The 10 Best Webcomics of 2011

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The 10 Best Webcomics of 2011

As we pointed out earlier this year, webcomics, born in 1985, are older than digital cellular phones, the oldest Jonas brother, the Power Rangers (though not older than Japanese Sentai series in general), the disposable camera, the first 3D video game, disposable contact lenses, the use of Doppler weather radars in the US, Prozac and the World Wide Web. In honor of the unsung and underpaid artists who’ve created them, here are the 10 Best Webcomics of 2011.

10. Scenes From A Multiverse


9. The Loneliest Astronauts
Kevin Church and Ming Doyle ended their outer space anti-buddy comedy with a swing into pulp serial adventure. From its beginnings as a desert island workplace comedy in space to its final Flash Gordon homage epic, “The Loneliest Astronauts” was a consistently funny strip with a strong voice and style. It could’ve run in newspapers for decades if it cut out the swear words and scrunched Doyle’s charmingly ragged art down into an imperceptible mush.—GM


8. Three Word Phrase
Ryan Pequin’s absurd gag strips can be vulgar and immature, but they’re almost always hilarious. Pequin finds truth in the crass and shocking by mining such fixations as sex, animals, bodily functions, aggro bros and our culture’s obsession with nostalgia and the flotsam of our youth. Pequin’s year ended with a guest residency at that ran throughout December.—GM


7. For Lack of a Better Comic


6. Feel Afraid
Christopher R.’s “Feel Afraid” shares a perspective similar to “Three Word Phrase”, but with a slacker/skater-dude voice not unlike Joe Daly’s excellent Dungeon Quest series. Dude loves ghosts and bone dragons and other spooky shit, though, which makes “Feel Afraid” feel a tad more surreal than Pequin.—GM


5. Penny Arcade
Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins have built a lively media playground out of their colorful, caustic web series about videogame culture. Sporting a serialized documentary, downloadable role-playing game, indie convention and charity that donates games to hospitals, the Penny Arcade behemoth has evolved into a digital institution. Even so, none of this would exist without the dorky misadventures of two condescending couch jockeys and their very, very inappropriate fruit juicer.—SE


4. Bayou


3. Registered Weapon


2. xkcd
xkcd is what you get when you cross a former NASA roboticist-turned-cartoonist, a lot of stick figures, and a hilarious tri-weekly web comic. Started by Randall Munroe in 2005, this is the best binary distraction for the gifted few who find humor in the periodic table of elements, advanced calculus and giant robots. Think of it as Harvey Pekar for rocket scientists.—SE


1. Hark! A Vagrant
It’s printed compendium wasn’t ranked runner up in our Best Comic Books of 2011 list for nothing. In Hark! A Vagrant, Canadian cartoonist Kate Beaton makes history, literature and anything else relegated to the professor’s lounge way funnier than it has any right to be. Where else can you read about Tesla’s groupies or watch Charles Darwin ride a tortoise?—SE


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