I read a variety of comics online. Some of them I've been reading consistently since junior high, some since I entered college and some since last month. I read them for a variety of reasons, from the quick one panel joke to the long and drawn-out story lines. Most of the time I read because of the characters.
Monday - Wednesday - Friday comics
Something Positive - Randy Milholland writes and draws this comic centered around the character "Davan." He's a sarcastic character who is every bit an asshole and a jerk, but he's also extremely caring and supportive of his friends. Milholland has said that the strip started out heavily autobiographical (with Davan representing himself), but has since changed to be merely heavily influenced by his life. Some of the observations made in Something positive are very astute.
PVP Online - Scott Kurtz writes and draws PVP Online. This strip tells the story of a fictional gaming magazine and the people who work there. It is, for the most part, a generic nerdy comic dealing with video games, gadgets, etc., but Kurtz occasionally uses it to point out important matters. One example of this is a series of strips in late 2005 which dealt with a character coming to terms with his girlfriend's unplanned pregnancy and the fear he had of fatherhood.
Foxtrot - Foxtrot is a comic that I've been following since at least high school. It's fairly episodic, and I mainly read for the misadventures of the character "Jason" who embodies all that it means to be a nerd.
Stone Soup - I dont remember how I first started reading Stone Soup, but at some point I got a little interested in this story of the extended Stone family. Two sisters, their kids, their live-in mother, and their love interests. It sounds more dramatic than it reall is. It's a very light-hearted look at family life.
Daily Ink -
Funky Winkerbean, On the Fastrack, Safe Havens and
Zits are hosted at this pay-for-use site. $15/year is cheaper than
buying a newspaper every day.
Funky Winkerbean I have been following since junior
high school. I was very involved in the band during school, and the
stories of The World's Greatest Band Director first drew me to this
story. Sinc ethen, the author has told stories of comedy and tragedy
with grace and fine writing.
On the Fastrack is a mostly episodic comic dealing with
life in a large corporation. The characters are varied and unique.
Safe Havens is an evolving comic that follows two
characters as they progress through life. The strip started when the
characters were children, followed them through junior high and high
school, and is now followign them into college. With a cast of
characters that includes a border colly-turned-guidace councelor,
there's quite a bit of variety in this comic.
Zits is the story of Jeremy Duncan. He's a typical
teenager with all the good and bad that comes with it. He's smart,
popular, a little dorky, and he gets along with his parents well even
though he pretends not to. It's a little slice of life from the
teenager's perspective.
Misfile - This is one of my more recently picked up comics. It's the story of two peole whose lives are turned on end by a drunken angel. They have two years of their lives reset, and one accidentally gets turned into a female (he was male previously).
Dilbert - Dilbert is the most popular "cubicle life" comic ever, I think. It's an episodic comic about Dilbert and his coworkers. Wally is generally assumed to be a Zen master. I like Wally. He's the best character in the entire strip.
Rose is Rose - Rose is Rose is a cute little episodic piece of happy. It mainly looks at attitudes and outlooks rather than situations. Even having the last brownie hogged by your greedy cousin is presented in an agreeable and enjoyable light. It's just... happy!
For Better or For Worse - I've been following For Better or For Worse since jnior high. It's the story of a family and the trials and tribulations therein. Unlike some comics whose characters are staticly frozen teh same age, the characters in FBoFW have aged. The oldest child of the family, Michael, is set a year older than I am. I've watched him graduate high school, go to college, get married, etc. It's a well-written comic that's respectful and insightful.
Luann - I'll be honest. I'm not entirely sure I know why I read Luann. I think it's because of her brother, Brad. He's a slob, disorganized, easily distracted by his hobbies, and reminds me of myself a lot.
Kevin and Kell - When I first came to A&M, my roommate told me about this "geeky computer comic" called Kevin and Kell. I've since realized that it's a "furry" comic to some extent, sinc eall of the characters are anthropomorphized animals, but it also allows the creator (Bill Holbrook, who also does On the Fastrak and Safe havens) to use some animal tendencies to discuss topics like racism and prejudice from a little different angle. See racism discussed as "carnivore versus herbivore verus omnivore versus insectivore" is a welcome change from "white versus black versus Asian versus hispanic."
Unshelved - I have a friend who'se a librarian, and I think that's how I discovered this comic. One of the main characters, Dewey, is a gaming and comic book geek like myself, and he shares the same sarcastic outlook on life and work as I do.
Diesel Sweeties - I think I found this comic completely by random from a link somewhere. It's fairly episodic, but the punchlines can be great. I can't really explain it too well, so you'll just have to read it to get it, sorry.
Questionable Content - This is a fairly typical relationship comic, even though none of the main characters in the comic are in a relationship. It's mainly about friends who wish they had a "more than friends" kind of relationship. The big differeing factor is that it usues indie-scene music jokes and coffee shop humor instead of video games and computer references.
Dominic Deegan - Dominic Deegan is just good story telling. It's a "sword and sorcery" fantasy setting that's got a wonderful mix of anachronism thrown in to keep it fresh and relevant. I'm very thoroughly enjoying this comic.
Achewood - Achewood is a comic that I'd looked at several times in the past and never was able to get into. A few months ago, however, they had a story arc around the theme of "3 Days, 3 Acres, 3000 Men - The Great Outdoor Fight." It was a marvelous piece of storytelling, and I've stuck with it since.
Penny Arcade - Penny Arcade is one of the leading web comics in America. It's usually episodic in nature, but every now and then they will have a series of strips that are somewhat contiguous. They have a large cast of charaters who are quite entertaining to keep up with, from Gabe and Tycho, the main characters, to the supporting cast such as the game store manager, the niece Annarchy, and even the demented kitchen appliance, the Fruit F**ker 2000.
Theater Hopper - Theater hopping is the practice of buying a ticket to one movie, and then, once that movie is over, walking into the theater of another movie. It's not good practice, but it can be an indication of the quality of the movies you're seeing. Or maybe you just can't afford to see all the movies you want to see. Either way, Theater Hopper is a comic about movies, and about the main character's complete and total obsession over movies (and his hatred of Ben Affleck).
Errant Story - Errant Story is written and drawn by Michael Poe, the creater of Exploitation Now. I'm mainly interested in his drawing style, but over the last few years his writting has gotten consistently better. This strip is the story of a half elf (errent) girl who is trying to pass her finals by assuming the power of a goddess. Seriously!
Jack - I found Jack through some online listing of webcomics a few years ago. I read through the archives, and I was very strongly struck by how well the author is able to convey emotion through story and art. The strip is often very violent, but it is rarely vioent for the sake of violence.
Megatokyo - Along with Penny Arcade, Megatokyo is one of the giants of the webcomic world. Millions of hits, huge fanbase, etc. I was first drawn to this comic for two reasons. At first, it was a fairly episodic comic with punchlines. The art style is also very unique. Over the years, the story changed from an episodic comic to an epic (in scope) online manga with a cast of unique characters that stand apart from the rest of the webcomics world. Megatokyo is truely one of the gems of the internet.
Nukees - I avoided reading Nukees for a long time. When I did try reading it, it seemed sily and disjointed. After I took the time to read through the archives, however, a cast of bizarre characters amde itself apparent, and thier quirky relationships amused me. On a day-to-day reading, Nukees is still fairly disjointed, but when read in large chunks makes very good, very clear sense.
Applegeeks - Happily, i discovered Applegeeks fairly early in its life. I started reading after it had about 20 issues or so. I'm a Macintosh user, so the premise of Applegeeks appealed to me. It continues to be a mainly episodic comic, but the creators ocasionally experiment with longer story arcs and different art styles. These changes make for interesting reading.
Comedity - An interesting comic with some ... unique inner views of someone's personality. :)
Mac Hall - Mac Hall is a geeky little commic that generally sticks to "slice of life" subjects with occasional infusions of gaming geekery. It was froma link on this webpage that I first found Applegeeks. Real life has forced the creators of Mac Hall to abandon their regular update schedule and ths comic is now updated infrequently, though usually once every couple weeks.
Sabrina - My affection for underdog computers keeps me reading Sabrina, because the main character is an avid Amiga user. The main character also reminds me of a friend of mine. This comic is updated at the beginning of each month with, usually, one strip for each week in the month.
A Lesson is Learned, But the Damage is Irreversible - This comic is truely surreal. There is no other way to describe it. The comics are generally poignant and will make you think a bit. It's updated perhaps once a month, but occasinally more frequently.
Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth - This is a comic based on World of Warcraft, a video game I enjoy playing quite a bit. It's updated mostly on the weekdays, but sometimes a week will get skipped entirely. If you don't like WoW, you might not be able to appreciate the jokes in the strip.
Shaw Island - This is simply a fun little strip which varies its subject matter from Gaming Jesus to talking hamsters to an upstart anime company. it's a bit all ove rthe place as far as its subject matter goes, but it can be very, very funny at times.
Sluggy Freelance - Sluggy Freelance started off with its main characters attempting to summon a demon on the internet. It only got more funny from there. Afer a couple years, however, I began to notice a trend. A good story arc (one which was entertaining and held my interest, not necesarily funny) would invariably be followed by a bad story arc (one that I read only to get to the next story arc). As time went on, more time was devoted to the bad stories and less to the good. After several bad story arcs in a row, I stopped reading Sluggy. I've checked back occasionally, but it hasn't resumed its entertainment value for me.
Goats - Much like Sluggy Freelance, Goats started off brilliantly and then petered into a pattern of story arcs that were either good or bad. This comic, too, ended up with a long streak of bad arcs that failed to hold my interest. The character of Diablo the Chicken was the best thing about this strip in many ways.
Rob and Elliot - I only read Rob and Elliot for a short while, but its archives were very entertaining. The current strips have left me cold and wonderign why I've been spending my time reading them. So I stopped.
Exploitation Now - I didn't want to stop reading this strip, but the artist ended it to move on to creating Errant Story. Exploitation Now was a fairly episodic comic that began trying out longer story lines near the end (as preparation for the transition to Errrant Story I imagine).
User Friendly - When I started working in IT, I read User Friendly a lot. It had humerous jokes and insites into working a call center help desk. However, it eventually started developing into a long plot arc type story with occasional office humor thrwn in. These plots didn't appeal to me, and the office humor jokes tended to be repeats or rehashes of earlier jokes, so I stopped reading it quite a long ime ago.