science, fencing, absurd situations, hilariously quotable dialogue, and even a little kissing? Gotta be The Princess Bride, right? Or maybe Young Frohnk-en-steen? Or possibly the sum total of classic Warner Brothers cartoons?

Or maybe it’s Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius, represented in the fourth reprint volume, Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus of Dreams. Agatha, for those who came in late, is the long-lost heir of the Heterodyne Boys, brothers Bill and Barry who travelled the globe doing good deeds and righting wrongs in a world where the Industrial Revolution was dominated by mad scientists (or “Sparks”, to be polite). Alas, the world mostly likes being chaotic, and every power in Europe will try to kill or control Agatha as she makes her way around with a talking cat, a hide-in-plain sight circus of Sparks, and a couple of Jagermonsters.

Oh, right, Jagermonsters … um, it’s a long story, just suffice it to say that they sound like Bela Lugosi, they’re loyal to the Heterodynes on a genetic level, they really like to fight, and they love their hats.

AHATCOD includes material from both the Girl Genius comics (discontinued due to the economics of dead-tree single-issue printing) and the thrice-weekly online installments that started about a year ago. Every page is laid out gorgeously, with incidental details clearly visible instead of jumbling together. The Foglios continue their tradition of being able to put in a punchline nearly every day (often in those incidental details: check out the brick) while still progressing the larger story forward. Sometimes it’s mere moments between pages , sometimes more. And sometimes, it’s a bit of luxury, like this page, which is so reminiscent of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind that it’s scary.

Some of us grew up on Phil Foglio’s work and will never look at a bowler hat the same way again. Some came later and saw that the same goofball wit that skewered fantasy genres could be applied to sci-fi as well. Some just know that no matter what happens in the world, Winslow is the path to truth (all hail). And some haven’t discovered the Foglio genius yet; if you fall into that latter group, Girl Genius is a good place to start. Grab all four volumes now so you can be ready when volume 5 hits in about two months.