Freefall - M/W/F. Among the longest-running strips on the web, and still fresh, especially now that it's really aggressively fleshing out the world around the characters.
Absurd Notions - Very occasional. Intellectual, good-looking and funny: The webcomic triple crown. I wish there were more of it.
Pastel Defender Heliotrope - Wednesdays. There is so much universe in this comic that it leaks out the sides and spills over the top. Worth reading for the world alone, but the art and characters are good too. Also M/F updates on a side story.
Schlock Mercenary - Daily. Richly detailed future world and engaging adventures of a mercenary team therein.
Girl Genius - M/W/F. Online version of the Foglios' excellent comic book. Extraordinary steampunk with a fantastic attention to detail and a larger-than-life feel.
Dominic Deegan, Oracle for Hire - Daily. Brilliant fantasy strip with two qualities virtually unknown in the genre: The hero triumphs through superior application of knowledge; and there are more happy, loving relationships than dramatic unrequited ones.
Darths & Droids - Su/Tu/Th. "Star Wars: Episode 1" as a roleplaying campaign in a world where the movie never existed, done with screencaps. Owes a lot to DM Of The Rings (see "Concluded" section), and easily meets the same high standards.
Shades of Grey -- W/S. "Our quantum age; angels, devils and nothing in between[*]." A heaven/hell war becomes personal for a fallen angel and those around her.
]B=8)
Order Of The Stick -
M/W/F Irregular. The adventures of a group of AD&D protagonists. Minimal but
endearing art; great occasional potshots at the game rules, and solid plot.
Goblins - Irregular. Dungeon-crawl comic in which a bunch of goblins become an AD&D adventuring party. Fantastic full-color art; great attention to detail and pacing.
Dreamland Chronicles - Weekdays. Per recommendation. Rendered daily strip about a college kid revisiting the all-too-real "fantasy" world of his childhood dreams.
Darken - M/W/F M/Th
Irregular. If you've never roleplayed a party of evil characters, this gets the feel of it across well. A
lot of intra-party backstabbing has been slowly simmering, and it's closing in on the climax.
Looking For Group -- M/Th. Wisecracking take on a misfit group of fantasy heroes leaving a swath of destruction behind them. Fantastic color art.
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic (Sometimes NSFW) -- Daily. Life in an AD&D dungeon, (mostly) from the monsters' perspective. Black and white sketches that look like they rolled out of a Disney studio. Contains nudity and suggestive scenes.
Dungeons & Denizens -- Tu/Th. The typical AD&D
dungeon crawl, from the monsters' perspective. Was on hiatus for a while; updating again. Full color.
Theri There - Irregular. A strip by, for, and about Otherkin. Fantastic line art, unique content.
Nobody Scores! -- M/W/F. Continuity-free strip that delights in tormenting its main characters. Snappy art; very easy to pick up on.
nothing comes naturally -- M/F. Whimsically twisted furry comic. Largely manages to read like an in-joke you're actually in on: no small feat.
Sam and Fuzzy -- M/W/F. The standard adventures-of-a-loser-guy-and-his-talking-"pet" tale seen across a thousand comic strips. However, has made the transition to long-form storylines surprisingly well, with character growth, backstabbing-within-backstabbing, and clever continuity out of what were originally one-off shticks.
The Last Mystical Legend Of The Fantastic Fantasy Trigger Star -- Fridays. A deliberately generic fantasy quest strip. Then, within a few strips of the beginning, one of the minions threatening the protagonist dies from being impaled on his own speed lines. Sharp, relentless genre mockery.
Earthsong -- Mondays. Memory-less refugees from a
multitude of fantasy worlds find themselves drawn as pawns into a cosmic battle. Mindblowing artwork.
Simulated Comic Product -- Irregular. Half "The Far Side," half sadistic blistering cynicism. This sums it up in one.
Cat And Girl -- M/W/F. Incisive, surrealistic humor. The twin sister of Bob The Angry Flower, except not raised by wolves.
VG Cats - Mondays Very Irregular. Obligatory gaming
strip. Infrequent enough that the humor doesn't get stale or too in-jokey; well-illustrated; and wide-ranging.
Deo - Irregular. Very sparse dialogue, nice characterization; the strip sort of sneaks up on you.
Nature of Nature's Art - Weekdays. Oekaki-style art, bizarre but consistent premise. I doubt many people will "get" this one but it pushes some of the right buttons for me. The fight scenes drag a bit; I hope he returns to the philosophy and worldbuilding soon.
PartiallyClips - Su/Th. Clip-art
strip driven fully by dialogue.
Panel
One - Daily. But, alas, on hiatus abandoned. This may be my
fourth-wall-busting-philosophical
1/0 substitute now that 1/0
has ended. (Granted, not that Tailsteak has lost any brilliance ...)
Whispered Apologies - Irregular. An occasionally brilliant (and occasionally just weird) collaboration where word balloons are added to submitted strips.
August Jessor - Weekly. Richly colored adventures of a naive but clever young lawman. Apparently untouched since mid-2007.
Spamusement - Occasional. Illustrations of mass e-mail
subject lines. Was mostly community-driven for a while; even that appears to have dried up.
1/0 - One thousand strips of a fictional world with no fourth wall. Deep philosophy, a fascinating creator-created dynamic, and emergent complexity. One of the only strips in any medium I've read in its entirety multiple times and still hunger for more. Highly recommended. (Plus, fan art. :))
Narbonic - Mad science! Geekery! Romance! Talking gerbils! Six years of daily weekday strips and colorful Sunday features. Extremely accessible, but also slyly literate (Antonio Smith, FORENSIC LINGUIST is a hoot; google "Hapax Legomenon" after reading the Victorian space serial; and one critical plot point near the end of the strip revolves around a terribly appropriate literary quotation). Currently rerunning through its archives to add artist commentary.
The Last Days of FOXHOUND - The sort of strip that gives fan homages a good name. Built on the universe of the Metal Gear video games, somehow building a more coherent backstory than the source material. Sharp wit, simple but effective vector art, and the best telepathic wolf ever.
DM of the Rings - "Lord Of The Rings" retold as an RPG campaign. Great concept, pulled off with flair, and illustrated with movie screencaps.
Minus -- Weekly? Watercolor-painted anime-style comic about a young girl with godlike control over reality. Lovely and poignant; truly hits the mark in examining childhood behavior. Highlights include three beautiful, poignant riffs on hope, sportsmanship, and compassion [might not make sense without the context of the previous strip].
Inverloch - When a young da'kor in a racially fractured world makes a promise to find a lost elven child, it sets him off on a journey to find his past as well. Outstanding artwork and well-realized character growth (though the focus oddly moves away from the central character Acheron as the story progresses). About 750 full-page strips; also apparently collected into five paperback books.
Adventurers! - Went from a self-referential parody of computer RPGs to a grand plotline imitating them at their finest. Was going to hit 1000 strips and end, but the author was having so much fun that it stayed on "#999" for months while the storyline wrapped.
