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Monthly Webcomics - Volume 1

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Cwen's Quest


by Nick and Sarah

After getting permission to use someone's original character in your own work (which should always be done as a matter of nicety) these special guest stars can be a lot of fun to use. Firstly, they tend to be capable and fully-fleshed-out already, can support or oppose your own heroes, all for very little work on your part. Secondly, if your readers know the works that the characters come from it will be an extra special moment as they see this character in your work, and if they don't they might go check that other work out. Third, you are implicitly supporting or at least promoting those other works, which means the creators of said works might at least return the favor. Of course such cross-pollination shouldn't work in theory, since if your readers know about the guest star characters they probably already know about and like the stories they come from, but then the real goal should be to make connections among your peers. Some webcomics use the guest star tool sparingly … and then there are webcomics like this one, which use it all the time. Our tomboy-heroine main-protagonist is out to murder her father for the crime of kicking her out of the nest, but there's a whole fantasy-menagerie of powerful people to get through before then. Sometimes this story reads like an action comic, with big spells and powerful punches (often from the same guy) and our tough girl can definitely survive the fights with a little help from her friends. At other times this story gets complicated as she handles politics and intrigue, but she does pretty well at this too, especially for someone who can't read. The bad guys are obviously bad and a lot of fun, the good guys tend to be mysterious and a little dark, and the rest of the cast should probably lay low when the two sides start to fight. With all the future call-outs and interwoven plots, this is a story that may need to be read more than once to understand. The art is professional and is generally done in grayscale, with occasional flashes of color for effect and sometimes a whole page for fun.

Why you should read this: If you like a complicated plot of intrigues and diplomacy, from the chaos of war to the stagecraft of court politics. Or maybe you prefer action and heroics, which this story has in spades, especially from the guy who never seems to use the same power twice.

Why you shouldn't read this: This story may take an extra read or two to really understand, in other words if you like your stories simple. If you hate stories where everyone exists on a scale of, "The more gritty and troubled you are, the more powerful."

Other cool stuff: Not much, surprisingly, but the comic did move to a new site a while back so maybe they haven't had the time. There's plenty of ways to surf the archives, short rants below most of the comics from the author … but the fanart section is mostly links going out, as are several of the other "pages" on the site. There might be something interesting going with the vote on the right?



Dungeons & Denizens


by John and Greg

Does meta commentary make critical thought better in some way, smarter or more interesting? Say you want to make note of the defining feature of a character from another author's work. You could do so the straightforward way, in a short essay along with examples to back up your assertion. Or you could make your comments in a meta way, maybe write a short fanfiction in which the feature is made more obvious in some way. Two points come to mind: One, it's a bit unfair of the meta-commentator to say the character exhibits said feature, when really it is the fanfiction writer who is responsible for said feature in said fanfiction. But, if those examples match examples from the source material, they may be fair. Two, the meta-commentary may be harder to understand than a straightforward commentary. Some like this, in that it makes the meta-commentary feel smarter because it requires a smarter audience, but simple really should be best. In the end though, meta-commentary is simply more fun to read. Consider this webcomic, a meta-commentary on the D&D brand and its transition from one edition to the next, in the guise of exploring what it means to be a Monster in D&D. We start with our protagonist, a minotaur approaching a dungeon as its newest "employee." His job: everything from odd jobs to janitorial, meaning killing adventurers at the behest of his lich boss. His first and seemingly only friend is the gruff old orc custodian, which means quite a bit when one is the custodian for an entire dungeon, and who is eternally romantically chased by a two-headed hellhound. Later they find themselves pitted against a team of heroic adventurers, all of whom are either newly-minted "player race" characters or else now technically "monster race" characters; so the dragonborn is now a player race and very full of himself, while the gnomes are now a monster race and seem very lost and confused. All in all it's kinda silly and comedic, all while commenting on a few of D&D's quirks. The art starts pretty good and gradually gets better, full color from day one.

Why you should read this: Good commentary on "monster life" inside a dungeon, and things really got rolling with the start of 4E and all the fun this comic had with that. Speaking of which, one might hope that the arrival of 5E / Next will spark a further creative burst.

Why you shouldn't read this: The comic has gone on quite a few unplanned hiatuses, but generally comes back. Also, its authors are some of the few people to think readers want literal beefcake, the only saving grace of which is that pun.

Other cool stuff: Umm … the store? There's several ways to browse the archives? Honestly, this is one bare-bones site.



E-depth Angel


by Mayshing

The passage of time can be an interesting element to play with in a story. For example, ever notice that a short-ish anime series will often follow the character's lives for roughly one year? Not only does this mean that the characters will experience each major holiday once, but also by ending where the story started there is a certain cyclical nature of time being espoused. A sudden shift forward in time can allow a child hero to become an epic hero in the blink of an eye when all that we care about are the most intense moments of their life, or we can follow their every triumph and stumble along the way to show how their journey made them great. Sometimes the only clue to the passage of time is the personal milestones of the characters, like getting married or having children, while at other times the world seems frozen in time, to preserve certain family and social dynamics. It can be a bit annoying when time's passage is ignored or even ambiguous, but sometimes even ambiguity can play an important role. Take this webcomic for example. Our protagonist is the pilot of a powerful giant robot and also the prince of a powerful company along with his brother. Due to their wealth and the ever-rising super-tech in their futuristic world, they have become nigh-immortal since they can simply repair their bodies and stay young forever. So a week or a month might pass between story arcs … or a year, or a hundred years. In the first few stories a high-spirited techno nurse convinces our angsty hero to fund research on a certain mysterious disease affecting cyborgs like him, but recently she succumbed to her own genetic illness and our hero is left with only her cause to keep him going. Meanwhile our default Average Joe character has become a cyborg and must now work for our protagonist to earn the parts he needs to live, while said protagonist is mainly interested in killing his own father for turning him into a cyborg. Part twisted love story, part sci-fi epic on the ramifications of certain technologies on the horizon, and occasionally there's a giant robot battle. The art started out good with a very hand-drawn look, full color and decent quality, and has since become very smooth as the artist does more digital work and has become interested in seeing the story get animated.

Why you should read this: Fun, frenetic action scenes with powerful cyborgs that can apparently cause explosions just by punching the ground. The story and dialogue aren't very dense or complex but deal with some very heavy topics, making the story both fun to read and interesting to think about later.

Why you shouldn't read this: If you don't like dark stories, because this one gets dark slowly but surely and stays that way. There's this kinda weird thing where the protagonist is nearly a hundred years old and nearly more machine than man, yet has, according to him even, fallen in love with his 14-year-old clone nurse employee.

Other cool stuff: Quite a lot, the comic's creator seems very invested in their work! The main page has links to several other sites where you can contact the author, as well as scroll-down bars to go read the story in several other languages. The artist's main site has links to nearly everything they've done, including a whole other webcomic (or two or three!) and their portfolio. The Project Edepth Angel section has all the info you could need on their efforts to animate this story and even ways to help out, the FAQ is very in depth … but it's a bit saddening that the comic has become dependent on donations for updates. Or that's how I assume it works, from how the monthly donation goals work.



Gold Coin Comics


by R. Mundhenke

"RPG" must be a catch-all term in the video game industry; whenever a game doesn't quite fit some better-defined genre like horror or platformer, it seems to fall in to the RPG set. Maybe an RPG is when the player makes choices on where to go and how to confront situations? But even the player of a platformer can make path-finding choices, or decide on the method to use against a certain foe, and to be honest there are plenty of RPGs that railroad the characters. Perhaps an RPG sees to it that you connect on a close level with the protagonist, even essentially become that protagonist? But horror wouldn't work if you didn't connect with the character, making scares aimed at the character also scares for the player. The real factor may simply be menus. RPGs have menus in which you equip your characters, or feed your characters, or check your character's stats … should we call these menu-based games MBGs? All this can be a bit difficult for comics like this one that parody, pay homage to and in the end define the RPG genre, because in the end menus are pretty boring. Our Hero starts out in a way completely expected for this type of comic, as a cliché swordsman with a dead parent who might not actually be dead. He loves puzzles and chests, is slightly moronic, learns new moves from picking up badges and has only begun to realize his dream of wearing decent armor. His companions are joining the team slowly but surely, and would seem to number six in total (check out the home page, that's each of their weapons up there) unless there's another out there that will use an endless bag of gold to fight with. The cleric-wizard is stuffy and cloistered, the wizard-wizard is a bounty hunter with anger problems and our hero has already found himself a royal love interest. The bad guys so far are just the love interest's time-wizard royal family, which makes them nicely untouchable for now, but so far the plot is hanging back to let the party form. The art is simple but effective, and all in color.

Why you should read this: Nearly every page ends with some witty comment on RPGs, so if you like these kind of homage/parody comics. The fights walk the tightrope between realism and gamism well, both keeping the hero to certain strict rules while also allowing for clever out-of-the-box solutions.

Why you shouldn't read this: The hero's quest to find his father may be traditional, but none of what's been revealed so far feels epic. The characters certainly don't break a lot of molds, what with our slightly-stupid swordsman or fire-temper wizard.

Other cool stuff: It's nice how the archives show a thumbnail of each page, grouped according to their chapter, but on the other hand the character bios page is a bit underwhelming. There's an art blog, with some pretty clouds currently, and a Free Resource of the Day that might update occasionally. And there's another comic on the horizon called Anita and the Riddle Notebook.



Heroes Inc.


by Robert Lynch

The reason a fanfiction writer will use a preexisting world is because that world is rich with ideas for stories; any world the writer might imagine from scratch can be just as rich, but that richness isn't already there for the writer to work with. So is it any wonder some pull in multiple worlds, adding their pasts and stories and richness together to make something even more amazing? For video game fanfiction, perhaps Mario's Mushroom Kingdom is simply "on the world map" with Link's Hyrule. Do the two heroes know of each other? Have they ever adventured together? These are the kinds of questions that fanfiction claims to answer, and for every world that enters the mix, more questions can be found. Does Kirby's quirky Dreamland have contact with the outside world? Did the villains from Final Fantasy games ever conquer other video-game countries? Could Chrono's father be the hero from another game? In fact, that last question was one of the big character reveals in this comic, which in turn asks the question, "What would happen if heroes from many games were brought together to face a threat bigger than them all?" The answer so far: Professor of Time Theory Chrono and his love interest, an emotionally turbulent Samus, are gathered together (along with a highly experienced, somewhat proud Link and some other heroes with lesser character arcs) by Mario and his brother to solve one relatively minor mystery, which has led to ninja fights, awkward dates, inter-party tensions and civil wars. Meanwhile some Big Bad has watched their every move while slowly gathering the pieces to an artifact capable of resurrecting some Bigger Bad because he wants to … rule the world or something. The art started with all sprite work, but has gone on to become an interesting mix of 2D sprite comic characters in amazing 3D backdrops, although sometimes the 2D characters look a bit silly in their 3D world.

Why you should read this: If you like the worlds being used and don't mind the fanfiction-y writing that goes with them. For the unique visual style, which has continued to improve since its inception in the comic.

Why you shouldn't read this: Did I mention the awkward dates, cross-game relationships and that secret father reveal? And even if you can look past the more cliché fanfiction elements, there's still the very important fact that this story has increasingly missed updates and become a secondary interest for the author, which generally spells doom for a webcomic.

Other cool stuff: The author now has an original story to make just as fun as this one has been, a cyberpunk action tale called Department 13. The cast page is good for giving plenty of information on all the main characters in case you forgot, and the Extras page has quite a few fan comics and related work by the author, including some decent illustrations. Also there's this mission given by the author to print and post one of those smart-phone squares, which means it's basically a forced attempt at viral marketing, but the method is interesting.



Jayden and Crusader


by Adrian Speed

There are many reasons for the dreaded webcomic hiatus, but one of the more common is artist burnout. Think of burnout as the artist finally reaching the mental breaking point where they can no longer draw some character for the zillion-and-one-nth time. A common declaration at this point is, "It just isn't fun any more." In other words, no matter that the artist may wish to continue, may have ideas and plots and jokes to fill pages and pages of comic, they have lost all will to do the visual side. This leads in a natural fashion to a hiatus as the artist takes some time off to draw different things, perhaps rough nature sketches or shots of anatomy and perspective. One possible result – and this does seem to be the best possible ending – is that they return both refreshed and potentially more skilled than they once were. In fact, burnout could have something to do with an artist's growth; draw a stick figure enough and you may get so bored that a proportional figure will seem better. In this webcomic, burnout has become a major factor in various plots and story arcs. When burnout strikes, often right in the middle or even at the beginning of an arc, the artist may then return a month or more later and simply skip the arc as perhaps the cause of their troubles. This happened with: a fight against a parasitic slime mold, the introduction of a cat girl assassin, and was lampshaded during an attack by a PC cheerleader. Our protagonist and first main character is played off as literally the artist for the comic, as well as being the landlord for a small house in a university town where the cast spends most of their time. After that the cast gets a bit more cliché, although the comic always stays carefully ironic about these: the endowed geek girl who would never ever date our hero, the literal third character to serve as a rational foil to the zany protagonist, the cat girl, the mad scientist, several "evil villains" and at least one vaguely recognizable coffee shop. The art starts simple, then gains shading, backgrounds and richer color as time goes on.

Why you should read this: This comic exemplifies the idea of a zany, random, fun-times webcomic, and somehow manages to keep this going with nearly all of its named characters. And then perhaps to spite that, the characters also have long, complex personal growth quests that follow them from wild young adult to (looking toward one potential future) the point at which they finally grow up.

Why you shouldn't read this: The comic is well known for its hiatus' of various lengths, including one that seems to happen every year around the same time. Also, as much as the comic plays off its cliché elements as being ironic or so terrible that they come back around to amazing, this is still a story about cliché webcomic characters and situations.

Other cool stuff: It's nice how the New Reader page completely sums up the story so far … at least until a point, and actually the summary contains moments that haven't actually happened in comic form yet. The Links page can send you to quite a few other good webcomics that the artist reads, as well as a much longer list of perhaps every webcomic that has ever been suggested to them. On the unfortunate side of things, the two available methods of reaching the archive are either difficult to navigate or perilously close to an ad bar.



Last Res0rt


by Rachel Keslensky

There are two sub-genres within science fiction, and strangely enough both look less like what we thought science fiction was when closely examined. The first of these is hard science fiction, in which we only allow realistic, believable science and try to imagine the future. But with the growing pace of technology, this becomes very hard to do in a way that won't seem terribly outdated or unrealistic in even a few years. And perhaps more ridiculous, should we include any story written about current technology in the modern day to be hard science fiction if someone from the past read it? The second sub-genre is the fantastic voyage, which has really cool technology that is essentially indistinguishable from magic; it's cool, there are people who can use it and we believe it works because they say so. So this sub-genre really isn't about the science and has more in common with the fantasy epic, it's all about the journey that is possible because of this magic-science. As for this webcomic, it follows much closer to the fantastic voyage type but with a nod towards hard science fiction; the author takes an idea from our time (in this case the reality TV show) to the future, a slightly dystopian world where you can show death and bloodsport on camera and the technology is mostly indistinguishable from magic. Oh, and magic is real too. There are races in this world with fantasy names like Djinn and Undead, aliens that look like fantasy dragons and a whole lot of magic-technology. Our hero worms her way in to the ultra-violent reality TV show to help a close family friend survive, but ends up with more problems herself when it is discovered that she has become a vampire. She must work with her fellow contestants to kill off the competition, survive the episodes and the free-time between, all while mastering her new powers and the tech used in the show. Oh, and she's a small furry violinist. The art looks pretty standard at the start but improves quite a lot as time passes, and it's all in full color.

Why you should read this: Because of the many fantasy terms and common ideas that have been translated in interesting ways to this futuristic setting. For a society defined by its various magic-inclined races, yet living in a world of futuristic technology. For … a vampire that doesn't sparkle?

Why you shouldn't read this: If you don't like furry cat-people, angst-y vampires or reality television stars. Oh, and there's quite a bit of violence and gore, with the comic even going up close and personal to the flying brain chunks. Not sure why but there's something very hard to follow about this story, like it doesn't make sense in some unconscious area of the brain.

Other cool stuff: The cast page has short descriptions of each character, as well as full-page "rap sheets" for everyone who is both a main character and would have a rap sheet … meaning that our innocent hero does not have one of these cool full-page character profiles. The New Readers page probably shouldn't be seen by new readers since it contains a whole "the plot so far" summary with links and some handy charts, while the About the Comic page is where they should really go since it describes the genre and rating, as well as a few frequently asked questions. The About the Author page reads like a resume, not that it's a bad resume, or you can email the protagonist if you have something to say.



League Of Super Redundant Heroes


by Even Stupider People

Okay, no, actually this comic is by a group of illustrators known only by the names Sire.HappyPants, Sir.Walrus, Mr.Dork and Mr.Sausage … guess I could have just said the comic was by 4 Different Artists, but where's the fun in that? Speaking of fun, ever try collaborative writing? The idea is simple: gather a group of writers, assign someone to go first and have that person write the first page/chapter/episode/whatever. Then give that start to the next person in line and they do something that builds from it, and so on and so forth. With (for example) four storytellers, you get a whole story for one-quarter the individual effort, plus all the fun of doing improv with your friends; in a sense it's like fanfiction except the world is one-quarter yours and you shouldn't go off on your own. The main problem with this kind of storytelling is that the story will probably be somewhat random and less than serious if there wasn't some pre-planned plot arc, so either pre-plan the latter or expect the former. This webcomic gets away with the unserious vibe by placing the story in a wacky world of strange superheroes, where the four writers' unspoken competition to ratchet up the laughs with every comic fits the genre perfectly. The other main goal of this comic seems to be poking holes in common superhero tropes, which will certainly take quite a while but does have its limits, so it's a good thing they introduced two super-groups for the rest of the story to follow. The "good" team consists of a hyper-destructive eternally-unlucky blind laser-eyes guy, the frat-guy roommate with no power other than alcohol consumption, the girl who is always either perfectly good or attempting to be evil and more recently the chick with large breasts. They try to do good, they really do … but usually don't. The evil team consists of an idiot savant with a degree in hugs, a guy who can levitate cats and a chick whose main power is distracting men by walking around naked. They successfully robbed a bank once! These two teams wage an eternal war with each other of halfhearted pranks and foiling the other team's schemes, but then get along rather well when not on the job. The art starts quite good and the look is surprisingly consistent considering the comic is done by four different people, at first there was only mood shading but after a while the comic gets full color.

Why you should read this: Wacky hero shenanigans between two teams that get along surprisingly well when they aren't being "heroes and villains," making them feel more like real people. If you like poking fun at comic superhero tropes.

Why you shouldn't read this: The trope-poking stuff with all the random other heroes can be a bit annoying when you find yourself interested in the story potential of some random comic but they never do anything more with it. And the fragmented feel to the comic, caused by the four different writers, somewhat detracts from the storytelling, not to mention the various plot-holes and inconsistencies that crop up.

Other cool stuff: The About page says none of them have a background in comics, but Sir.Walrus does the webcomic Two Guys and Guy, plus a blog with plenty of random cute art. Most of them have Twitter accounts … and that's about it. Not much to see here.



Machine Flower


by Pana Stamos

There is a trope in superhero stories that said heroes can never be successfully and solely created by the government, not unless destiny and a heroic character preceded the creation. The heroes that are created by the government, because they do try of course, often have some deep destructive flaw that eventually dooms them, or else they turn evil, or else are so pathetic and miserable they can't compare with "true" heroes. Why? Perhaps because we don't believe the tangle of bureaucracy would ever allow for it, or we believe that a government wouldn't choose someone with true heroic character, or we can't see how a government program could exist alongside a heroic destiny. We can't understand how a government could instill honor and responsibility in its hero, even as we trust our government to train soldiers and police. In this webcomic, the government has decided to create superheroes through some sort of mutagen treatment, to train them as powerful super-weapons for use against their enemies. They started with perhaps hundreds of candidate children, and yet at this secure testing facility all but roughly five have died after the experiments (Heroic destiny? Check.) … unless we just haven't seen any others. Our main protagonist is obsessed with escaping the cage-like laboratory to eat delicious food (Heroic character? Check) while her two "sisters" are more concerned with using drugs that turn off their powers or their roughly 2% remaining organic material. One "brother" is constantly on the edge of death due to his mirror-healing powers, while another can explode things and has already killed at least once before. The protagonist's childhood friend is now their jerk head of security and the several new guards perhaps have an agenda of their own. The story so far has been based around their day-to-day lives and a lot of angst, hopefully a plot will show up soon when the author is finished setting the scene. The art is very manga, full of beautiful girls and guys that look like girls, but the backgrounds tend toward sparse and only the chapter start pages have color.

Why you should read this: These superheroes that never do anything heroic, because the government that created them is more interested in studying them, remain interesting because of how well they each express their individual desires for freedom. Decent mix of action and drama, all without a single "super-villain" to direct that towards … so far.

Why you shouldn't read this: The updates have occasionally been sporadic, with several hiatus breaks already, neither of which bodes well for the future of this comic. Also, I suspect the "missing plot" isn't going to show up, this may just be a world-building story of day-to-day moments.

Other cool stuff: There's a decent synopsis for the comic on both the About page and every page, with the former more focused on why these people are here and the latter on a basic feel for the comic. The Characters page is short and to the point, but a bit behind the times, and there's a glossary for the terms you might not understand. The Creator page has a link to their portfolio site, which contains some pretty art and other comics.



Prequel


by Kazerad

Fans, as opposed to readers, are an important addition to any webcomic. Readers, more commonly called lurkers, are those good salt-of-the-earth people who read your comic, enjoy your comic, and yet the creator of said comic would never know if not for the site stats and occasional store purchase. Fans, on the other hand, are vocal about their love. Fans comment regularly, fans ask for the things the comic creator should put in their store, fans visit at conventions and say hi. Webcomic readers can easily be imperceptible, while to be a fan is to be perceived. The hard truth of writing is that, as important as it may be to a writer that their story be told, week after week of no response can lead anyone to thinking they are simply throwing their work to an uncaring void. The trick to being a writer of serialized storytelling is both a stoic resolve to see your story end, as well as an understanding of when to cut your losses; the trick to being a reader is to become a fan. The fascinating thing about this webcomic, and others like it, is how directed they are at turning readers into fans. The premise is simple: a Khajiit (a cat-person from the Elder Scrolls games) emigrates to Cyrodiil in a manner very recognizable to anyone who has played Morrowind. She's an alcoholic, freakishly terrified of royalty and doesn't have a gold coin to her name. The story is (unsurprisingly) a prequel of sorts, in this case to the entire Oblivion game. And with that basic setting and character, nearly all of the rest of the comic is written as a game played between the writer and the fans. It turns out our protagonist, and occasionally other "guest star" characters, can hear the comments below each comic, which frequently tell them what to do. If the fans can convince our heroine to drink, she will do so and the writer then sums up the results of that action. The art is simple and interspersed with prose sections, but the occasional animations and first person peripheral POV really sells the comic.

Why you should read this: The careful, meaningful and skilled use of animation, script wizardry and even a simple game in which you got to pilot the protagonist around the city of … well, let's just say there was a dancing mini-game. The chance to become a fan of this comic and help steer the story towards a direction you want, although it should be noted that there are already quite a few people doing just that and who are probably better at convincing the protagonist to act.

Why you shouldn't read this: The alternate title says it all, "Making A Cat Cry: The Adventure;" this comic gets quite a lot of mileage out of making life miserable for its protagonist, which some might find depressing. The plot, humor and events of this story, and occasionally the visuals, are definitely not family appropriate, so if that would bother you.

Other cool stuff: There's a Facebook group, and a fanart page chock full of everything from art to music to fiction to YouTube videos. That video comparing our protagonist's troubles with those of starving children in third world countries? Beautiful. Or you could check out the webcomic that inspired this one, the mildly more famous MS Paint Adventures.
To be clear, "monthly" webcomics are not worse in quality compared to "weekly" webcomics. I have simply found that I enjoy checking these comics less frequently because they sometimes update less frequently. So go read them!

Cwen's Quest
First: [link]

Dungeons & Denizens
First: [link]

E-depth Angel
First: [link]

Gold Coin Comics
First: [link]

Heroes Inc.
First: [link]

Jayden and Crusader
First: [link]

Last Res0rt
First: [link]

League Of Super Redundant Heroes
First: [link]

Machine Flower
First: [link]

Prequel
First: [link]
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