Five More Online Comics, Past and Present

 

By Bixyl Shuftan

 

For those of us who never outgrew our love of comics, which probably means most of us, one place where we can read more is the Internet. The good news is one can find hundreds, perhaps thousands of comics online, from gag-a-day strips to serial story tales, from "family safe" to X-rated. The bad news, many are lacking in the quality of the art, stories and/or jokes, or both. The Newser reviewed ten a few years ago (here) and (here), then reviewed five concluded strips a couple years ago (here). After a request from a reader, here are five more I enjoyed, both currently going and concluded.

 

Apollo 9

This is a comic that fans of "Star Trek" and other sci-fi shows will love. Done by "Longtail," "Apollo 9" is the tale of a cast of characters and their ship as they go from one misadventure to another. "In space, no one can hear your mind snap."

Captain Maclupus was placed not in charge of a shiny new cruiser, but an outdated S-Class shuttle, it's mission not to explore strange new worlds, but to move a survey crew from planet to planet to interview unsuspecting people to fill out questionaires.  Among the cast of misfits are Lt. Cmdr Updike, an uptight gerbil First Officer, Lt. Cmdr Syzygy and Cmdr. Sunstreak, a Chakat pair who are respectively the Second Officer and Chief Medical officer, Lt. Cirini Stanson, the Foxtaur navigator, Sgt Zooey Perkins, an androginous cyborged bat and ship's mechanic with an often annoying cheerful attitude,  "Roz" Bradley, the hamster Survey Administer of whom the surveyers are all her relatives, and the ship's AI, which has it's own sarcastic sense of humor.

A number of the strips were one-shot gags, with some filler and holiday comics. The most notable exception was "Night of the Living Duckies" in which a shipment of toy rubber ducks are posessed by alien pirates. Besides Apollo 9, she would also do "Gemini Bright," a fantasy-themed comic. She also had a clearly adult-rated fancomic, "Coons," featuring characters from a strip of her friend Seth Triggs in a possible future scenario.

Apollo 9 ran from 2003-2006, the last strip being a Christmas special. Gemini Bright lasted longer, to 2008. In 2013, she had to shut down her website domain due to financial dificulties, but a year later, her friend Triggs donated some space on his for them. The last journal entry on Longtail's art page, on Aug 2014 was an appeal to donations so she could get an apartment and pay for her phone so she could get a steady job. It is unclear what happened to her since then. It is sad that this talented artist couldn't continue.

Apollo 9 is rated G with occasional PG. Some caution should be taking about clicking on some of the links as not all are safe for work.

Comic: http://apollo9.bibp.com/


Simply Panda Jenn

Panda Jenn's been mentioned in the Newser before as an artist who appears in Second Life somethings who has a hangout and did a few videos. She also has her own online comic: "Simply Panda Jenn." 

 

In the comic, her persona rents an apartment with the help of her friend Cody. But they can't quite pay for it on their own. So they bring in a friend of Cody's family: Bridget. With Cody spending hours on end with video games, and Bridget being a sci-fi fangil, Jenn at times feels like the only sane one around as she feels the weight of the bills on her shoulders and her job can be quite irritating at times.

Simply Panda Jenn ran from 2019 to Aug 2022, when Jenn had to take a break to concentrate on art commissions to bring in extra money. She plans to resume the comic soon.

Simply Panda Jenn rates a G with occasional PG

Comic: https://pandajenn.thecomicseries.com/

First strip: 

https://pandajenn.thecomicseries.com/comics/first/

 

Twin Dragons

By Robin Dassen, "Twin Dragons" is described by him as "the daily lifes of the twins Kai and Kaya Romero, born as dragon hybrids in a human world." Fifteen years earlier in the story universe, about one in a thousand infants started being born "with animal characteristics in varying degrees" from resembling a Japanese neko with ears and a tail and mabe furry lower arms and legs to "furries" covered in fur with noticeable snouts. Kai and Kaya are dragon hybrids with scales, prominent ears and snouts, and tails. They are the twin son and daughter of Marco Romera, an Italian-American chef and Sabrina Blueford, a psychologist. Early in the strip, they live in a small town where they are greeted with suspicion by some of the locals. Fortunately, their father has earned enough money to start his dream: his own restaurant. To the delight of the kids, they're going to a neighborhood in the city where many hybrids live.

Once in the city, they soon make a new friend, a dog hybrid named Benji. At school, they run into others such as Cleo, a snake hybrid who's the daughter of the owner of a software company, and Rex, who's the captain of the school basketball team. There's Nate, a quirky but smart human youth with glasses and purple hair who seems to have a way of figuring out things and solving problems. They go through various adventures from school museum tours to Dungeons and Dragons games, and more.

Twin Dragons started in 2015 and almost eight years later is still going. The comic rates a G with a rare PG moment (language). It updates every Monday. Dasen also does another comic, "Gamer Dragons," about Kai and Kaya's misadventures while gaming. It's updating is sporadic.

Comic link: https://www.twindragonscomic.com/

First Strip: https://www.twindragonscomic.com/comic/the-beginning/

 

Spinnerette

Most of us grew up reading comics and watching shows of superheros from Batman to Superman to Spiderman. So eventually a few would try their hand at doing a superhero comic online. I've seen a few examples, my favorite being Spinnerette by writer "Krazy Krow" and artist Walker Gomez.

Heather Brown is working as an assistant in a university lab when an accident infuses her with spider DNA, giving her six arms and super strength. Thrilled at the chance of being a superhero, she convinces her roommate Shahira to help her make a costume. But things have a rough start as her webs shoot out from somewhere other than her wrists and her first try at stopping crime doesn't go so well. Fortunately, she runs into two other heroes, Tiger and Mech-Maid, who agree to train her and she teams up with them.

But even after Spinnerette gets some skill as a fighter, things don't always go her way. One supervillian gets off the hook because she's a minor. She ends up getting told by Marvel to change her costume as her first one looks too much like a copyrighted character. They occasionally team up with one group of heroes from Canada, which includes a werewolf.

She ends up fighting various villains from sparkly vampires to Nazis trying to clone Hitler. One reoccurring antagonist is Dr. Universe, a super who's power is his intellect. But while he calls himself a supervillain, he acts more self-centered than evil, and is occasionally on the side of the heroes. In one of the more interesting story arcs, the supervillian is Colonel Glass of North Korea, who sneaks into the USA to damage his country's nemesis, and isn't particularly reluctant to kill.

The comic started in 2010, and over time has had some interesting and comical twists, at times poking fun at superhero tropes. In one arc, Spinnerette runs into her counterparts in alternate universes in which she came about in earlier decades instead of the early 2000s.  A few story arcs are actually short teasers to stories on sale. Krow and Gomez were also working on a monster girl comic on sale in addition to "White Heron," a super who defects from North Korea and becomes their star superheroine.

While still a good comic, it's my impression the latest story arcs don't have the same umph as those earlier after over a decade. Maybe Krow and Gomez are saving their latest better ones for the comics for sale.

Spinnerette advertises itself as updating twice a week. But some weeks it does so only once, and there are times the comic takes a short hiatus. The comic rates PG to PG-13 due to some language and adult situations.

Comic Link: https://www.spinnyverse.com/

First strip: https://www.spinnyverse.com/comic/02-09-2010

Scandinavia and The World

In political cartoons, nations are sometimes represented by characters. There was also a Japanese magma and anime, Hetalia, which showed them as characters in a drama. On the Internet, there's a strip in which the countries are characters in various situations, "Scandinavia And The World," done by "Humon."

The primary characters are of course the Scandinavian countries. Sweden is a bit geekish, taking pride in his computer skills, but is sometimes seen as snobbish. Denmark is laid-back, though occasionally seen as lazy and a bit of a drunkard and stoner(the cartoonist herself is a Dane). Finland, who is usually carrying a knife, doesn't usually say much and is seen as a bit psychotic. Norway is something of the straight man among the four, though has a love of nature and fish.

There are also sister versions of country personas. For the most part, they mirror their brothers. But there are some exceptions. Sister Finland lacks her brother's mean streak, though still dresses very plainly. Among the most striking differences is between Brother and Sister Sweden, the woman looking like a blonde bombshell who's usually open for a good time. Other countries are represented as well. Germany is a humble soul who feels guilty for the actions of his counterpart Nazi Germany (who is his own character in the strip). England is a usually reserved character, always with combed-back hair and a monocle. France is snooty and very proud of it's culture. So what is America like? Brother America is depicted as a big blond guy who is usually well meaning and wanting to get along with others, but his ignorance about other countries can get others annoyed and occasionally cause problems. Sister America looks like a ditzy blonde, who is always going about with her pet chihuahua Ottowa. The two occasionally mildly bicker over issues, Brother America being the conservative one, and Sister America being the liberal one.

There are no story arcs, instead the comics all being one-shot jokes from things such as events in history to jokes about cultural differences and oddities to current events. The artist isn't afraid to poke fun at her country. Once Sister America goes to Denmark, decides it would be polite to learn some of the language first, and Sister Denmark criticizes her for wasting time since most Danes know English and there's only a few million Danish speakers in the world. Another time, a moose from Sweden swam to Denmark, and Denmark freaked out thinking it would attack, "our nature is ridiculously safe." One reoccurring gag is of the Scandinavian countries as vikings, raiding England. Part of the punchline is that while Denmark, Norway and Sweden seem nice and pacifistic now, a thousand years ago, they were anything but.

Politics inevitably makes the news, and the comic. When Greenland chose a flag that's not anything like the traditional cross designs of the Nordic countries, it's seen as "A Big F-You" to Denmark, whom had colonized it. England's getting out of the EU was fodder for some cartoons. Of the incident in which a dozen Danish artists caused a HUGE stir in the Middle East because they drew Muhammad in less than complementary ways, the cartoonist commented "this is what happens when you leave Denmark alone for too long."  Occasionally, North Korea, depicted as a paranoid antagonistic man hiding his face under his flag like a cowl, makes the strip. But some issues in American news such as the Israeli-Palestinian issue never do.

 

Then there was the results of the USA's 2016 election when Brother America got done up in orange skin and was acting Trumplike for a time. But the artist admitted she missed America as the "lovable dork." So a rainstorm washed away the orange and he went back to his old self again. But the orange gunk too on a life of it's own as it's own character, "The Trump Blob."

While the comic usually ends with a punch line, there was one recent notable exception. With last year's invasion by Russia of the Ukraine, the usual simple style of the characters was put aside for the cartoon just afterwards, showing Russia beating up Ukraine and the EU sliding a clip into NATO's pistol. The caption was "Hey Putin, you big dumb idiot. If you're killing people in Ukraine because you are afraid of NATO, then you really f**ked up. You are the monster that reminded people why NATO was created."

If there's a message to "Scandinavia And The World," it's that people can have some pretty weird differences and sometimes truly be jerks to one another, but also that people can overcome such differences and put aside old grudges to be nice to one another and say "Skal" (Scandinavian word for "cheers")

Scandinavia And The World started around 2009 and is one of several "Humon Comics." Is updated somewhat sporadically, once a week to once a month. Occasionally, there will be a long pause in the comic website, but checking the Facebook page there are one or two new strops that haven't appeared there yet. The strip rates a PG-13, due to profanity and some adult situations. Earlier in the comic's history there were a couple nude scenes, so this isn't a comic to be browsing at work.

Comic link: https://satwcomic.com/scandinavia-and-the-world

First strip: https://satwcomic.com/sweden-denmark-and-norway

That's all the cartoon reviews for now. As mentioned before, there are hundreds of good ones we haven't touched on yet, or even heard about. Was there one you want to see mentioned? Feel free to send one, and we might post it as a Reader Submission.

Bixyl Shuftan

Five Past Online Comics

 
By Bixyl Shuftan

I've been reading online comics for over twenty years, since the World Wide Web was just a few years old. A few from the earlier days of the Internet have gone on to today (link here). But many have not. Some were forgettable. Some mildly interesting. Others I occasionally recall and think about. Here are a few that I once read but for various reasons have stopped and become part of online comic history.

Haul Trek/Freighter Tails

Written by Paul Gibbs and drawn by Bill Redfern, the strip was originally "Haul Trek," a comedy tribute to Star Trek done from 1998 to 1999. The central character was Lt. M'Iskiti, a Caitian lady officer whom gets sent to a Starfleet garbage hauler following a prank on her previous captain. While things certainly look poor at first, the more she sees on her first day, the worse things look. The tone of the strip was comical with nothing too serious or threatening, aside from one's clothes and rubber mouse getting zapped by a stray gun shot. The poor kitty's big challenge however was keeing from going nuts and exhausted from things falling apart around her.

Paul Gibbs as it turned out wasn't just the creative force behind Haul Trek doing the story. He was a science fiction writer. He had written a novel centered around Animated Star Trek's Caitian character Lt. M'Ress and tried to get it published without success. He gave up after being told as it focused on someone other than the three main characters and had lasting consequences, the chances of it being published were nil. So for some time it was available online for anyone who read it.

Eventually, Gibbs and Redfern talked about the possibility of selling Haul Trek merchandise. But there was a problem. Since it was a Star Trek themed comic, legally they couldn't make any money off of it. So the comic was put on pause while they thought about a solution. They finally came up with one: remove the Trek elements and replace them. Gibbs did much the same with the novel and a sequel he had been doing. The strip's name was changed to "Freighter Tails." The character's name was changed to Mzzkiti and her species renamed to "Moggian." Instead of Starfleet, she and the ship were with the Space Protectorate Forces. But it was still the same "ship of fools" in which there was seldom a boring moment. It started up in 2001, and was updated roughly once a month.

Then on January 31 2002, Paul Gibbs died. He had been admitted to the hospital only one day earlier. A mutual friend told me it was pancreatitis that did him in. With Gibbs gone, the comic would continue for a little longer. But without his partner, Redfern lost his motivation. There would be only two more strips after 2002, 2003 and 2005. The last entry on the comic page is from 2008.

But Mzzkitti as a character wasn't truly gone. She would get some guest appearances in the "Cross Time Cafe" comic for several years. She was also part of a few crossovers over time, as part of "Haul Trek" and "Freighter Tails." The comic was also an influence on a comedy Trek sim I was in at the time.

The comic can still be found at (http://www.mzzkiti.com/) and is pretty much G-rated, though some scenes might rate PG to some (blanked profanity).

Gibbs' work remains up at his website The Sah'haran Embassy (http://www.sahaaran.com/), maintained by a friend as a lasting tribute.

Dela The Hooda

Done by Style Wager and Greg Older, this was the story of Dela, a foxlike lady from another world whom ends up on Earth due to a mishap and ends up secretly living with a human friend. Wager was the artist of the strip. Older was a writer of fantasy games. One of his games was "Mhar: The Final Frontier," which is the story universe Dela comes from. The story went from about 1999 to 2012 on the comic's website.

The story begins with Dela starting a job as a programmer at a university on her homeworld. Unfortunately, she ends up working in the lab of a mad scientist whose experiment ends up accidentally sending her to our universe and to Earth. Ending up in Peabow Canada, she quickly makes friends with Sue, whom agrees to take her in. Arriving at the house, Sue's neighbor Jake sees them. Fortunately he agrees to stay quiet, but unfortunately he quickly shows a womanizing streak and isn't put off by Dela's fur and tail.

Dela's time on Earth has various mishaps and misadventures. As it turns out, she can still make limited appearances in public as people refuse to believe they're seeing a "giant fox" on two legs or think nobody would believe them if they spoke anything. Though going too far once gets the attention of the MiP, the "Men in Plaid" (Canada can't afford the suits the MiB can). The mad scientist whom caused her to get lost makes an effort to find her, though doesn't have much luck for a while. By accident, Dela finds a boyfriend. And later on finds she isn't exactly the only person not of this world on Earth. While there are occasional threats, the overall tone of the strip was comical and not too serious.

The comic's main webpage at (www.delathehooda.com/) showed the newest few strips. Checking out older ones was more easily done on the mirror website at (www.belfry.com/dela.html). At first, the comic was updated about once a week, but after a few years started to slow down. Eventually the mirror stopped updating at 2008, with the main website continuing until 2012. Both sites were eventually taken down, visible now only through the "Wayback Machine/Internet Archive." As it turned out, Wager's page on an art website had a few more strips with the last one at 2016 with no sign of a conclusion. He would state he's no longer working on the comic.

I found the comic a bit edgy such as a bedroom scene or two, occasionally a bit silly with people pretending not to notice Dela and the "Gelfs," but entertaining as I wondered what was going to happen to the vixen and her friends next. My only real complaint is the lack of a satisfying ending.

The strip itself rated PG-13, with occasional profanity, sexual humor, and adult situations.

Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire

"Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire" was written and drawn by Michael "Mookie" Terracciano. It was the story of a seer whose visions help out him and others on numerous adventures. Taking place on a fantasy world that humans share with orcs, elves, werewolves, and other beings, magic does there much of what technology does in ours. There are numerous threats some violence, and occasionally someone gets killed. But there's also plenty of comedy.

The story starts with Dominic scraping by as a seer telling fortunes for a living in a small town. Most customers have mundane requests, which doesn't help his grumpy manner. Then a vain woman whom doesn't like being told what she doesn't want to hear puts a mild but annoying curse on him. In his effort to get rid of it, he meets Luna Travoria. The two form a friendship that eventually leads to love. As it turns out, Luna is a talented mage whom was held back only by her lack of self-confidence.

As time goes on, other characters are introduced. Dominic's younger brother Gregory is a healer, but crippled from a magical attack that will take a while to overcome. The older brother Jacob however was fascinated with necromancers and became one. Their mother is one of the most talented mages in the land and the father a noted bard (and the one whom Dominic got his uncanny knack for puns from). There's the two bumbling thieves Stunt and Bumper, whom get into a number of amusing mishaps. One villain is an infernomancer with demonic powers. Another character when fighting demons ended up becoming one. Dominic also befriends orc shamans. And many other characters add to the story.

Over time, Dominic's opponents become more dangerous and sometimes otherwordly terrifying. Occasionally the villains and heroes aren't what they first seem to be. Sometimes not everyone makes it to the end. And the adventure doesn't always end with a happy ending for everyone. In his final adventure, Dominic pays a price for his efforts.

The strip would run from 2002 to 2013. For a time, Terracciano would work on other projects, notably the superhero and space adventure comic "Star Power." In 2019, he started a sequel, "The Legacy of Dominic Deegan." It takes place 200 years after the events in the first story, is told from the point of view of a deaf character, and there's nudity. So it's a different story in a different style in the same story universe, and I consider "Oracle For Hire" a separate comic.

I found the strip entertaining for both it's plots and the humor, yours truly never able to resist a good pun. While it could be violent at times, it was to demonstrate the viciousness of some characters. It was good enough to mention here despite the "R" rating of it's sequel.

"Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire" (by itself) rates a PG-13 due to it's violence and blood, as well as occasional language. 

To read the first strip of Dominic, Click Here (CAUTION: clicking on the main page may occasionally show nudity, so it's Not Safe For Work).


Roomies

Drawn by Dan Canaan aka "Flinters", "Roomies" was the tales of Flinthoof and his friends. It takes place in an ordinary neighborhood in which the only big difference between it and our world are the anthropomorphic people, tigers, rabbits, horses, etc. But ordinary doesn't mean boring as all sorts of things can go wrong, as well as occasional weirdness.

Flinthoof Ponypal, or Flinters as he was sometimes called, was the main character of the strip. He was an anthro horse whom made a little money through various odd jobs with computers and cars, and had a serious mint addiction. His best friend was Tibo, a green tiger whom had a job as a programer but had a hobby fixing old computers. Tibo's best lady friend was Rhonda, a cute tall bunnygirl, or "Bhuuunnnnnny" as Tibo sometimes mutters when starring at her. Then there's her mother, known to the others as "Rhonda's Mother" or "RM," an aggressive doe rabbit whom is often the more sensible of the cast of characters, at least when not trying to correct her daughter. Other characters include Alex, a ditzy lady wolf with a love for toast.

The comic started in 1999. Most of the stories involved the characters getting by and trying to get through life, with reoccurring gags such as Flinter's mint addiction and guys going slackjawed and muttering "Bhuuuuuunnnnnnyyyy." But there was some occasional strangeness. One ordinary ferret gets mutated into a fully intelligent anthropomorphic one. Cultists kidnap one of the characters and end up foiled by one of the rabbits, "Naked bhuuuuunnnnnyyyyy." "I saw the bunny, and it was good." At one point a team from the future arrives to detain Flinters for supposed crimes that have yet to take place. And then there are the Cyantians. Canann would do a crossover with Tiffany Ross's Cyantian Chronicles with her character Rhonda making an appearance in one side-strip of Ross's, and Darius and others making appearances in Roomies. While there were minor threats in the stories, the tone wasn't serious and no one gets badly hurt.

Canaan would continue the comic until 2008. The final strips would show the characters with the Cyantians and on their way to Mars. On his art page, he would explain it was time to bring it to a close, not wanting to continue to the point it stopped being funny. For those wanting to check out the comic today, sadly a glance through the "Wayback Machine/Internet Archive" didn't show any strips at all. Anyone wanting to read the comic will have to buy his book online.

The comic was entertaining, though probably the main reason it stuck with me was "RM." In Second Life, among my group of friends is Rita Mariner, an aggressive alpha female doe bunny. While she wasn't a reader of the comic, she certainly acted like her "RM" was based on the RM of Roomies. But it turns out Rita never read the comic.

"Roomies" was a mostly tame comic, rated G with occasional PG.

The Cross Time Cafe

The Cross Time Cafe was a unique strip among online comics. Instead of the efforts of one or two artists, it was the combined efforts of several. Originally planned as a six-strip joke between a few artists on a mutual friend, it turned into a place where artists could have fun with their characters in a place outside the continuity of their own stories, and went on for many years. It is hosted by Scudder "White Pony" Kidwell on "White Pony Productions."

Of how the Cross Time Cafe got started, contributor "Sleepy John" described it as "It started with a hug." Around 2003, ne of the posters of the Freefall forum asked readers to post pictures of hugs, which lead to pictures of couples and other pairs of characters hugging or otherwise in scenes of friendship. Then a user named Hortmage suggested Freefall artist Mark Stanley draw a hug picture of the character Sam Starfall. Other readers quickly egged Stanley to draw Hortmage getting a face-hug from Sam. That led to a six strips drawn by Stanley in which several characters got together in a "Cross Time Cafe," and in the last one Hortmage got the long-asked for face hug.

And in Sleepy John's words, "and then it got weird." White Pony started hosting the strips on his website, and Scott Kellog of "21st Century Fox" and Kidwell added some strips of their own. Then Redfern gave the okay for his character Mzzkiti from "Freighter Tales" to be added. It was fun and silly games for a while. Then things got into the "Construction Period" in which robots from "Freefall" came in "with their own attitudes, tools and rotten puns." Kathy Garrison joined the artists and Kathy Grrson of "Carry On" joined the characters. Eventually other artists would join in, and even more characters were added. The results were often chaotic, but also fun.

The Cross Time Cafe would go on for fourteen years and hundreds of strips. But eventually the various artists would end up with less time to write. The last several were comupter images made by Kidwell, one character saying, "In the beginning, our world was overseen by a council of creators. Now our world of the Cafe is protected by only one creator - the overseeer. The overseer foresaw this and made arrangements for a new environment." And so in December 2017, the Cross Time Cafe would have the final strip with the last character taking a bow. But this wasn't truly the end as Kidwell would start a sequel, the CTC-Annex (link here)

While I perhaps didn't quite enjoy the Cross Time Cafe as much as the main strips of the artists, it was still entertaining. Perhaps there's just something about seeing characters just get together to have a little fun. 

On another note, I would meet many of the people in 2008 at the "Pony Con" (no relation to MLP) when we decided to get together at the town where the Kellogg farm was near. We had fun visiting the nearby Green Bank Observatory, which had the country's largest steerable radio telescope, went to a nearby train museum, and had lots of fun. The most memorable moment was  the picnic, and someone brought a "Sam Starfall" pinata. But the first guy to take a swing at it, well, let's just say swinging down instead of across was not a good idea (owie). Someone brought over a couple dozen books of the first 1024 Freefall strips that he had made at his expense. I ended up with a signed copy as a souvenir of my trip.

The strip rated G with occasional PG.

To read the first strip, Click Here.

There are plenty of others that I read that I fondly recall, such as "The Class Menagerie," "Absurd Notions," "Apollo 9," "The Suburban Jungle," and others. But any reviews of those will have to wait until another time.

What online comics of the past do you fondly remember? Feel free to leave comments below.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Online Comics: Five Longtime Running Strips

By Bixyl Shuftan

Many of us as kids have fond memories of reading the comic page in the newspaper. For those of us in their 40s or 50s and older, we may remember serial cartoon strips which had a plotline that would last for weeks or months. But as time has gone on, some newspapers have retired those. But while most of us have a favorite one or two, for many a number of the strips aren't that enjoyable or not enjoyable at all. And if you cancel your newspaper subscription, no more "funny pages." So where can you go for more cartoons?

In this age of online content, the Internet.

It's difficult to say when the first reguarly-updated serial cartoon went online. The oldest ones I've seen are from the mid-1990s. By now, thousands of artists have posted online cartoons up. Unlike the comic page in the newspaper, you don't have to wait for one to be dropped to see a new one. Online cartoonists don't have to worry about a newspaper censor either, and can range from squeaky clean to midly edgy to something you don't want to get caught seeing at your workplace. The quality of the artwork, and the stories, can also vary a lot. Some cartoons are done by skilled artists but have bland plotlines. Others have fantastic stories but the artwork has much to be desired. Some have both good art and good stories. And some have, plenty of room for improvement. The artist also doesn't have the same level of pressure to update as one from a newspaper comic, and so the frequency of updates can range from daily to a few times a week to once a week, to once a month or so.

Yours truly first came across them in August 1999, and have been reading ever since. Over time, a number of new ones have appeared. Some old ones have also concluded or simply stopped. While there are hundreds I can reference, here's five that I've kept up with over time.

Kevin and Kell

Drawn by Bill Holbrook, "Kevin and Kell" is a furry cartoon about a large male rabbit and a lady wolf in a mixed marriage. In a society where who you are is judged by what you eat, the concept of a herbivore and a carnivore married and raising a family together hasn't gone well with everyone. So Kevin and Kell Dewclaw, and their friends and family, face no shortage of situations. The strip is clean enough for a real newspaper, and while there is some violence as it's a place where the carnivores gotta eat, it's "cartoon violence" in which a prey animal is shown unhurt in one pannel and in the next one there's bloodless bones, not unlike some animated cartoons by major studios. The cartoon also has numerous computer jokes and references.

The comic has updated daily since Sept 3, 1995, and since then a LOT has happened. As time has passed, characters have developed and changed. Some early running gags were changed or dropped to reflect changes in the characters involved. Kell started out as a worker for "Herd Thinners," but since then her career has taken many twists and turns. The couple's daughter Connie was born shortly after the strip started, and over time has grown.  Kevin's adopted daughter has graduated from college. Kell's son from a previous marriage has graduated high school and gone on to college. The early strips reflect the computer technology of the day, and a few years in there was a Y2K plotline. Numerous new characters have been added over time, and a few from early on would drop out.

Kevin and Kell updates seven days a week, and with only cartoony violence is G-rated. You can start reading from the start, though with thousands of strips in the archives, be prepared for a long read.

Main page : https://www.kevinandkell.com/

Story start :  https://www.kevinandkell.com/1995/kk0903.html

Freefall

This is the second online comic I've come across, and perhaps my favorite. Drawn by Mark Stanley whom started in 1998, the science-fiction strip takes place on a colony world far from Earth and revolves mostly around three characters. Sam, or Sam the Sqid, is the alien owner of a starship that at the start of the story is so badly damaged very little works. He wants to get the ship up and running, but also fancies himself a con-artist and doing misdeeds is no problem with him. So he bribes a clerk to arrange a "clerical error" to get the help of an engineer: Florence Ambrose. Florence is a "Bowman's Wolf," a genetically-engineered lifeform that while wolflike is just as intelligent, if not moreso, than most humans she meets. She's also an extremely skilled and adept engineer. The third main character is Helix, a fully intelligent but still simple-minded and naive robot whom acts as Sam's sidekick.

The story starts out fairly simple, the characters doing their best to get the spaceship up and running. One of the early running gags is Florence's honesty coming in to conflict with Sam's con-artist ways. Finally, the ship is repaired enough to move to a hangar at the spaceport, where the story gets more detailed as the main characters are seen coming into contact and otherwise dealing with more people, and robots. As an "organic AI," Florence lacks many of the rights humans have, and while her paitence and friendly manner win over many, it's still the source of some trouble.

It's soon clear to Florence that many of the robots here are fully inteligent, a fact that has escaped most of the humans. As robots far outnumber humans, it's easy to see many would rather not believe it. Eventually, an antagonist in the story hatches a plot that puts the robots, and the colony, in danger.

Sam's pratfalls aside, the story is not usually very "cartoony," at least in the sense of going beyond the laws of physics. Even when the story sometimes gets serious, the strips have a way of always ending with a punch line. Aside from the D.A.V.E. (Dangerous And Very Expensive) faster than light engines on starships, "Freefall" stays within hard science more than most other science-fiction tales. Sam's people, known as the "Sqid," are the only known intelligence to humans. Sam would comment following a scoutship coming across their world, humans were not impressed by what they found. The comic has an active forum (link), that's been described as having the most intelligent fanbase for an online comic on the Internet, with occasional off-topic threads on science news. One fan even made limited edition books of the first 1024 strips, along with some of Mark's earlier work.

Freefall updates three times a week, and although there are a couple shower scenes, rates a G.

Main page: http://freefall.purrsia.com/

Story start : http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00001.htm


The Cyantian Chronicles

Drawn by Tiffany "Skye" Ross, "The Cyantian Chronicles" are a collection of comics taking place in the same sci-fi story universe. Starting off in the late 1990s as "Satin and Silk," it has grown to a number of serial comics. Most of these have been concluded or on hiatus as Skye works on one or two. Currently, the main one is "Campus Safari."

The Cyantians are a number of anthromorphic races that were created over a thousand years earlier by an alien race mixing human DNA and the DNA of various animals, felines, rabbits, ram, mice, wolves, foxes, fennecs, coyotes, and a few others. Then hundreds of years ago, their creators up and left, leaving them to run themselves. More recently, a company called "Exotica Genoworks" created several more, including skunks, the kangaroo-like Jiiac, and the raccoon-like Sirac. Following a time of calamaty on their planet, there is a desire to get in contact with the planet of their orgin, Earth, and they start to terraform Mars and set up a base there, Mars Academy. Unfortunately for them, those authorities on Earth that are aware of life outside of the planet consider any alien hostile.

The original story centered around Chatin and Chilke Akalee, two Cyantian skunks. Sisters, Chatin is an engineer and a tinkerer while Chilke is the better fighter although more nieve. Chilke finds an experimental device that Chatin hasn't yet finished, and before the engineer can stop her, they and several of their friends are teleported to various places on Earth. Chatin and Chilk end up at a science-fiction/anime con and meet up with Jules and Marcus. Both agree to help the Cyantians, but Marcus' fanboyish behavior proves to be an annoyance. They also run into Twinky, whom at first looks like an ordinary skunk but is actually someone whom can assume the form of a human, regular skunk, or anthro skunk. Eventually the characters manage to call for help and meet up, but the journey home does not go as planned.

Skye would start other strips. One is "Sink and Swim" about the adventures of a group of Exotica Genoworks Cyantians whom treated as slaves manage to escape their captors on a ship and make a living as traders. Another is Shiave, the characters being some of Cyantia's "sapient wildlife," the descendants of dinosaurs that somehow made it from Earth to Cyantia and over time became intelligent but remained feral and wild. When the original story was concluded, Skye began "Akalee," which takes place years before the main story. Eventually, she would get back to the main story, renamed "Campus Safari." But instead of continuing from where it was, it would be rebooted with some changes here and there. Like Freefall, the action is not usually "cartoony," with a few exceptions such as Marcus' misfortunes (often caused by his behavior around women).

Cyantia is not a simple world, but a complex one with many sapient races and a thousand years of history of the "Immigrant Cyantians" alone. There is occasional violence, and occasional hinted at adult situations. WIth all the details, the comic has it's own Wiki page (link) to help readers keep track of what's what. There was a forum-based roleplay based on the comics, Mars Academy, that lasted a few years.

The Cyantian Chronicles is currently updated once or twice a week, and rates G/PG

Main page: https://cyantian.net/

Story start : https://cyantian.net/comic/10012000/


Sabrina Online

Sabrina Online is the first serial online comic I've come across. Drawn by Eric Scwartz, this furry comic is about the life and times of Sabrina the skunk and her friends, online and off. Started in September 1996, Sabrina comes across an Internet Service Provider at a computer show, and decides to get her computer connected. After some attempts, she finally succeeds. But life online isn't so simple, especially for a girl. She soon ends up with an online boyfriend, whose identity isn't revealed until a few years into the comic. And when looking for a job as a website designer, much to her embarassment ends up the webmistress of a porn studio, ZZ Studios, run by Zig Zag. Zig Zag finds Sabrina cute as well as inteligent, and her flirting with the new employee becomes a longtime running gag for the strip. Sabrina's roomate Amy the Squirrel ends up pregnant, which is the source of more than a few situations for a time.

Scwartz has a way of pushing the envelope without going past a certain line with "Sabrina Online." Although there are clearly some occasional adult situations, the only nudity is "tasteful" (covered by a towel or something like a tail in the way). And in all the years the comic has taken place, there are very few swear words (I can only recall one, but there's probably one or two more I forgot about). This balance, along with the quality of art and likeable characters, is part of it's charm.

Early on, Scwartz was an Amiga computer fan, and this shows in the first few years of the strip. As time went on, the Amiga references stopped. Zig Zag was not Scwartz's creation, but a character borrowed from Max Blackrabbit, who was a self-described fanboy of Sabrina. In the late 90s, Sabrina Online was highly popular, and got a lot of fanart and even fanfiction. The tone of the comic changed somewhat after 2000 following the birth of Amy and Thomas' son and the identity of Sabrina's Internet romance revealed. But the comic remained popular. In Second Life, one fan named Cindi Babii took on the identity of Zig Zag and created a virtual version of "ZZ Studios."

Sabrina Online would update regularly for 20 years. Then on it's twentith anniversary in 2016, Scwartz announced the story was concluding. But he would start the strip again the following year with a new story, "Baby Steps." The newly-married Sabrina is now pregnant, and not unlike Amy near the start of the first strip has a new set of challenges.

Sabrina Online updates once a month, with several strips uploading at once. Due to it's mature content, it rates a PG-13.


Comic page : http://www.sabrina-online.com/thismonth.html

Story start : http://www.sabrina-online.com/1996-01.html


General Protection Fault

Drawn by Jeff Darlington, this is the story of a group of computer geeks. The name comes from the name of the small Internet business they work at, which is also a term for a computer problem you don't want to have. The main character, Nick, is in the words of the artist, "a relatively short, quiet, and, well... nerdy kind of guy with quite an imagination." Ki is the "girl geek" of the group and the company's programmer, whom has a crush on Nick. Fooker is the weird guy, the one whom never quite grew up and has hygiene problems and a seeming aversion to long pants. Dwayne is the owner and boss of the company, whom is usually friendly and reasonable. Trudy, the marketing director, is seemingly just a cute and happy woman at first, but a darker and more malicious and scheming side of her soon appears. Fred isn't human, but a sapient slime mold that lives with Fooker, seemingly having evolved in the squalor and garbage of his apartment, and helps pay the rent in return. Dexter is an overweight fanboy who loves all things sci-fi whom would be more popular if he wasn't so annoying.

For most of the comic's history, it would have the characters go about life at the workplace and on computers doing things like coding and other things such as science-fiction conventions, enduring alien abductions, taking a ride on the time machine of Nick's uncle (destroyed at the end of the adventure), and more. There are also occasional dream sequences such as "Harry Barker and the Napier's Bones" that parody popular stories. Over time, Nick's skills go beyond programing and he starts building things that over time help set the stage for some adventures for the characters. However, over time they also attract the attention of secret agents, James Bondish villains, aliens, and a few characters not of this universe.

Three times in the course of the story are major plotlines that take months to resolve, "Surreptitious Machinations," "To Thyne Own Self," and "Scylla and Charybdis." Following the end of each, the characters have to deal with some big changes in their lives, the last one being the characters end up in space for an indefinite time period.

Over the course of the strip, the lighthearted and often silly fun at the start eventually made way for some more serious plotlines. But there's still plenty of chuckles and humor. There's been no outright profanity, no nudity, and while there's been a little violence, it's not much. Computer fans will enjoy the references and programing jokes.

General Protection Fault updates three strips a week, and rates a G, with occasional PG.

Main page : https://www.gpf-comics.com/

Story start : https://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/1998/11/02

These are just five of the many, many, online comics out there. So feel free to look for more. The Freefall comic site had a page of links to a number of them. It also had a page of comic directories. Among these is "The Belfry," which is a huge database of comics, some from the newspapers but most by unpaid artists, that is frequently updated and ranks them (CAUTION: some are very explicit).

Do any of you have favorite online comics? Feel free to make a comment in the comments below.

Bixyl Shuftan