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.

Ever notice how a large percentage of webcomic blogs consist of excuses for missing deadlines? I never wanted to fall into that trap, which is why I started recommending other webcomics instead. I owe you a few, loyal readers and true - for your saintly patience with the Med Check sequence, if nothing else - and I’ll get to them shortly.

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Lately I’ve been pondering this whole “building a community” thing. The going advice for webcomics, you see, is that we’re supposed to use forums and whatnot to transform our casual readers into a social network of fans, to increase investment in the site. It’s all very collaborative and monetizing or whatever the cutting-edgers are buzzwording this quarter. I don’t really keep up.

I’ve got a few problems with this idea, though. One is spam. I turned off comments in WordPress because I don’t want to deal with increasingly-sentient spambots. Forums? Sheesh. (Though admittedly I’ve considered throwing a chatbox on the top page. Would that be worthwhile, do you think?)

Also, frankly, I’m a stiff-necked old geezebag who doesn’t grok social networking. I’m not judging here - spin your web, dear reader, like no one’s watching - but personally I can’t juggle half a dozen web pages, ten voice chats, twenty-five logins and thousands of “friend requests” or whatever you kids get up to with your consarned Web 2.0. People are texting Twitter while I don’t have a cell phone. My geek cred faded in the rear-view mirror long ago.

However, if I’m to believe the buzz, most of you are social networking like germs at an orgy. And worthy readers, this site is all about you. So I’m asking for your uncensored opinions: Would it make a difference to you, personally, if I turned on comments or added a chatbox? Would it help your enjoyment of the site? Don’t worry, I’m not looking to sell Dr. Singh plushes or anything. (I wouldn’t know how to make the heads float.) I’d just like to know if you want more than I’m giving. My creaky old email link is up there in the corner, under “Contact.”

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So anyway, webcomics. Today I’m going to pitch two surreal ones. The first is a sort of tradition in the webcomic community. Eventually everyone recommends Minus on the chance that a reader hasn’t seen it yet. The strip is a whimsical watercolor version of modern life, with the addition of an omnipotent girl named Minus. She’s a misfit who doesn’t say much, but the comic isn’t about social comedy or cosmic struggles or anything so predictable. It’s about a spacey, imaginative little girl who, possessing infinite power, behaves like a spacey, imaginative little girl with infinite power. Minus is a rare and oddly engaging character, an echo of genuine childhood whimsy. Her stories are always pleasant and often sweet and occasionally dark as hell. Because she has no limits, the ongoing narrative meanders the oddest path through life and death and dreams. Not that it’s difficult to start reading in the middle but the beginning is the best entry point, unless you need no explanation why Minus is suddenly dead or an elephant or alien. Click through the archive, friends, and enjoy the watercolor reverie.

The second webcomic is affiliated with Minus through the Koala Wallop site. The comic’s name is Rice Boy, a title which barely hints at how strange it is. Where Minus flits and flutters on a breeze of surreality, Rice Boy carves through jungles of the stuff. In structure it’s a boilerplate epic quest fantasy, sort of Lord of the Rings meets Yellow Submarine. But this is no Euromyth pastiche. Rice Boy is… hard to describe. Or maybe not: it’s a feast of visual design, ultimately, a delicious spread of shapes and colors and outlandish cartoon beings. Each new chapter delivers another set of charming motifs, even when the story turns grim. Hats off to creator Evan Dahm for a solid achievement. The epic recently finished, and epic it is - forty chapters divided into five “books” - but it’s an easy read, and rewarding. Dive in at the start and tell me it’s not a page-turner.

Yep, another late strip means another webcomic recommendation. You may already know this one, but if you don’t, check out Kukuburi by Ramon Perez. It’s a trippy fairy-tale-ish adventure in which a modern lass travels to an amazingly-rendered fantasy world of flying whales and cute monsters and one sinister skeleton. The art is detailed with a whimsical flair. The design work is genuinely fun to look at. When I started reading it, I was immediately transported.

Ramon Perez is half the creative team of the popular Butternut Squash webcomic as well as a veteran illustrator for tabletop RPGs. Kukuburi is a member of the top-flight Transmission-X lineup. It will easily reward you for the mouse click.

I feel the need to write this down - Boy on a Stick and Slither has really made me giggle lately. For those who don’t know, BoaSaS is a MWF webcomic under the Dumbrella banner, home of Diesel Sweeties, Scary Go Round and others. The strip been around since 1998 (forever in the web world) according to its Wikipedia page. Heck, the fact that it has a Wikipedia page tells you something. Wikipedia regards most webcomics as one step below the dried gum under a middle school desk.

The comic has exactly the flavor of wry observational minimalism that catches me off guard. Click around and see if you agree.

What if I told you about a guy whose webcomic is basically awful fish puns drawn on printer paper with a ball-point pen?

Meet NobbyNobody and his gag strip Odd-Fish. No, really. Go have a look. Click “Random” a few times. I’ll wait.

Probably not what you expected, huh? Odd-Fish is about an octopus and a puffer and the goofy denizens of their undersea world. The jokes are intentionally cringeworthy, but the character designs and sweet crosshatch art just pop off the screen. They instantly grab you. Nobby draws almost entirely with ball-points pens (called biros in crazy European “languages”) and he wields them like a sushi chef with brand new knives. Seriously, I’m tres molto jealous.

To be honest, while he comes across as a sweet guy, sometimes I think Nobby is a closet sadist. He deliberately subjects us to horrible puns because he knows we can’t resist reading the next strip, regardless of the pain. Nobby, why do you torture us so?

There’s a genre of webcomics called “slice of life,” which deals with normal people living normal lives, for values of “normal” that make sense in a comic strip. It’s generally wacky roommates with wacky girlfriends in a wacky apartment working wacky jobs, plus a cute mascot.

A Slice Of Life isn’t one of those.

A Slice Of Life is a single-panel gag strip featuring a blank, nameless protagonist (if you can imagine such a thing) in a parade of unrelated and unrelenting situations, some mundane, some not so much. In fact the term “protagonist” doesn’t really apply, either, as the comic isn’t so much driven by him as it happens to him. Okay, it’s a bit elusive to describe. But it’s amusing, often micro-ranty stuff.

At any rate A Slice Of Life is really about the art: stylized, black-and-white linework executed with a brush or brush pen (or maybe a Wacom tablet simulating a brush? I never asked). It’s a distinct style with an appealing hook and crosshatchy flair. (I found it doubly catchy when I first saw it. I was playing with brush pens after the start of Gordian Algebra, toying with similar techniques. Then I ran across ASOL and thought “Oh, that’s how it’s done.”)

The strip is created by Noel Graham, a webcomic enthusiast and generally nice chap (and avid Stumbler, for those of you arriving randomly). Pop on over and swim through the archives. Maybe you’ll get hooked.

(In which we continue our tour of online comics with intriguing art, of which you may not have heard.)

Sometimes you read a webcomic because you want it to succeed.

Usually the comic in question isn’t very polished or even particularly good, but you like the tone or the quirkiness or the creator shows glimpses of talent that begs nurturing. (In fact, if one were to be frank, most webcomics probably fall in this category.)

With Loyalty & Liberty, I want it to succeed because I respect its goals. Yes, it has goals. L & L bills itself as “an Educational Graphic Novel” that seeks to “educate ages 12 and up about 18th century life” and the conflicts involved in the American Revolution. I’ve got two boys in elementary school. I call that worthwhile.

Not that Loyalty & Liberty reads like a kid’s comic, mind you. We start in 1774 by following a company of British footsoldiers investigating gunpowder thieves in Boston. I suspect their flintlocks will soon unload some .75 caliber whoopass in the faces of outmatched colonial kitty cats.

Did I mention the kitty cats?

The characters are rendered as anthropomorphic cats. Think Puss In Boots as a redcoat. It lends accessibility and visual appeal to a strip that’s produced with loving detail by obvious history geeks. Makes for an interesting juxtaposition. The color artwork - I’m not sure if it’s digital or hand-drawn - feels like illustrations in a children’s book, which is not a condemnation (have you seen some of the kid’s books out there lately?). It needs some work to fully integrate into the comic format, but the raw ability is on the page.

Having said all that… L & L isn’t very polished and “shows glimpses of talent that begs nurturing.” The writing and typography are stiff and not always grammatical. The comic updates a page a week (if that) and only went live in late December, so there’s not much story yet and no guarantee the whole thing won’t die on the vine, as so many webcomics do. But that’s one reason I’m mentioning it here. Let’s put some eyeballs on Loyalty & Liberty and see how this intriguing dish cooks up.

Ever had a half-crazy girlfriend or boyfriend? The kind where one little hardship appears and boom, they erupt into a tangled Slinky ball of howling self-absorption? People like that have so many internalized neuroses, their defense mechanisms are guaranteed to cause far more chaos than any actual problem that strays too close.

The human body is like a half-crazy girlfriend. When a germ comes along, no matter how seemingly innocuous, the body cracks open its battery of aches and slime and temperature extremes and launches into an opera of prolonged misery that makes Wagner look like Fun with Dick and Jane. This was the story of my household last week. Each of us in turn was laid low by his body’s reaction to a microbe that’s wandered the city all month. On my children’s spring break, no less. Yet with faith and determination, as a family, we survived our collective anatomical neurosis to face this week renewed.

So yeah, um, that’s why I didn’t post any comics last week.

As a consolation to you, Dearest Reader, for my dearth of output, every day this week I’ll be pointing you toward a series of webcomics that (a) have art that intrigues me and (b) you may not have heard of.

It’s probably cheating to start the week with The Abominable Charles Christopher, for two reasons. Firstly, you may have heard of it. The comic is featured in the top-notch Transmission-X lineup. Secondly it’s made by Karl Kerschl, a professional artist who’s drawn Superman and Teen Titans comic books and other really-real publications. But who says webcomics must rise from the unclean wilderness, from struggling nobodies like me? Besides, we all like to pick a guaranteed winner on occasion.

The Abominable Charles Christopher takes us to an affable forest community of birds and bees and furry critters. In fact every animal talks and socializes and parties as if the woods were a small-town American neighborhood. Every animal, that is, except the silent, humanoid pile of fur that sucks on a pacifier and lends its (presumed) name to the comic. At present this innocent monstrosity is laboring up a nearby snowy mountainside. He was placed there by cosmic forces on a pseudo-spiritual quest for the wind. Sounds deep and symbolic, doesn’t it? But the strip’s not really like that. It’s a slick, delightful sweetmeat of a milieu with webcomic lucidness, Disney-esque pathos and naturalistic, ink wash artwork (digitally rendered, I presume) that nails the just-before-twilight mood.

As always, I recommend you start at the beginning. The Abominable Charles Christopher is a breezy read that won’t disappoint.

I’m a bit late posting the strip today. To appease those of you currently chewing the corners of your LCDs with riotous impatience, allow me to direct your tear-chapped eyeballs to a webcomic called We The Robots. It’s a flaky little morsel of tart cynicism by an animator and card-maker named Chris Harding. It presently tops my own “chewing the LCD till it’s updated” list. Enjoy it with a hot drink or a cold, bitter draught.