Best Webcomic Contest!

[Vinyadan]

Hello everyone! The question has been bugging me for a while: which is the best webcomic out there?

I would like to hear your opinion. We know that there are many good webcomics, but it is hard to say which one is the best. So, here is my idea.

I propose a contest, where everyone can post the name of the webcomic which he finds to be the best. As I know that sometimes it is hard to decide just for one, as there are many different genres and styles, it is also possible to post a short list (ideally max. 5 elements) of the comics you think are the best.
In two weeks, we will do some maths, add up all the votes, see which one got the most and crown it as Best Webcomic on the Net!

Just a little info:
1. There are comics which were born outside the Internet, got very famous and now also have their place here (like Dilbert). They cannot join the contest.
2. There are webcomics which cannot be reached anymore; you can vote for them anyway, just add the tag [noa] = not online anymore after their name.
3. Links are not requested, but I am sure many will appreciate them.
4. Use your own way to choose which ones you will vote for, just remember evaluating both art and writing.
5. If you want, you can freely add some commentary. A lot of people will gladly read it, but please keep your votes clearly visible and do not drown them in the text!

To clear things up, here are my votes:


Lackadaisy Cats
The Order of the Stick
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Gunnerkrigg Court
Unsounded

Lackadaisy Cats has an entertaining story and beautiful art. The Order of the Stick is a miracle of balance between parody, epic and geekery, with a unique, incredibly simple and effective art style. Dr. McNinja is now well drawn and has a complex ongoing story about one of the funniest and coolest heroes ever designed. Gunnerkrigg court has a well calculated art style, an intriguing story and an interesting background in alchemy. Unsounded has a terrific art style, strongly defined personalities and wonderful storytelling.

Ok, I am sure that most commentaries will be more interesting than mine.

Now, over to you! Post your votes and, if you have questions or see something which does not work, please tell!

[theNater]

I suspect Order of the Stick has an unsurmountable home court advantage, but I'll throw my five into the ring. I'm including links; be aware that each of these is sometimes NSFW, though how often depends on how sensitive your workplace is.

Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/) - Beautiful, compelling story. Regularly provokes audible expressions of emotion, whether laughter, sobs, or any of several flavors of screaming.

El Goonish Shive (http://www.elgoonishshive.com/) - Goofy and bizarre transformation fun, and proud of it. That pride occasionally results in lines like "I'm too young and too male to be the mother of a seventeen year old female me!"

Skin Horse (http://skin-horse.com/) - Opens with a cross-dressing psychologist trying to talk a genetically augmented lion down from a rampage. That pretty much sets the tone for the whole series.

Freefall (http://freefall.purrsia.com/) - Relatively hard sci-fi comic. Particularly notable due to the fact that none of the three main characters is human, and the author works to keep them from behaving too human.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (http://www.smbc-comics.com/) - Gag-a-day comic that often goes bizarre and surreal. Almost always funny or thought-provoking, very often both.

[wingnutx]

Dresden Codak (http://dresdencodak.com/)
Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/)
Oglaf (http://oglaf.com/)
Order of the Stick
Power Nap (http://www.powernapcomic.com/)


If I had six slots then Girl Genius would be on there.

[The Rose Dragon]

It's Walky!: Might be horribly cheesy at times, but it is the only webcomic that got me to cry, so it's there.

YU+ME: dream: Especially because reading the first part knowing what will happen is brilliant, and the second part makes fantastic use of being a webcomic.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: While it has drifted away from the dark humor I started it for into a more academic type of humor, I still enjoy it, and Weiner never stops learning new things, even if only to turn them into your mother jokes.

Crimson Dark: A sci-fi webcomic I'm sad had to end. I guess it's sort of like Firefly, where I only really enjoy it because it had the potential to be much more (and the premise is also similar).

El Goonish Shive: it's not objectively a great comic, but like It's Walky!, it has the honor of making me care enough about the characters to the point where I'm invested in a romantic ship. That never happened before.

[Eldan]

Hm.. Very difficult. Webcomics can be so incredibly different.

Unsounded currently wins best art and story both, for me. Girl Genius had best story until a while ago, but it really went downhill, lately, to the point that I'm not regularly reading it anymore.

SMBC is the funniest and most thought provoking. IT's also the most regularly updated.

Honourable mention in the funny category goes to Manly Guys doing Manly Things.

Edit: Questionable Content wins the "I don't know why I'm reading this but I've been for years now" award.

[Vinyadan]

We still don't have many votes, do we? :smallwink:

The contest will remain open until Thursday 16.7.2013, 12:00 UTC+1, so there still is time! Let me know what you think! And then, we will crown the winner King in the Playground!

And I already found out some new comics I like, so thanks to the previous posters! :smallcool:

[Razanir]

Order of the Stick (No link or explanation necessary)
Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/)
XKCD (xkcd.com)
1/0 (http://www.undefined.net/1/0/)– A comic which explores what would happen if there wasn't a fourth wall. No longer updating, they finished with a round 1000 strips
Cyanide and Happiness (http://explosm.net/comics)

[hajo]

* Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html) - D'n'D with stickfigures.

* xkcd (http://www.xkcd.com) - Romance, Sarcasm (http://www.xkcd.com/1116/), Math (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1184:_Circumference_Formula), Language. With stickfigures.
Also, educational (http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=980:_Money) every week (http://what-if.xkcd.com/), and includes the largest (http://www.xkcd.com/1110/) and the longest&fastest-updating strip (http://www.xkcd.com/1190) ever.

* RustyAndCo (http://rustyandco.com/)- D'n'D. Monsters going on adventures.

* Freefall (http://freefall.purrsia.com/) - SF with "DOGGY !", Sam and Helix. And Ninjas (http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01076.htm) :smallbiggrin:

* SchockMercenary (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/) - SF. Mercs in space. Rescueing the galaxy. (Well, maybe, eventually :smallamused:)


Lots of other good webcomics (ErfWorld (http://www.erfworld.com/), GirlGenius (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php), GoblinComic (http://www.goblinscomic.org/), GunnerkriggCourt (http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/), Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/), Nickyitis (http://www.nickyitis.com/), SMBHAX (http://smbhax.com/), Unsounded (http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/), UserFriendly (http://www.userfriendly.org/) ...)

[dogmac]

Girl Genius
Order of the Stick
Dr McNinja (which is currently my #1)
Hipster Hitler (though, really, it was a one joke thing, but hey)
Red Meat

[Tebryn]

I'll probably be the first to say ERFworld...OOtS and Dr. McNinja. Those are the only three I read with any kind of regularity as well but I think out of all three Dr. McNinja is my favorite. I guess Oglaf as well though I just read it for the laughs. I suppose Digger even though it's over. Beats all these out without question. Not just best webcomic. Best comic comic.

[Scarlet Knight]

Order of the Stick
Girl Genius
Oglaf
Rusty and Co.
Snow by Night
Now substituting: JL8

[cartel1982]

Both are defunct but

Achewood (best writing)
Perry Bible Fellowship (best overall)

Neither are gaming comics. I honestly find gaming comics to be a little bit too pandering.

[Killer Angel]

Not in a particular order, but...

Order of the Stick
Erfworld (uncertain on this one)
Unsounded
Goblins
Wizard School (minion comics).

I'm uncertain, so I'm probably doing something wrong... :smalltongue:

[Hiro Protagonest]

Maybe we should leave OotS out of this, because even though it is very good, the unrivaled popularity it has here is going to massively sway in its favor.

So my votes are
Erfworld
Sandra and Woo
Bibliography [noa]
Thaumaturge (not being updated, Elagune has disappeared again)
XKCD

[Anteros]

I'll throw in Sluggy Freelance as well as 8 Bit Theater as 2 of my personal favorites.

[Deadline]

Well, let's see:

Order of the Stick
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (http://drmcninja.com)
Romantically Apocalyptic (http://romanticallyapocalyptic.com/)

[Eldan]

Romantically Apocalyptic! How could I forget that! Unsounded is officially pushed off it's "best art" throne. And it has a great story, too, even if you might not notice at first.

[Deadline]

Romantically Apocalyptic! How could I forget that!

It's ok, Ze Captain still loves you.

[Gift Jeraff]

8-Bit Theater
The Order of the Stick
Rusty & Co.
Brawl in the Family
Romantically Apocalyptic

[Killer Angel]

I suppose that Darths and Droids doesn't count as webcomic, right?

[HandofShadows]

In particular order

Girl Genius
Order of the Stick
Schlock Mercenary
Freefall
Drowtales

[Proud Tortoise]

#1: Hands down, Unsounded
Also: Gunnerkrigg Court
Will Save World for Gold
Erfworld
OotS

[littlebum2002]

OOtS
Perry Bible Fellowship (gone now, unfortunately)
SMBC
XKCD
DM of the RIngs (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612) (Also, gone, but just because the plot was finally "resolved")

[Shadebolt]

OOTS (http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html),
Brawl in the Family (http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/),
Sandra and Woo (http://www.sandraandwoo.com/),
Remnants (http://remnants.thecomicseries.com/), and
Scandinavia and the World (http://satwcomic.com/).

[Curaced]

I'm glad I get more than one choice. In no particular order, they are:

The Order of the Stick, for many reasons.

8 bit Theater- this one, while no longer updating, and not always funny, has left me paralyzed with laughter.

Girl Genius, the very first webcomic I started reading, is very good, though I'm a few years behind.

Schlock mercenary

Sandra and woo/ gaia. Two webcomics by the same people, and I can't decide between them.

I don't know how to do links on a tablet device, I'll hopefully add them later.

[Ghostfreak]

Maybe we should leave OotS out of this, because even though it is very good, the unrivaled popularity it has here is going to massively sway in its favor.



I agree. I thought this would be a webcomic contest for up and coming webcomics. Not comics that are long established and have unrivaled popularity.

Probably why the contest really isn't that appealing.

[Arkhosia]

Drowtales because Kiel'ndia is the best ever!

Shortpacked Simply due to Robin.

Xkcd reasoning listed above.

[Jahkaivah]

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c226/saxcsa/Isaac_zpscdf4411c.png

Paranatural wins the why the hell haven't any of you mentioned Paranatural yet award.

Also Ava's Demon, though that is on hiatus at the moment.

[Weimann]

My five top webcomics, you say? Well, in no particular order:

1) Order of the Stick. Well, no real explanation required, I presume.

2) Keychain of Creation. (http://keychain.patternspider.net/) It starts out as OotS but with Exalted, but it soon finds its own pace and style. Periodically, my absolute number one favourite comic (that's right, no web- prefix). Unfortunately, Jukashi, the artist, got tendonitis and it's now been on indefinite hiatus for over two years. He's not said it's not coming back, though, so I remain optimistic.

3) El Goonish Shive. (http://www.egscomics.com/) The quality of this comic is hard to really point out properly. Looking at any one aspect of it, you can probably find several other comics that does that better. But the fact that Dan Shive has been at it for so long (if not uninterrupted) seems to have made him really great at making this one comic. There's a blend of action, teen drama, silly comedy and likeable characters that just clicks with me on a deep level.

4) 8-Bit Theater. (http://www.nuklearpower.com/8-bit-theater/) Because you got to know your roots, man. I started reading this one when I was... I don't even know. Essentially as soon as I found out there was such a thing as the internet, and you could use it to read comics for free. This was surely one of the first three webcomics I got into, thereby triggering my subsequent webcomic binge for a couple years when I sometimes read up to 20 different ones a day. Checking that list could take up to an hour each day. Then several more hours of archive trawling the one I was currently catching up with. Oh, the time of youth... but I digress. In any case, nostalgia secures this one firmly on the list.

5) This last one is actually pretty hard. There are a few others I feel should be mentioned: Questionable Content, Goblins, Problem Sleuth, Homestuck (and it's debatable whether the term "webcomic" is even applicable to Homestuck, really) and several others I can't bring to mind at the moment. It's a close race, but I'm going to give this spot to a bit of a newcomer, namely Paranatural (http://paranatural.net/) by Zack Morrison. Wonderfully written, incredibly drawn and so silly it's ridiculous. It's just good, solid entertainment.

[Fates]

OOTS- for obvious reasons already stated by those much more eloquent than I.

Goblins- While it's had it's ups and downs, still ties with OOTS as my favorite D&D comic, with fascinating and well-developed characters and a plot that is at times heart-wrenching and at time hilarious.

SMBC- Dark, academic humor that updates with the utmost regularity and actually focuses around the aspects of academia with which I'm familiar? Yes please.

XKCD- Even though I'm not a mathematician or a computer programmer, and so don't get about half of the jokes in the comic, this one's still got lots of gems.

Dinosaur comics/qwantz: One of the weirdest and funniest comics around, that features exactly the same panels every day, and yet stays interesting regardless. This one just tickles a particular sort of quirky-humor that I find extremely appealing.

Special mentions go to oglaf, will save world for gold, guilded age, questionable content, cyanide and happiness, doctor mcninja, 8-bit theatre, and DM of the Rings.