And so it’s time for me to roll out another recommendation! This time it’s Mary Cagle’s Sleepless Domain.
It’s about a city full of magical girls that’s plagued by monsters at night. It deals with the realities that come with being a magical girl to both humorous and dramatic effect. I can’t say much without spoiling some of the more interesting parts, but it’s definitely worth checking out. The first two chapters have a different artist, and you’ll know after 3 chapters if you’re into it.
Yeah, admittedly, I haven’t read too many, just a few recommended to me when I was interested, I should try some others out.
Kill 6 Billion Demons was brought up from the get go but I second that because it’s a fantastic comic. I still need to get the print version.
Another comic I’ve followed very closely since around it started (I’ve known the artist since the time Tegaki was actually new and popular) is Feast For A King which needs a big ol 
warning. Think Berserk-levels only minus the problematic bits. It’s well into over 3000 pages but the artist is currently taking a well-deserved break to work on other projects. The story spans over a long period of time, constantly jumping between characters at various points. It’s not a linear story nor is there really a main character so it’s all really hard to summarize but the comic starts when a girl wakes up to find herself above a pit of strange man-eating monsters called “worms”, her hands and feet bound by some mysterious cuffs. Upon escaping, she realizes she’s suffering from some sort of memory loss and the worms keep referring to her as their “king”? What’s up with that??
The art in FFAK is sometimes very sketchy and simplified but it’s also very expressive and the creator knows how to convey movement really well as can be seen in this gif showing several pages in a sequence.
To elaborate a bit, Rich Burlew, the author of that last one (though it’s technically named Order of the Stick), has some recurring health issues he prefers to remain unspecific about that frequently cause him to drop off the radar for weeks at a time. That’s on top of the normal cursed-author stuff, like vital equipment failure and, in one notable instance, the thumb tendons in his drawing hand being almost severed by shattering glass. OOTS is infamously slow and inconsistent, to a degree that would guarantee obscurity for a lesser writer. But uninspiring beginning aside (it is one of those comics that’s been running for 10+ years), it’s funny and surprising and interesting enough that it can hang with the best of 'em in spite of that.
Oh, I completely agree. I’ve been reading Order of the Stick for years now, and it’s always a nice surprise when there is a new page. There was a new page today actually, which did a bit to brighten up my otherwise annoying workday. My comment about the update schedule certainly wasn’t meant as a criticism, but rather a general thing to point out. I was not aware of Rich Burlew having health problems, I hope the guy is fine.
Yeah yeah, I was just reiterating the endorsement. :V But that’s where the “I hope Rich is okay worried face” meme comes from.
So uh… I read a fair few webcomics. In no particular order:
There’s Balderdash, or, A Tale of Two Witches, which stars two protagonists who wind up in the same town. Baking and magic ensue. Emotions also ensue as well, (and I relate immensely with Afia.) Updates irregularly, but the time estimation the author leaves on the latest update always seems to be accurate.
Peritale is about a fairy with no aptitude for magic whatsoever. She has to help fulfill a Fairytale by getting a secluded witch to fall in love, (and said witch’s talking cat has, thus far, been fantastic. (The author also does a comic called Roji which is about a fairly rude adventurer, but that one hasn’t updated in a while.)
Big Crystals is still somewhat in early exposition, but it’s about a girl named Maggie and her recently-escaped-from-a-tower friend Johanna and their crystal-related crimes, (which has been limited to theft thus far, but it’s happened twice so that’s a grand total of two Crystal Crimes!)
Beyond the Canopy is about a Sprigg named Glenn who finds a very strong stick. By which I mean an artifact of great magical power in stick form. At the time of writing this, the king of puppets is very mad that he was heckled years ago.
Jailbird is a very cute comic starring Jailbird, who goes on a quest to save the world… which is a much larger bird. Features the Best Dad: Duck. (It hasn’t updated since last month, though.)
Monsterkind tends to get really tense. But also very sweet. And then tense again. Human social worker Wallace Foster is transferred to a district full of monsters. The house calls are a bit of an uphill battle.
Demon Street is a story about a kid exploring the titular demon street which just sorta… appeared out of nowhere. The cast is fairly large, but the party split earlier on so it’s not too difficult to keep track of everyone. (Also let it go on record that I didn’t know it updated today, so when I when I went to grab the link I died laughing. RIP can’t believe I have to finish typing this post as a ghost now.)
I’m also gonna second Cucumber Quest, Awkward Zombie, Paranatural, Goodbye to Halos, and Solstoria. They’re all pretty darn good. Also, Witchy and Sleepless Domain look pretty good, so I need to add those to my reading list.
seconding Balderdash, Cucumber Quest, Paranatural, Hark a Vagrant, and Unsounded
i also read a few others:
I’m sure everyone’s heard of Dinosaur Comics (the first was actually its 14th anniversary), but i think it’s still pretty regularly funny. if you haven’t heard of it, it’s about some dinosaurs who talk about random stuff by Ryan North. every comic has the exact same layout.
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things is jokes about overt masculinity in popular culture (mostly video games)
Wondermark is a bit hit or miss, but it’s sometimes quite funny
Devil’s Candy is a cute comic about a school for devils. it has great manga style art. i’m actually a few months behind on this one because my RSS feed screwed up and i never got around to fixing it. oh, i should probably mention that it can be a bit gory at times
gosh, i don’t know how i managed to forget about Octopus Pie. it’s a slice-of-life comic about 20-something New Yorkers, and it’s great
You forgot the part about him being the first webcomic artist to raise over 1 million dollars on Kickstarter, and was only beaten by Broken Age for being the first project period to raise that much, by something like 6 hours?
Atomic Robo is a former print-comic that made the switch to webcomic format a while ago, about a Tesla-built Robot and his weird science adventures through history. It’s a nice throwback to old pulp-comics with a good sense of humour.
And also this:
I’m here to tell you all to read Oglaf it started out as a porn comic so it is very often 
but it’s so funny and good.
Also, even though I’m not sure she even updates it anymore because she’s very busy Lackadaisy Cats is exceptional.
And, while she has just been plagued by breaking computers and a host of other garbage and just had a baby a little over a year ago (and now all life is baby and art is dead) my sister will one day start updating Godsend again. Her art is very beautiful, please read it.
So the only Webcomic that I really, really like that has not yet been mentioned is Mokepon. It’s a pokemon fancomic (obviously) that loosely follows the original Red/Blue story framework and has a lot of fun with the inherent absurdity of that world. Notably, it absolutely nails the manga-esque art style it goes for, especially in later chapters.
It’s relatively problematic in areas and also officially defunct for the umpteenth time, but man, there still isn’t anything quite like Achewood out there. It’s often hilarious and Chris Onstad’s avatar of depression incarnate, Roast Beef, is probably one of my favorite fictional characters. If you’ve never read it, start with The Party arc. It’s a good introduction to all the pertinent characters and skips a fair deal of the early awkward stuff.
And I second hbmonk’s mention of Devil’s Candy. It’s gorgeous and a lot of old school manga fun.
i considered mentioning oglaf but i wasn’t sure it would be appropriate, haha. i love how the archive marks which pages are safe, rather than which ones are not safe
most of the other comics I read have already been reccommended, but here’s one I don’t see get mentioned a lot
If you don’t mind zombies, please please please check out Dead Winter by Allison Shabet. Its the funnest most positive zombie story i know of. It starts off a LIIIIIIITLE edgy but chills out on that front pretty quickly, also the art’s amazing. She and her pal Jason are also working on a couple of games
i just started reading the house on the cliff and it’s gay and beautiful and magical and i have fallen in love
I discovered yesterday that one of my favourite artists, Ryan Armand’s website went defunct in early 2016. Fortunately it’s got several archive mirrors that have almost all of the pages he had posted. His artwork and pacing is some of the best I’ve seen, and easily flips from hilarious to somber at the drop of a hat. My personal favourites are Great, Dig, and minus.
It was completed years ago but I’m still a huge fan of Rice Boy
The author has done another full webcomic and is currently doing a third, but I haven’t gotten around to reading either.
Port Sherry is a pretty fun webcomic that I don’t see mentioned a lot. You’ve probably seen that dragon and princess comic posted to twitter, unsourced. That’s from this.
Wilde Life is a cool comic about a city boy stumbling across all the supernatural things you can find in rural Oklahoma.
The Girl Who Walks the Waves is a neat and well-drawn little Korean webcomic about a woman finding passion in surfing after running from her failed marriage. You’ll have to use Batoto to read it, since AFAIK there’s no official English version.
Cucumber Quest!
