Wow. Okay. I said I wanted more messages and suggestions, and boy did y’all deliver. What I have here is almost – almost – too many suggestions! It’s gonna take me a while to check them all out, in any case. Let’s get to it:
Dragonlord7 writes:
Some recommendations
So, I have 4 recommendations for you, which I sincerely hope you review eventually. First, A Redtail’s Dream. It is a now-complete comic by the same person as Stand Still, Stay Silent. Like SSSS, it is no-homo-due-to-no-romance and no-PoC-due-to-scandinavian-setting, but it is equally beautiful, and has in interesting story heavily steeped in Finnish mythology, so check it out. Second, Romantically Apocalyptic. A post-apocalyptic comedy. Yes. It is absolutely hilarious and insane and glorious. No romance despite the title, but well worth a read, gorgeous art, and a cast of characters who are all mad in their own special way. Third, Grrlpower. A superhero comedy that is actually good, unlike the unfortunate Spinnerette. The main cast is practically all female, the art is pretty good even at the beginning and only gets better, the comedy is great, and there are lots of PoC and well written characters. No romance so far here either, though indications do point towards an at least mostly hetero cast, but that is not the focus of the story, mostly only coming up in a few jokes here and there. Finally, El Goonish Shive. A supernatural/modern fantasy type thing with a large and well-developed cast. It is mostly character driven, but it handles things well and keeps things interesting, and there is some ongoing plot stuff as well. Be warned that it is rather long, it has been running almost as long as Zebra Girl and has updated much more consistently, has a lot of transformation-y weirdness, and the early art is really terrible, but it is well written throughout despite the early hurdles, fixes most of its problems as it goes, it has several PoC, and like half the cast is non-straight to at least some degree. It handles its characters and their issues well, and if there area few problems in the handling here and there, it does generally fix them eventually, and he often addresses them directly later, and in recent comics has been discussing some of those problems. It even manages to restrict a lot of the ‘early 2000’s random humor’ to the non-canon Q&A portions or his side comic thing, the EGS:NP. I highly recommend reading it, it is probably my favorite of the many webcomics I read. Also, make sure to read the comic commentary as you go, it is also entertaining and/or contains interesting musings on issues being discussed and how they can relate to both current and previous arcs. Hope you enjoy, and I shall hopefully hear from you in the future
Emily writes:
Band vs Band
How the heck are you not reading Band vs. Band?? http://bvbcomix.com/ imo
Evan writes:
Witchy?
http://www.witchycomic.com/ Trans girl. PoC.
Mollie writes:
Webcomic suggestion!
Hello! A friend of mine showed me your page, and I couldn’t help but notice you don’t read Rain or Witchy. Rain is PACKED CHOCK FULL of queer characters, and Witchy has decent representation and is utterly excellent, but it’s really just getting started. Thank you, looking forward to more reviews! (And damn, so much more to read now!) -Mollie
Arianne writes:
Recommendation?
I just wanted to suggest a relatively new comic called Witchy that’s set in a witch kindom that consists of a melting pot of Asian ethnicities. Magical potential is measured by hair length, which may seem a bit silly at first, but coupled with how enlistment in the military is dependent on it, it becomes pretty interesting. The protagonist is an Indian/Afghan girl who tries to hide from enlistment because the military executed her father. The main cast has a lot of cool ladies, including a Chinese trans woman. It’s still pretty early in the story, but it has some good potential. http://www.witchycomic.com
Lila writes:
more webcomics for you!
Hi there! I’ve read every review on your site and have found some awesome webcomics through you! Since you recently posted your list of webcomics that you are reading I thought I might contribute a few more! First is the webcomic Archipelago http://thearchipelago.smackjeeves.com/comics/1891878/book-1-page-1/ it was my first time reading a webcomic! It’s been going on for quite awhile and is a fantastic fantasy/sci-fi comic! The art style has improved so much since it first started. The characters are loveable and the setting interesting, I’m afraid there isn’t any homosexual relationships in it but I think it’s worth the read! The second I wish to bring to your attention is Go Get a Roomie! http://www.gogetaroomie.com/index.php?id=1 filled with all sorts of different relationships, characters and adventures I really think this is a webcomic you should check out if you haven’t already! It’s also been going on awhile and the development is obvious! OH and I should probably mention it’s just a bit nsfw You might also be interested in the other webcomic by the same artist and writer called Headless Bliss http://www.headlessbliss.com/ this webcomic is a trip into the weird and fantastical. It’s pretty new but worth checking out I think! You might also like the
Whoops! Looks like Lila got cut off somehow. Bit of a mystery, given that I still haven’t put a character limit on that contact form. I guess we’ll never know what else I might like.
Jair writes:
Rain
http://rainlgbt.smackjeeves.com/ This is definitely a must read if first glance of your grading criteria is to be believed. 😛 The author herself is trans and thought the art may be somewhat lacking I find the writing itself to be humorous and engaging. The character interactions are enjoyable and the diversity is a breath of fresh air.
Okay. Whew. A staggering list of webcomics here, but also some interesting repeats! I’ve been checking out all of these a bit, and will be updating my reading list in the next couple of days.
Which brings me to the reason I’m posting this week’s Mail Bag early. Well, there’s actually two reasons; the first is that this post is already too long, and I didn’t want to give anyone else the chance to send me more messages. The second and more important reason is that this week’s review will be on one of the reader-suggested comics above. That’s right! I sat down and read one of these cover to proverbial cover this week, and I’m posting a write-up of it tomorrow. Which one will it be? The thrice-nominated Witchy? The bizarre and relatively short Headless Bliss? The truly venerable El Goonish Shive? I ain’t tellin.
Tune in tomorrow to find out!
Also, I’d note re: EGS – like, earlier on, it was very causally sexist all the time, one of the characters literally started out as a strawfeminist to poke fun at, stuff like that. The author actually has come a LONG way from that, and now frequently skewers mra/pua types and misogyny in general, but like, don’t go into the archives expecting it to just be a change in art quality and 90’s “randomness”.
There’s also the fetish side of it. I mean, there’s never actual porn or nudity, but, like… it’s a comic about high schoolers, but early on it’s undeniably catering to people who have A Thing For seeing characters getting transformed, usually into a super-busty ~sexy~ form, often unwillingly, and usually “becoming bisexual” and super flirty, often to humiliate them. There was also a recurring gag with side characters (adults this time) where a couple of women working as “lab assistants” are repeatedly “tricked” into getting transformed and shrinking out of their clothes.
Again, there’s not actual porn or nudity and it could be much worse, but it was still REALLY CREEPY, and while that’s been toned WAY down, there’s still a definite creep vibe.
So yeah. Big warnings re that one. I do read it myself – but it’s in spite of a hell of a lot of creepiness and needing to skim past a lot of oversexualized stuff.
Hey anon, thanks for this. I actually used to read EGS back in the dark days, so I’m familiar with a lot of the stuff you’re talking about. I probably should have mentioned similar warnings when I posted this, but I’m glad I have such attentive readers.
yeah, i know some of the early stuff was bad, but as i said up above, he does fix it. and he has said in multiple places that he regrets his ignorance and bad decisions early on, particularly in the strawfeminist character(who quickly evolved beyond that and quickly became one of his own favorite characters) the super busty form(which now rarely shows up and he has said outright in one of the comic commentaries that he regrets) and his ignorance regarding some terminology(which is actually even coming up in-story recently). i don’t know if you still read it, but if you can get past the issues early on it evolves into something very good.