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| Sluggy Freelance
| "Is it not nifty? Worship the comic." This is a very cool (and famous) online comic strip. It has nothing to do with slugs, in case you're wondering, and it has a most intriguing set of characters.
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Sinfest
| Comic strip with really cool art, and really hilarious plots/punchlines. Where else can you see God use hand puppets to make fun of the devil? Oh, and be sure to notice how the artist signs his name every day. He doesn't say "Drawn by...", he says things like "The World According To...", "The Most Modest Man Ever," and "Secret Asian Man."
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Get Fuzzy
| This'n is relatively new as comics go, and it's been catching attention right and left. It reminds me of Garfield, only funnier (and I like Garfield; it's just predictable and kinda dull in a way that this isn't). In Get Fuzzy the three main characters are a cat, a dog, and a human guy, and there's an entertaining unpredictable quality to their interactions. Quite good.
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Goblin Hollow
| This is the comic previously known as "Under The Lemon Tree," a long-running and highly entertaining one. The main character has to deal with physical manifestations of his subconscious, as well as with normal life. They definitely make things interesting, and they don't always get along. The cool-guy "machismo" has tried to flush the fluffy-bunny "inner child" down the toilet.
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Nip and Tuck
| Here's another comic strip by the artist of Goblin Hollow, this one featuring the life and times of some furry characters living in a redneck county that sports a six-legged chicken and a lake monster that wears goggle-eye glasses for tourist photos. Among other things. It's hard to say which comic is funnier.
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Tales of the Questor
| Can we say "prolific writer"? Or perhaps, "too much free time"? Now there are three comics by the same person, all updated on different days of the week. This one's newer than the other two, but it's the one updated on Sundays, so it's in color and all Photoshopped. Spiffy.
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Nine Swords
| When I first found this comic it had just started: there were about eighteen pages, and that wasn't nearly enough. There are lots more pages now, and they're pretty fantastic. It's a kind of medieval fantasy set in the future, if that makes any sense. One of the main characters carries a sword, while the other wears a leather jacket and smokes cigarettes (because "The air's too clean out here"). Plus, he's pretty much a vampire. And the other guy's something interesting too. Go read it and find out.
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Kagerou
| I'm sure I've said somewhere on this site that multiple personalities make for interesting main characters. If I haven't, well, they really do. Case in point: our protagonist here. You learn more about what's going on with him as you go along, and it's all intriguing. There's other stuff happening too, of course, all in PG-13 technicolor (except for the intro, which is in greyscale like the beginning of the Wizard of Oz). Talking foxes! Evil where you don't expect it! Eye color that changes, and word bubbles with color-coded text! Good stuff here.
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Return To Sender
| This is wacky and fun. I have no idea whatsoever where this comic is going, and it's a wonderful ride! The two main characters are a comparatively calm fellow named Often, and a spastic girl named Collette who could be anywhere from fourteen to twenty-four. Their interactions -- and Collette's randomness -- are plenty entertaining even when there's nothing much else happening. And oh yeah, the plot: in Often's new apartment there's a mail slot over blank wall, which somehow produces letters telling them to do things. Woot, mysterious!
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Fallen
| This comic is drawn by the gifted Aido, and features an intriguing world of her own creation, a fallen death-angel, a sentient weapon, a crabby granny-dragon who's three feet tall and a chain smoker, and the girl named Singe who's somewhat reluctantly taken them all on. the fact that the fallen angel is rather pretty certainly helps.
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Nice Hair
| This is hilarious. You might think it was just a weird comic about some strange guys rooming together, but you'd only think that until you figured out who the characters are supposed to be. I first heard about it from Neil Gaiman's web journal, a few entries after he mentioned a kitten that was fond of trying to climb up people's noses. So when I later saw the kitten make an appearance in Nice Hair, I burst out laughing. The more you're in the know about these people, the funnier it is. I especially like the bit about Jack Sparrow pestering Tim as "payback for that scissor incident."
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Scary Go Round
| Appriopriate adjectives would be along the lines of "wacky," "well-drawn" [CG], and occasionally "absurd." Just when you think you can guess what'll happen next, you're wrong. Plus, it's made in the UK (which provides some interesting differences for us American folks).
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Megatokyo
| "Relax, we understand j00." Uber-cool comic. It is truly L33T. What do you do when you're stranded in Japan until you can make enough money to get back home? All kinds of things.
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Sublunaire
| There's a truly intriguing webcomic here, and art to make anyone jealous, and it's updated once in a blue millennium. Go marvel at it all, and tell her how wonderful it is so she'll update.
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Yerf
| A well-known archive of furry art. (If you don't know what furries are, you'd better go see, shouldn't you? And the same goes for all of you who think "furry" automatically means something perverted.) It's updated multiple times every day as the 300+ artists send in their art. (Though no, there aren't 300 entries per day!) The skill levels and styles vary greatly, which is interesting to see. The community mentality is also fun: most of the artists know who the others are, and conversations, even involved storylines, have been carried out through the pictures.
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Project Kooky
| This dotcom is home to two websites run by two admirable artist types. I could link to them separately, but this works just as well. There are drawings, photos, comics, and sometimes even stories. Both of these artists are wonderful people as well, the kind who'd be fun to meet in person, and this comes across in the individual quirkiness of both sites. On Dylan's site you'll find a link to the fantastic comic Bite Me, which has sadly just finished. But that means she might be starting something new soon! Joy!
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Woodooferret
| Art. NiftyGoodPretty. Creative and detailed and cool. I have decorated a pair of pants to look like the ones in a picture she drew a long time ago. And the stuff up now is even better.
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Bagginses:
The Lord of the Rings Caption Page
| This is the biggest and best collection of hilarious LotR captions to be found on the Net. The longer you spend looking through this site, the more weird looks you will attract from laughing out loud. I discovered a new way of laughing while at this site; no joke.
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Elijah's Grey Panthers
| Tragically, this forum is officially closed, but I'm leaving the link up as long as we can still read the posts. It's that great of a place. When I discovered it ages ago, I spent about a solid week of summer vacation reading every post on the board, and I lurked for months before joining. I've been a member for quite some time now, and it's been great. This is where most of the captions on the above site originate, and there's insanity in the air. Also brownies, spam, and various other components of all the best food fights. People from all over the world have joined this forum, and now that it's ending we have to find a new place to play.
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DomLijBilEans:
Lord of the Onion Rings
| ...And this is it. In light of GP closing, this is the board everyone's flocking to. The insanity continues!
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Project Monaghan
| If you (1) like trees and/or nature, (2) are a fan of Dominic Monaghan or at least know who he is {Merry the Hobbit in LotR}, (3) enjoy contributing to good causes, (4) could do with a new T-shirt/tank top/tote bag/coffee mug etc, or just (5) want to know why the blazes Dom had "trees" written on his hands for that one premiere event, go here. Right now; go, shoo. It's worth it.
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Suedom
| For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a Mary Sue is someone who writes fanfiction and puts herself in it, making herself beautiful, talented, and loved by all. A Mary Sue inevitably marries the attractive main character, defeats the bad guy single-handedly, and saves the day for all involved. Everyone in the story loves her, though readers tend to gag at her blatant manipulation of the canon. Characters often do things they would never realistically do, and in many cases, typos abound as well. For many, Mary Sues give fanfiction a bad name. This website is the home of an ongoing story that takes all of this into account. Multiple Sues are wreaking havoc on the LotR universe, and we see this from the inside as the two main characters find themselves sucked into the world against their will. The plot unfolds, and oh, is it clever. This story is all kinds of impressive, and entertaining all over the place.
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Centre Stage
| Here be stories. Very good stories, worthy of publishing. This is only one of the author's webpages, a few of which also contain stories (Oakwoods is another; see below). This is the first one I came across, and it was more than enough to keep my interest. "What are the stories about," you say? "Vampires," I say, "And it is good."
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Oakwoods
| Here be stories by the same author as above. The characters featured on this page have been around longer, and have many more stories chronicling their existences. This is a fascinating set of people portrayed by the main tales (and there are also a few miscellaneous stories that lack a page of their own). 'Tis good. Go see.
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Hollywood Vampires
| Another story page by an author deserving high praise. These stories have a well-established universe, well-developed characters, and plotlines that leave little to be desired. Very fun. "Hollywood Vampires" is the name of the band the main characters comprise. Not many people know how fitting the title is: the band members live in Hollywood and are, in fact, vampires. (Good guys though, and cool!)
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Neil Gaiman .com
| Of all the people to whom I have mentioned this author's name, I've received two reactions: unrecognition, and fanatical devotion. There is no middle ground. It's a rare person who reads his novels and graphic novels without becoming at least mildly addicted. And this website isn't linked just to give people a list of good reading; Neil keeps a webjournal, as I've mentioned above, and it is a genuinely interesting one. You can learn about the life of a professional writer if you're interested, and you'll be entertained by the random stuff even if you're not. He has a knack for writing fascinating things, even when he's not trying. (Plus you can look for connections to Nice Hair.)
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National Novel Writing Month
| If you do any kind of writing for fun, or if you are one of the many people who plan to write a novel "some day," or if you like zany madcap warp-speed writing, you need to see this site. A few years ago in San Francisco a group of friends decided that they'd try to each write a 50,000-word book in the month of November. None of them succeeded that year, but it was so fun that they did it again next year. And they'd told more friends. And more the eyar after that. It grew exponentially: after a couple of years, hundreds of people were joining in the effort, and now it's in the thousands. This website is the hub of it all, with a forum for idea-sharing and plot doctoring, clever T-shirts for sale, and weekly pep talks from the guy who started it all. I've started and finished a novel for the last two Novembers, and it was a total blast; I can't recommend it enough. This is something for anybody who wants to have fun: the mantra is "It doesn't have to be good; it just has to be."
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Crimson Wood
| This is my weekend hobby: live action medieval/fantasy combat with foam swords. This particular site is for my local group; there should be links to others. It's called Amtgard, and it started about twenty years ago in Texas, then spread from there. It's good geeky fun.
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Foamwar
| Here's the site for the next closest Amtgard group to where I live: they play at the Berkeley marina. There are far more impressive photos and such on this site, and the forum's far bigger. If you're curious as to what it's about, you might find more here. Or just go to Amtgard.com.
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Derek's Lair
| This be my brother's site, and it's not here just because of that. Way back when, it started out as a story page, but has since grown into much more. There's stuff to interest just about anyone: from the hilarious Quotes Page, to the extensive list of Strange URLs, to the audio trailer for the newest story in the works. Go see; it's fun. (And for those of you who like poems, especially emotive, depressing poetry, well, there's a section here that you need to see.) It's not updated much these days, but I'm sure he'd consider it if someone emailed him and suggested it.
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