I’m pleased just now, in a dorky sort of way. If you’re a writer, you understand the joy of tunneling through a good thesaurus. In the last two weeks I’ve started exploring a new online reference called The Free Dictionary, which gives me verbiferous jollies that thesaurus.com mysteriously ceased to provide in recent months. It’s fun again to search for just the right word. (Hey, I said it was dorky. Allow me my little pleasures.)

Little pleasures are a ubiquitous theme in the webcomics I’ve been rummaging through of late. They’re all about young girls and imaginary friends. Is there a genre name for these sprinkly confections? They seem to be everywhere. Minus (which I reviewed a month or two back) is a good example; another is Jellaby by Kean Soo. If you’ve never come across it, Jellaby is about a distractable little lass named Portia who befriends the titular big-eyed dragon. It’s the cute tale of an outsider and her sweet, toothy, probably-real monster. The story is lazily paced, easy to sip and not too saccharine, while the art is clean and confident. I do like the purple motif. (I confess something’s off about the big heads and tiny legs of the kids in the comic. The style is obviously inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, but the children’s faces don’t scan as children to me. Maybe it’s a thematic choice? In any case I got over it after awhile.) The bad news is the comic ran weekly for a year before going on hiatus in mid-story to publish as a graphic novel, and the online archive hasn’t updated since. The good news is, of course, there’s a graphic novel that promises much more involved adventures (though I haven’t read it yet). Plus the web site has some fluffy extras to snack on.

Sharing The Secret Friend Society web site with Jellaby is Salamander Dream by Hope Larson. It’s a charming sequence of vignettes about a growing girl and her masked friend Salamander. They wander nature together and their relationship changes in subtle, wistful ways. Salamander Dream is a complete online tale (that’s also been printed) so you can enjoy its sweet allegory and gentle, dreamy art without fear of a premature end. Larson has published other books as well, which look like worthy risks for the price of half a pizza.

Unlike the Secret Friend Society comics, Dreamleak by Greg Fraser is still updating regularly. Dreamleak is the story of (wait for it) a young outsider who wanders her dreams and meets a new friend. This time our protagonist Amy is alienated by a move to the city and escapes into a nocturnal fantasy in which she is not alone. It’s more conventionally comedic than the others and is largely dialogue-driven, which casts the child’s fantasy world in a more adult light. But don’t take that to mean the whimsy is gone. It’s plenty there. The strip has some of the rough edges of a beginning webcomic - unpolished art, word balloon issues, some fourth-wall breaking, etc. - but it’s plain to see the talent Fraser brings to the table. He’s got a feel for characters and a cinematic eye. If he keeps working on his craft, we could have a name in the making. (Plus, the web site design is just too cute.) Start at the start and enjoy.

Finally I’ll toss Matt Forsythe’s Ojingogo into the mix (because I recently tossed it into my RSS mix from a link off The Abominable Charles Christopher). I admit I know nothing about this comic except it’s pseudo-Korean, was hot stuff a few years ago and has recently been re-started on the web. What matters is, it’s mondo weird. It would probably make more sense if I had any cultural knowledge of Korea or maybe manga, but I don’t want to dilute the strangeness. I have no idea where it’s going. I barely know what it’s already done. It’s like a freaky mental exercise. Oh yeah, and it’s got a little girl with dreamlike monsters.

Come to think of it, I should dig around my RSS subscriptions for a few more webcomics to review. Maybe next week.