Webcomic Roundup!
Here's a small sample of the completed and currently updating webcomics that I've read in the past year or so, or am still reading. Most of them are fantasy, mystery, or adventure comics - the only rules I gave myself about throwing this list together is that they have to have made it through at least one chapter, updated within the last two months (otherwise you can get some dead comics,) and have to have a central plot, rather than being slice-of-life comics. Then I stirred myself up by deciding to promote the more obscure works, with highly involved art, in preference to popular, monolithic long-runners like Girl Genius, Gunnerkrigg Court, and Order of the Stick.
All links will dump you on the comic's first page on their own website. I've updated some of the descriptions and trigger warnings as of June 2014 so nobody gets taken by surprise.
Finished:
The Pheonix Requiem, story and art by Sarah Ellerton
Of course I like this one: it's a steam-fantasy full of magic, mystery, superstition, disease, and danger. For bonus points, the main character, Anya, is a doctor's apprentice who has long since proven her competence to the populace in the rural town where she lives.
Unfinished
Impure Blood, art by Nathan Lueth and story by Nadja Baer
This one is a true ensemble cast piece in a world full of magitek that runs the gamut between clock punk and diesel punk. Oh, and it contains the humanoid descendants of a race of eldritch beings called the Ancients, who have a range of mutant magical powers. It's headed into political conspiracies and some in-depth worldbuilding which handles race, nationalism, and prejudice now.
For now, still no common trigger warnings apply. Updates once a week.
Monsieur Charlatan, art and story by Angeliki Samaliki
Monsieur Isidore Charlatan is a washed-up detective in 1930's France, who is haunted by his previous fame and hounded by his best friend Magda O'Neil, a journalist, to get his life back together and start investigating again. As is the way with such stories, the case finds him instead.
So far, there are no true chapter breaks and no front pages (giving me an awful time trying to find a decent spread with no spoilers,) but the comic updates regularly and there are already over 100 pages, so I'd say it counts.
Trigger Warning: M. Charlatan has rather a lot of suicidal ideation over the course of the story, and multiple actual attempts, both in the actual comic and referred to in Isidore's past, as well as many instances of self harm. Your mileage may vary as to whether the reactions of the rest of the cast are appropriate. New trigger warnings: discussion of and flashbacks about rape and domestic abuse, blood and murder, false imprisonment in a mental institution.
Updates on no schedule that I can identify.
Unsounded, art and story by Ashley Cope
At first glance, Unsounded looks like a standard quest-based fantasy where a young girl, Sette Frummagem, and her guide and protector Duane have to cross the wilderness... it's not. Sette and Duane are quickly thrown into a nebulous, but extremely dangerous smuggling plot, which brings them into contact with the politics of several kingdoms, some morally questionable magic, and as of recent chapters, the true nature of their world.
Trigger Warning: Gore. Plenty of gore: when people in this comic die, they die bloody. Also, kidnapping and slavery.
Other things: full and partial nudity, sexual references, some pages have moving parts which I don't think are enough to induce siezures or migranes, but it pays to be cautious.
Updates once a week, but often several pages at a time or with bonus updates later in the week depending on how far ahead the author gets.
Things that went on Hiatus right before I posted this:
Blue Yonder, art by Diego Diaz, then Ruben Rojas, story by Luke Perks and Richard Pulfer
It's a superhero story, where powers are actually relatively common but the money to swan around beating up supervillians is not. It's also the story of Jared Davenport, a seventeen-year-old hero on the run, who is desperate to find and save the rest of his family.
There's a pretty huge style swap at the beginning of the newest chapter, where Ruben Rojas takes over from Diego Diaz, and the comic is currently on pause while the authors work on publication, so it's possible there's going to be another one.
Runewriters, art and story by Shazzbaa Bennett
Runewriters follows Tareth Ari, a deaf girl from a small town, and her best friend Severian, a Runewriter desperately in need of some formal training (he's managed to give himself tentacle arms before the story even starts,) in search of a healer to fix said tentacle-arms. They're hounded on the way by the dogmatic hunters of aberrants, who don't take too kindly to runewriters in general (and specifically to shapeshifting ones like Sev,) and soon fall in with a famous necromancer.
Runewriters is on hiatus all year, due to the artist's personal life, but there's well over a hundred pages up already.
All links will dump you on the comic's first page on their own website. I've updated some of the descriptions and trigger warnings as of June 2014 so nobody gets taken by surprise.
Finished:
The Pheonix Requiem, story and art by Sarah Ellerton
Of course I like this one: it's a steam-fantasy full of magic, mystery, superstition, disease, and danger. For bonus points, the main character, Anya, is a doctor's apprentice who has long since proven her competence to the populace in the rural town where she lives.
Unfinished
Impure Blood, art by Nathan Lueth and story by Nadja Baer
This one is a true ensemble cast piece in a world full of magitek that runs the gamut between clock punk and diesel punk. Oh, and it contains the humanoid descendants of a race of eldritch beings called the Ancients, who have a range of mutant magical powers. It's headed into political conspiracies and some in-depth worldbuilding which handles race, nationalism, and prejudice now.
For now, still no common trigger warnings apply. Updates once a week.
Monsieur Charlatan, art and story by Angeliki Samaliki
Monsieur Isidore Charlatan is a washed-up detective in 1930's France, who is haunted by his previous fame and hounded by his best friend Magda O'Neil, a journalist, to get his life back together and start investigating again. As is the way with such stories, the case finds him instead.
So far, there are no true chapter breaks and no front pages (giving me an awful time trying to find a decent spread with no spoilers,) but the comic updates regularly and there are already over 100 pages, so I'd say it counts.
Trigger Warning: M. Charlatan has rather a lot of suicidal ideation over the course of the story, and multiple actual attempts, both in the actual comic and referred to in Isidore's past, as well as many instances of self harm. Your mileage may vary as to whether the reactions of the rest of the cast are appropriate. New trigger warnings: discussion of and flashbacks about rape and domestic abuse, blood and murder, false imprisonment in a mental institution.
Updates on no schedule that I can identify.
Unsounded, art and story by Ashley Cope
At first glance, Unsounded looks like a standard quest-based fantasy where a young girl, Sette Frummagem, and her guide and protector Duane have to cross the wilderness... it's not. Sette and Duane are quickly thrown into a nebulous, but extremely dangerous smuggling plot, which brings them into contact with the politics of several kingdoms, some morally questionable magic, and as of recent chapters, the true nature of their world.
Trigger Warning: Gore. Plenty of gore: when people in this comic die, they die bloody. Also, kidnapping and slavery.
Other things: full and partial nudity, sexual references, some pages have moving parts which I don't think are enough to induce siezures or migranes, but it pays to be cautious.
Updates once a week, but often several pages at a time or with bonus updates later in the week depending on how far ahead the author gets.
Things that went on Hiatus right before I posted this:
Blue Yonder, art by Diego Diaz, then Ruben Rojas, story by Luke Perks and Richard Pulfer
It's a superhero story, where powers are actually relatively common but the money to swan around beating up supervillians is not. It's also the story of Jared Davenport, a seventeen-year-old hero on the run, who is desperate to find and save the rest of his family.
There's a pretty huge style swap at the beginning of the newest chapter, where Ruben Rojas takes over from Diego Diaz, and the comic is currently on pause while the authors work on publication, so it's possible there's going to be another one.
Runewriters, art and story by Shazzbaa Bennett
Runewriters follows Tareth Ari, a deaf girl from a small town, and her best friend Severian, a Runewriter desperately in need of some formal training (he's managed to give himself tentacle arms before the story even starts,) in search of a healer to fix said tentacle-arms. They're hounded on the way by the dogmatic hunters of aberrants, who don't take too kindly to runewriters in general (and specifically to shapeshifting ones like Sev,) and soon fall in with a famous necromancer.
Runewriters is on hiatus all year, due to the artist's personal life, but there's well over a hundred pages up already.