Recently I made a post saying that I had stopped reading Questionable Content because of the creator’s tendency to make me extremely annoyed. It was really my last connection to the world that brought me into making a comic myself after resisting it for decades. I didn’t read it for about a month and then I found that it left too big a hole in me. Jeph Jacques may be a mouthy, pseudo-intellectual dickhead, but I don’t think he’s evil. At the very least there is some part of him that makes art that resonates with me in a way that I didn’t want to give up. I suspect that he would not give me the same grace. In fact, I suspect that if he ever met me he would tell me not to read his work, and I guess I just have to be okay with that. Even if he makes every character a gay space robot, or whatever random ass thing he comes up with, I want to see it to the bitter end. I suspect that anyone reading this blog understands the desire for the little ritual of going to read your webcomics for the day, or week, or whatever posting schedule you are attuned to. PVP sputtered out as Scott Kurtz flailed around in his life for a while and seems to have never recovered. It has one of the best romance arcs I’ve ever read in any media. It evolved a lot over time, but it seemed like he fell out of love with it. I think you need to be in love with the world you create to do a good job at it. It’s possible to keep a zombie strip like Garfield going forever, but if no one is passionate about it anywhere in the process it’s just a giest roaming the landscape. Starslip Crisis ended naturally and Kris Straub moved on to projects that weren’t for me. Penny Arcade evolved over time into something I couldn’t understand half the time. They were immersed in gaming culture in a way someone who works all the time can’t be. When I look at it now the art is repellent. Which is fine, that’s clearly an artistic choice and I don’t require all media to be tailored to my tastes. I simply find no value or beauty in it. There was a time when it really resonated with me though. Shortpacked ended naturally after evolving into something right on the edge of being intolerable. I read Dumbing Of Age for a while but Willis’s evolution as a creator eventually became so repellant I found I couldn’t stand it anymore. That felt like a real loss at the time because at one point I really resonated with his work. Homestuck barely even counts as a webcomic in its original form. It is so sad that you can’t experience it as it was intended anymore. I came in late to that party. Homestuck was probably the last archive dive I ever did. For all I know it’s the last one I will ever do. It was quite a trip though. In some places it was more like a book than a comic, with the endless chat logs and whatnot. Sometimes it was a game. Sometimes interactive media. It really pushed the envelope and I’m glad I experienced it in its true form. Practically every other webcomic I ever followed just stopped one day. No fanfare, it just stopped and no explanation was given. Then the site disappeared. Some sputtered along until the creators finally gave up, but they keep the archives alive in some way, and sometimes mention wanting to go back to it someday. In any case the long and short of all of that is I couldn’t bear to let this part of my life fade to nothing just yet. I needed one last connection to the world that brought me here. Needed it. I bring it all up now because the Questionable Content site was hacked. The archive is out of commission and I don’t even think the current pages are up on the stopgap page he put up. In spite of everything this thing I have a complex relationship with, that I was bereft without, got taken away regardless. I suspect it will come back eventually. He’s not done telling his story, and I assume it’s still his primary income anyway. I could become a patron, but that is a line I don’t want to cross. I’ve been a patron of other comics, but not his. The adversarial feelings I have toward him have always stopped me from taking that step. And you don’t have to tell me that this gay feud I have with him is one-sided. I know that. I know he doesn’t give even one shit about me, my opinions, or if I read his comic or not. That is not the point. I’m not sure I am even capable of articulating what the point is, but I know it’s not that.

I recently got an amazing deal on digital versions of the entire Peanuts catalog of work. If the name doesn’t mean anything to you it’s the comic that Charlie Brown and Snoopy come from. It started in 1952 I think and ran until the death of the creator in 2000. In fact, he died the day after the final strip was published. I’ve referenced it many times in my own work, even if most people don’t pick up on it. The thing is I never had access to the entire thing. I read some very old collections in various libraries, but now I’m working through the entire life’s work of Charles Schulz. There were, until now, huge gaps in my understanding of the work as a whole. It’s been extremely interesting starting from day one. When the strip started kids still played Marbles. No man had ever set foot on the moon. World War two had ended 7 years before it started. By the time I appeared in the 70s the strip was more or less what it was by the time it ended. Although it evolved throughout its run. In the beginning Snoopy wasn’t clearly anyone’s dog. In fact it isn’t even established that Charlie Brown is connected to him in any meaningful way until years into the strip. Many characters are introduced as babies and then grow up to their continually depicted ages and age no more. Linus, Lucy, Schroder, Sally, all begin as babies and have a baby arc before becoming kid cast members. In fact the early cast is comprised of Charlie Brown, Shermy, Patty, Violet, and Snoopy. Schroder joins as the first baby, followed by Lucy. Pig Pen simply appears one day. Another character Charlotte Braun appears in a few strips and then disappears, I assume, forever. The kids listen to the radio in the early strips before televisions begin appearing. There is talk of Sputnik briefly at one point. It is, obviously, of its time. Time moves on but the kids never age past a certain point. Of course that’s pretty normal in various forms of media. Like how Bart Simpson is perpetually in 4th grade, or Stewie Griffin is always a baby. It’s just thrown into a much starker contrast since the era Peanuts starts in is when so many everyday technologies were in their infancy if they existed at all. Setting all that aside the strip is extremely low key. It’s mostly just the kids talking and making wry observations. Nothing much happens, and yet I keep reading. I like that kind of content and clearly I emulate it in some way. I enjoy watching these characters noodle around while not much happens. One thing I will say though is that I didn’t remember Charlie Brown being such a pathetic character. By the time I came in he wasn’t quite so mopey I guess. Also, I didn’t remember the girls being so outright mean. They treat him horribly. Patty and Violet in particular, but eventually Lucy as well. I should mention that Patty isn’t the same character as Peppermint Patty, who hasn’t even been introduced yet. I suspect that Patty will have mostly disappeared from the strip by the time Peppermint Patty comes along. I’m still in the early days but already Violet, Patty, and Shermy are appearing less and less. I know that over time some characters cycle out and are basically never seen again. Shermy was already so minor by the time I started reading in the 80s that most people didn’t know his name if he appeared in group shots in the TV specials. One thing I recently noticed is that Snoopy mentions being and “only dog” at one point, implying that he has no siblings. Of course at some point it is revealed that he has several and I’m wondering if Schulz just forgot or if it gets explained later. I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Anyway I felt somehow better about my work after I got into reading Peanuts again. Nothing happens and yet it makes me happy to read it, so it must be the same for people who keep coming back here. On some level I already knew that, but having it illustrated to me in this way made it feel more real than it usually does. Sometimes it’s just nice to read nice stories. In any case I’ve wasted enough of your time with my writing for today. I hope you have a nice Monday. If you are one of those people who enjoy my work please consider becoming a patron in whatever way suits you best. I will return on Wednesday with more. Until then, don’t let them pull the football away.

130 Comments

Are you….saying you hate the other webcomics going LGBTQ?

Why would you ask that? Is this the first time you’ve been here?

This sounds like someone who hasn’t really read Between failures at all

What a take to be had here of all places

It’s really irritating. I was harboring errant gays on my couch before most of these little shits existed. Back when they used to drag them behind pickup trucks.

Sorry about that. I’m still a fan of those webcomics and the authors as well as yours, and I’m struggling to understand why you fell out with them and can’t read their comics.

If you enjoy them then my opinions matter not a jot. You are allowed to like things I don’t. I didn’t say I wanted them to stop. I just stopped enjoying them. And not that it matters but I’ve never been friends with any of those creators. Some of them have treated me well, and some have treated me poorly. That doesn’t mean I begrudge them making their own art.

What is it about Willis that you find repellant?

I personally still enjoy them all. The ones that didn’t end or die, or that I never got involved with in the first place. Which I think is only Homestuck… Penny Arcade I read only very sporadically. Scott Kurtz is the one person that nearly drove me away even before his comic died. That guy can be very opinionated and thinks far too highly of himself.

I keep telling myself that as long as I enjoy the work, I don’t have to care about the creator. (Well, unless it’s Tim Buckley, but enough said about that douche.)

Not that I feel that way about any of the remaining ones. QC, DoA, EGS, and here. I’ve disagreed with all of the creators on occasion, including you, but you all still seem like good people at the end of the day.

I hope Jeff gets his site back.

Willis has been pretty hostile towards a section of his fanbase who feels that he’s making his characters act out of character. He’s hired a mod that does not permit criticism, which has driven away some of his long time commenters who are more afraid to post for fear of getting banned. There’s plenty more to dislike.

I think I understand what you mean with most of those webcomics, I read most of them myself growing up and still read a few now as an adult. I’m a writer myself, and god damn are they just not even trying anymore. It’s become a product more than a passion. And that’s fair, but it’s not as enjoyable.

They started from humble origins and a lot of the have kind of…lost the plot? Not plot-wise, mind, but the authors themselves. They got big, famous, rich in some cases, they fell into their own echo chambers and now think themselves better than everyone in some ways.

It’s common enough of a phenomenon with creators that make it, but that doesn’t make it palatable. Willis can write a good story but FUCK is he insufferable as a person and entirely up his own arse half the time. Jacques is similar, but much more toned down. He mostly just feels like he is…doing whatever with his comic now, like he has no actual plan for it other than ‘keep it going’. It’s been running a long time and now he just sort of phones it in, writes new plot lines the day of, it’s his job not his passion. Things just sort of happen now, characters show up and disappear, nothing really matters or develops. It’s functionally become a new webcomic, kind of like the shift from shortpacked to DoA, same characters but that’s it.

I still catch up on them from time to time but damn are they just..kind of flat now? The original passion is gone. Willis has his comic written months in advance and spends the time winking coyly at his audience. Jacques has become garfield with more characters. The others at least knew when to END. These just persist in agonizing fashion.

Meanwhile, you can look at something like Vattu by Rice-Boy. He wrote four distinct books, had a plan, had an end. Kept his schedule too, generally speaking! I know nothing about the author, mind, but their work sticks with me to this day, it was clearly something THEY cared about.

“I was harboring errant gays on my couch before most of these little shits existed. Back when they used to drag them behind pickup trucks.”

Okays, hold on thar..
THANK YOU, seriously thank you for being someone who does that and feels that.
I’m cis, but my youngest daughtr is not, the world is not kind a lot of the time.
So thank you so much for the integrity you have and being there for someone who needed it.

I came for the comics, but a big part of why I stay and subscribe on the patron is you as a person. Because you are decent, and human, and make mistakes then own them, and are relentlessly kind in the right ways.
Sure I want to keep seeing the new pages, but I also want to help keep your voice here, because its important and valuable.

Jackie, I’ve been a fan forever now, but it’s messages like this that remind me why. ??

Long time reader first time commenter? Your long time affair with other webcomic creators really struck me. I cant really speak to the others as i read them in passing and didnt get too invested, but Penny-Arcade, I did and I agree with most of the sentiment. I do agree that the only way you can really follow alot of it is if you have enough disposable time for the hobby, which I personally havent had for about 8 years now. Some of it does make enough when when they talk about things that make a big enough media frenzy even I can see it from my sealed work silo. By any chance though did you ever read a strip called Sinfest? It was around since the late nineties and was a social editorial cartoon maserading as a webcomic. It was pretty cheill for decades taking jabs at all things religion and then politics. The writer Tatsuya Ishidia played both sides of the divide with a personal prefrence for Buddhism. I was quite allright with the jabs he gave on both the left and the right(because we cant live in political silos) but a few years back he started delving hard into conspiracy theories and giving even some of the more abhorrent ones oxygen. People were calling him out for it on the forums he had but he didnt really give them any rhyme or reason why the change of direction. Eventually the strip started being a lot less funnier and thought provoking to unabashedly anti-semetic and now its a straight up Nazi fan fiction. I stopped reading when it looked like he was really serious about this anti semetic stuff and occasionally look back to see if the Nazi fever has broken, but its still going strong. I bring all this up because of all the webcomic creator heel turns you have describes in your blogs, this one takes the cake.
Regardless, since im here keep up the fantastic work. To me you still hold the record of most meaningful shift in tone and themes of a webcomic on the strip that switched from monotone to color. Just know you have people from far and wide coming every MWF to your wonderful stories of life, love, loss and everything in between.

Personally, I’d say the problem isn’t that QC had gay characters. It had gay characters almost from day 1. It’s how MANY there are, and how central it became to so much of the story, that many other characters just got cut out of the comic entirely because he was busy telling us about ANOTHER lesbian. It started to feel a little icky, to be honest, like some sort of weird fetish. And the ones who aren’t gay, or trans, or non-binary, or whatever, were just increasingly weird. They didn’t seem like people anymore, even quirky people; they seemed like lolsorandom humor in human form.

QC was created by a guy in Northampton MA, and is set there. I live a few counties away, and can tell you that he is writing about the place and people he knows, accurately.

It’s akin to writing about west Texas and having oil wells, high school football, and many multilingual English/Spanish speakers.

Except for the robots. Those, I think he’s making up.

I don’t understand the relevance of your response. I am not criticizing the culture he depicts, the coffee shop, the bad haircuts, the indie music, or any of that stuff; that was all fine, I enjoyed it. I’m talking the way he writes, how characters like Penny and Raven and Steve and so many others were just ejected from the story for increasingly bizarre characters and plotlines. He doesn’t just have robots, they are increasingly central to the story. I liked Faye and Bubbles’ story, in isolation, but it really started to feel like “WTF is happening now?” between that, Momo’s development, Hanners and Martin going to a space station–like, what?

Certain webcomics have this inverse nominative determinism thing going on. Homestuck is about grand adventures. Between Failures is actually pretty positive most of the time, but Something Positive is depressing as hell. Dumbing of Age characters will never actually grow up because comic time is so slow. Questionable Content illustrates this perfectly; it’s become completely insipid.

Something Positive is like the world’s longest suicide note. I couldn’t get past the depression density.

Honestly I suspect Randy would love this take. The man talks openly and honestly about his depression and his coping mechanisms. I know it’s not for everyone but I love it, and honestly it’s the only webcomic I know that’s handled the passage of time really well, there’s no slippage or ‘constant now’ just people getting older, growing up, having kids who grow up, dealing with parents dying. Good stuff for me.
But really I get not being able to get past the depression density, I mean really ‘Rippy the Razor’? that’s some bleak stuff.

I only got into Something Positive through a crossover. I’ve read what was before that, and the edgy jokes weren’t really great, but my starting point was the crossover between SP and Queen of Wands, when the characters were far more mentally healthy.

Still horrible, but less so.

I’ve said that I had no interest in watching It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia because I’d already read about the adventures of that group, and I didn’t have the energy to watch it a second time.

Aeire’s work was always good stuff. We used to run around the same circles, decades ago.

Something positive got less depressing at some point (though I think the strips are also coming out less often, like once a week at most). He’s also doing the Sunday Popeye comics now, which was apparently a dream of his for a while. I check on them every so often. Apparently there’s a lot of weird Popeye lore that never showed up in the cartoons.

For a while is kind of an understatement, if he’s not exaggerating about considering it a win against his… first grade teacher, I think? Who insisted he would never manage it.

I used to read all kinds of webcomics but now I’m down to yours, Dumbing of Age, Questionable Content and Gunnerkrigg Court. I eagerly wait for yours to drop. I catch up on the others when I think about it because those keep getting less interesting and involving as the years go by. You’re doing great work. :-)

You are very kind to say so.

As Between Failures and Questionable Content are two of the small handful of comics I still read on the regular, I am kind of curious how QC annoys you. Is it the creator or the comic. Jeph has posted some commentaries and a few comics that I certainly did not agree with, not enough to leave, but enough to notice. Also I love your description of Something Positive, it fits perfectly.

I feel like I was pretty clear which thing annoyed me. I expressly stated I felt a longing for the comic after I attempted to abandon it.

John’s current, [problem?], reminds me of a comedy routine, between Edgar Bergen + Charlie McCarthy…[his ventriloquist’s dummy]:

Edgar is looking at cards, to tell Charlie’s future.

Charlie sees a pretty waitress go by, and says,
“OH YEAH! Pant! Pant! Pant!”

Edgar, looking at the fortune telling cards says: “It looks like you’re going to get into some trouble”.

And Charlie replies: “Yeah! But I think it’s WORTH IT!”

Dumbing of Age kind of lost me with the current storyline about Joyce and Dorothy. Not because they’re gay or bi or whatever, but because it just seems so out of character to at least not break up with the men they’re purportedly with/pursuing. Or at least for there not to be consequences.

Ngl I stopped reading it at the same time for the same reason, but also bc I was sort of convinced that Willis threw a genuinely beautiful character progression and romance (Joyce+Joe) out because everyone wanted two very straught girls to be in love, and it really rubbed me the wrong way. I hope that arc ends with them realizing they trauma bonded and are way too obsessed with each other for it to be a healthy relationship. Also the fans over there gross me the eff out.

This.

The storyline between Joyce and Dorothy really threw me off, because of how callously Joe and Walky were treated in the storyline.

While the majority of the commenters were celebrating the guys getting dumped with their favorite “ship” finally realized.

It just seemed so forced and out of character. I’m kind of meh, about it now.

Still reading DoA, but on a low burner. Wasn’t so much for the Joyce+Dorothy+Joe love triangle, but more for the wanting to comment and participate in the discussions but not being able to, because my comments stay in a perpetual “awaiting moderation” state and Willis is unreachable to rectify it or even tell me why. Kinda took the glow off of it.
Despite that, the Joyce going gay for Dorothy does seem kind of forced, but still was a long way coming. The signs were there from when Dorothy cared for Joyce after she got roofied.

QC is somewhat too predictable as in I find Marten a wishy-washy tool and I really don’t see anything evolving for him anytime soon, so when he and Claire got their relationship in a rut due to her emotional and physical unavailability I knew it would pan out something like it did. Him cheating on her in a drunk mood with Evanescense for example would be the typical thing for a guy in his position: he’d still not be in the headspace of leaving her, but an objectively attractive female (AI be damned) willingly offering him some emotional comfort would lead to some physical interactions. In that regards he was really safe with getting drunk with the little Goblin, even though I would suspect her to try and seduce him because she might have a little crush.

Between Failures is one of my favorite comics, and I’d hate to see it end one day. Can’t find anything negative about it, really… so you got a good thing going on, @Jackie.

Besides all this there’s only one or two other webcomics with a very heavy theme, which are Ma3/Pixie Trix Comics and Misfile. The former lost my attention on the sequel because there’s one character that’s just so oblivious to a point that it’s unrealistic. Being slightly androgenic and thinking wearing women’s clothes makes you more manly and having sex with another man is just ‘broing out’ is just too much unreal coping. So much so that he keeps getting himself in situations where any person would think “waaaait-a-minuuute!”

Misfile is almost starting to fall away for me because of the way the creator goes about their venting. This can scare away a lot of people, especially if you set your site up so that you can’t provide comments with your updates. Might sound really insensitive from me, but when the ‘flow of the story’ constantly gets interrupted because of politics, you scare away people. Because your webcomic is usually also an escape from reality for your readers… in that regards Jackie got this covered nicely too. The people that truly care will read the comment guiding the updates anyway.

I used to enjoy The Other Grey Meat (in which I cameo’d as a security guard near the end xD) which sadly ended, but the archive is still up, so I might do a re-read soon.

I feel with Jackie that a lot of comics just died out without any updates from the creators, mainly because life got in their way (Gregor, Magellan were my favorites) which is sad in its own way: not even finding time to update your followers with a little post.

I’m low-key convinced they don’t allow new commenters anymore because that’s another reason I left. Glad it’s not just me. I don’t even comment negative things either, so I thought it was weird.
I still check once in a while to see if anything interesting is going on, but the attitude over there broadly is grossly sycophantic.

Oh yeah, Misfile. I liked the original Misfile, but he clearly got tired of it, rushed the ending in a way that contradicted previous setup, and had a copout conclusion. The other one, Six Gun Mage or whatever it was called, same thing; I enjoyed it, it was progressing nicely, then he just deleted most of the villains so the heroes could win in an afternoon. That comic ended but then continued in like a second volume that was very strange, while the Misfile-in-hell thing likewise just felt…off. I didn’t feel like there was a hook for either of these stories, it was just “stuff happening.”

And to dj, yeah, I don’t think writers are trying to exclusively do lesbians, they just feel like it’s easier to write as straight men; they’re men, they know what they find attractive in women, so they write two women who find the same things attractive. And also, like it or not, it’s a fact that alot of dudes would stop reading if they drew men snogging.

The Misfile-in-Hell does seem to be a direct sequel to Misfile. Where the ending directly results in a corrective purge of the Filing System. I still feel there’s a plot going and not just a “let things happen” but their real world issues are bleeding into the comic a lot.

Talking about killing off characters: Oglaf killing off the Apprentice and going for a gag-a-day style kind of ruined it for me.
That storyline wasn’t much of a story to begin with, but it was the only sense of continuity the comic had.

Wow, all this discussion of webcomic entry points is getting me nostalgic. I think the first webcomic I ever read was an old keenspace comic about demons or something. It disappeared years ago. Then I spread over into keenspot, with GPF, Devil’s Panties, and Everything Jake. The last of which is actually still on keenspot though it sputtered out a decade or more ago. Sluggy Freelance was a regular read for many years, and I’ve tried to catch up once or twice but never managed it. Shock Mercenary ended a while ago and I enjoyed that finale. The Perry Bible Fellowship still throws up an update from time to time. Dresden Codak has changed a lot over time, as has its author.

It’s been neat seeing a number of creators come back in other ways. I started reading Strong Female Protagonist back when it was actively updating, and it took a while for me to realize Brennan Lee Mulligan of college humor and now dropout have was the writer on that. Ian Jones Quartey made RPG World on Keenspot back in the day, and then had a solid career at Cartoon Network. Seeing the Hero pop up as a toy in Steven Universe, and then finally get a proper ending in his own show, Ok Go, blew my mind a bit. And I recently realized that a comic I was reading on webtoon is by the same creator as the seraph inn and its comics. and man do I still feel conflicted about webtoon.

There were even a few webcomics that got adapted into movies, though i think the movies all ended up pretty mediocre. I searched to reading by RSS back when Google reader was still a thing, and I still keep up with Girl Genius, Gunnerkrig Court, Well finish Shive, Dining of Age, whatever John Allison’s latest webcomic is. Webcomics as a genre sure have changed over the decades.

I think I’ve mentioned this in a comment here before, but I want to join the chorus of other voices saying how glad they are that this comic is still running. Long ago I was a very ambitious young person, almost all of which fell apart for me rather anticlimactically. I have a great love for many of my regular reads, but this comic, in particular, and its characters’ shenanigans played a big part in keeping me going when my life plans fell apart, and helping me see the value and joy in the small, human aspects of what make life worth living.

Well that wasn’t supposed to be a reply to a specific comment. Oh well. I also missed the typos on what would have been El Goonish Shive and Dumbing of Age.

When you read enough webcomics (and it sounds like you do!), it becomes obvious that when a comic is LGBTQ friendly, what they really are is L friendly. It’s not catering OR pandering to LGBTQ readers, it’s just the L, because d00ds like Lesbian romance. They won’t admit it, they’ll even say it grosses them out, but a lot of lesbian romance is aimed at dudes. It’s not catered to women, or the LGBTQ community, it’s hot lesbians in skin tight clothes wearing thigh highs and heels, constantly making out. This is (honestly) why I appreciate Jackie’s representation of Jo and Ed’s sister’s relationship. They’re just two normal people, in a (weird) but normal relationship, with normal people problems. He doesn’t over-write it, doesn’t overplay it, and it’s not the “hot girls” (though they are cute/attractive in their own ways). They’re not constantly pawing at each other and pandering to the male audience. In short… it’s realistic, and doesn’t take away from the story. It’s not there to be spectacle, it’s just two realistic people doing what they do. A lot (A LOT) of webcomics (and media, honestly) fail spectacularly at this.

About 15 years ago I started reading this comic, QC, Dumbing, Bittersweet Candy Bowl, and Wilde Life. I still keep up with all five, but Between Failures and Wilde Life are the only ones I actively enjoy and look forward to out of more than just habit. The other three I’ve either aged out of, or they have jumped the shark – but you and Pascalle Lepas have created enduring and possibly timeless works, in my opinion.

I also want to shout out Octopus Pie which has been finished for many years, but I think that is a great example of a comic that ended its story when it was ready and has enduring appeal.

I had to look up O Pie because I convinced myself I was misremembering the title. I remember when it ended. I’m still not sure how I feel about that series as a whole but there is a feeling of authenticity to it that makes me unhappy.

BCB used to advertise here in the days of Project Wonderful. I always enjoyed their ads.

I still read QC, Sluggy Freelance, Gunnerkrigg Court, and this awesome slice of life comic. Others .

Go Get a Roomie, ended

Girls with Slingshots, ended….epically bad takes early on. Now looking back at it, it’s… infuriating at times.

Stopped reading the Devils Panties, when the creator went all in on certain political subjects and made it the whole personality. She’s allowed to do whatever she wants so that’s her right.

Rock Cocks, still going strong after a reboot. Blaster Nation, ended and terribly so.

The triumvirate of Scout Crossing, Motokool and Nerf This! (All three supposedly in the same universe), completely abandoned and disappeared from the Internet for whatever reason. That guy did some artwork for game cards but I’ve not seen anymore of his distinctive stuff

Side Quested, same author as A Girl and Her Fed which ended. Same artist as the 2nd act of AGAHF.

XKCD is still going on, and I like it.

Menage A Trois/Sticky Dilly Buns/Pixie Trix Comics,/Eerie Cuties/Sandra On the Rocks/Magick Chicks/ and more… Interesting but basically it’s all sex comedy and hijinks. Cringey at times.

Lately I’ve been looking more into manga, though some titles are ridiculous. X/Twitter/Bluesky always seem to have people hating on a lot of these mangas and animes for whatever reasons.

Wow.. I felt like me remembering Scout and Nerf was some form of fever dream.

I was so looking forward to where they were going.. and now I suppose we will never know…

It’s a terrible shame. Loved those comics and now the website for them has been down for a long time.

Some of the Scout Crossing comics are accessible if you look with the way back machine, but it’s finicky to get working and not all of them are there sadly

GGaR’s author has been doing a new webcomic, called Pia and the Little Tiny Things, and it’s dreamy and odd and dark and cute and unsettling and pretty, and if you like GGaR I recommend it!

It would appear that John is now in danger of being hunted by two available women.

Lucky guy.

In other news, I’ve been a steady reader of this series since about 2012.

I’ve read a lot of others, but this is one I always look forward to.

I’ll keep reading as long as you keep continue the series.

Excited for John to finally start his harem arc, if this is what its all building towards xD lots of romance going on for the characters.

Really glad you haven’t lost interest in your world. This small slice of life comic is like a warm fire and a hot chocolate in the landscape of media. Hasn’t jumped the shark like QC, just remains about people living life and the power of friendship and having hobbies. Glad you’re still writing and drawing man, in spite of everything. Its been wonderful and I still really want to see where every characters journey goes.

I recall reading QC. Don’t recall why I stopped reading it.

Don’t recall when I stopped reading PVP, as I enjoyed the comic. I’m going to guess it stopped updating or something.

One web comic I really miss is, Shotgun Shuffle. Loved it. I guess it got ended because of harassment from people though.

Still read quite a few and willing to pick up new ones if they strike my eye.

Shotgun shuffle was so fun….

Shotgun Shuffle was brilliant. I only wish he’d gotten farther instead of being so obsessed over the art that it slowed the process to glacial levels.

The comments section made up for that. I still remember going the rounds with Mr. Blue and the Sister Simulation.

Shotgun Shuffle was one of my favourites, and reading the comments is half of the fun. I’ve been on the Patreon and he “Intends” to reboot it, but is also dealing with a lot of health stuff.

I used to be on the patreon, but after being on it for so long and there was no updates and nothing showing for it BEFORE it was officially shut down, I had to stop it and move on to someone else to support. Just sad I can’t support them all.

I do await word of the comic restarting on their old discord tho :)

Yup love and still miss it and I remember reading all the comments.

I remember when I quit QC, after what felt like focus on the main character after literal years wound up being yet another tangent into a world that had no place in the story. All my favorite characters in that strip kept getting sidelined for increasingly flimsy and vague reasons, to the point of getting bussed to the other side of the globe in some cases. It just got tiresome to check in every day and see that what I hoped for was further out of reach.

I think the reason I stick around here, weirdly enough, is that even if I’m not getting exactly what I want in the moment (bring back Ed and Nina for the love of God), there’s a sense of belonging in every interaction. No one feels left out, we’re just not with them at the moment. This story feels like one of the last ones left where the characters and ideas feel like something the author genuinely cares about, like we’re getting a glimpse of his heart and not just some mask of slogans and demands at a pulpit. There’s genuine enthusiasm for each moment, maybe quiet and subtle, but unreserved and unabashed. I’d go so far as to say that the care that’s still being put into this whole project has kept the best elements consistent without making it obvious. It ain’t perfect, because nothing is, but it’s brilliant. Well done, sir. Stay the course.

Like what you like, love who you love, believe what you believe and let’s all help each other if we’re starving. Having said that, Dumbing of Age is hard to read because preaching AGAINST things is somehow always preachier than actually preaching things. And since he hates anything he disagrees with, it’s just extremely preachy. But he’s not the one with an agenda. By the time I quit I felt like the comic was being written by an anthropomorphic perpetually turtled phallus just making rage bait instead of art.

A bit tangential but I think about the webcomics that I read growing up that eventually died. White Noise, Zombie Waffe, Alien Dice, fancy adventures of Jack Cannon to name a few that I remember. I always wondered how they would have ended and where their creators are now. I also think about the few I was able to read till their end. One of the few that really stuck with me was “pictures of you” by Gibson twist. That one made me consider a lot about friends, the ones we make for life, the ones we lose as we grow and the ones we lose to life. I read maybe like 3 or 4 webcomics now, down from easily double digits.

A bit of a ramble, but I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you for your work. It has been a comfort to me for many years and I hope to see your work for many more years. I’ve been reading this since I was in high school and I’m 31 with a kid now. The sub-title “life is what happens between failures” has become a bit of a motto for my life, albeit I’ve modified it a bit to “life is what happens between failures and successes”. Thanks for your story

I’ve had a couple of webcomics’ authors get up on their soapboxes and promptly put their foots in their mouths, thinking that their audience reach entitled, nay OBLIGATED, them to reach out and share all of their ideas, no matter how hairbrained. QC was one of them. I’ve had webcomics’ authors who directly, in the comic itself, call out one side of the aisle and claim, nay DEMAND, their comic wasn’t for me or people who voted like me while directly advertising the opposing viewpoint. I continue to read one of those out of spite, taking subtle glee in the knowledge that their site traffic and ad revenue is “tainted” by my presence. And there are webcomics that I made the mistake of peeking behind the curtain of, seeing the absolute pent-up hellscape that they foster off-site, and immediately and intensely regret having done so, because their artistic work and storytelling is wonderful. I don’t look peoples’ socials up anymore. You, Jackie, are remarkably tame in that regard, at least here on your comic. I couldn’t confidently guess, let alone say, which side of the proverbial aisle you’re on and I honestly prefer that. I don’t want to know, and I don’t need to know in order to enjoy your work, and I adore your work. I went and listened to the Ballad of the Windfish after Carol’s “rendition” and it was stuck in my head for days. All of your characters feel wonderfully human, which is decidedly lacking in a lot of slice-of-life works like QC and DoA.

I think my first webcomics were Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire and El Goonish Shive. Oracle for Hire ended years ago, like properly “The End~” ended, and EGS is still going. The shift in art direction is hilarious to look at in retrospect, author has come a long way there. Another early one I recall and still read is Girl Genius. My total list today is less than ten long, but I used to have so many I needed bookmark categories to keep them organized. Now I don’t even use bookmarks to get to them. That realization is a bit saddening.

I used to read QC thrice a week like clockwork; then there were aspects that just annoyed me, Jacques himself annoyed me, and now I just check in sometimes. But I kept reading long after it stopped being fun, because it was part of my webcomic routine for so long.

So many of the webcomics I liked came to an end, or the creators got bored and had other income streams. Now I’m down to Wilde Life, BF, Girl Genius, and Qwantz. RIP MGDMT I hope Kelly Turnbull is living her best life.

Some of my earliest comic strips I recall reading were Dragon Tails (I do miss it) and 8bit Theatre. I’m sure there were a ton of others, but those are lost to my memory now.

Not sure when I found your comic, but I feel it must have been many years ago now. These days I mostly just read your comic, and begrudgingly QC (I can’t say I enjoy it, but yet there’s this morbid curiosity where I still end up reading it to see what’ll happen next).

8 Bit Theater is still awesome. I recently re-read the whole archive and laughed my ass off. I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it before. It was my first webcomic and I, for some reason, kind of assumed it would be the norm. Sadly, few comics were ever as funny or creative, and most of the ones that were died out quickly. I think Brian had an advantage in that he was following, albeit loosely, a pre-existing story. Alot of people get into webcomics because they have enough ideas for like 3-6 months of updates, but THINK they have enough ideas for years on end, so they just die off or stumble along without direction after a while.

Jackie, you deserve some credit; you can be ornery, but you admit that pretty openly and basically tell us all to expect it. This feels far better than alot of webcomic creators (and all sorts of other artists) who will seem like cool people, then out of freaking nowhere, just announce that they consider you or your grandma or whoever to basically be Satan, deserving of eternal fire. It’s so jarring that I’ve often had this response of “Oh…like, wait, you’re for real? This isn’t a bit?” Yeah, just smiling, funny people who also have a deep, seething hatred for me because I disagree on the best way to solve a socio-political problem; I can’t just be wrong, no, I have to be EVIL, complete with a musical stinger. So it’s nice that you’re very up front with the fact that sometimes you may argue with us; you do, you’ve gotten annoyed at me, I rolled with it, and I’m still a fan. You admit you’re human, act human, and treat us like humans–you don’t act like the arbiter of all morality and treat us like minions or paypigs, either directly or through your comic. It’s quite refreshing.

I had the misfortune of finding that out after a few years of being friends on Facebook with one of the webcomic creators that were open to that. Don’t care which side of the political spectrum you’re on, but if you’re generally nice to everybody but then openly post about wishing (creative, professional and/or literal) death upon people – even though most of the ‘targets’ *are* in fact despicable, deplorable and morally challenged – just because you don’t agree with their actions or political standpoints… that’s a big ick for me.

On topic to the comic: Why am I getting the feeling that the girls are going in for either a double kiss on the cheek to really fluster John, or something similar but more straightforward from either one of them (hopefully NOT Ms. Baxter as Victoria is crushing on John hard, and I’d LOVE to see Reggie’s response to John dating his sister xD)

Right when they are about to, Madison comes up. “Whatcha doing?”

I could definitely see this turning into an… *interesting* night for John and the two ladies, and then Victoria actually pursues him after the fact.

Okay, I’m awaiting that to happen, and how did I not see this?

I’ve been waiting for this to happen. This gives off all the vibes of two self-confident women circling a rather clueless man like lustful sharks.

I only know this because I’ve experienced this EXACT phenomenon once before. It wasn’t predatory or weird, they were just friends who knew what they wanted for the evening and I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Obviously, being autistic as shit and as dense as a neutron star, I had zero idea of what they wanted until they were LITERALLY kissing me.

Pulling for John here a bit, he’s gotten the short end of the stick a lot and has still taken his loss of Alex to Reggie with a shocking amount of grace for a 20-something dude. A night of being sandwich filling feels like appropriate karmic rebalancing.

He deserves a threesome because he rejected a woman crushing on him?

He deserves it as much as anyone would deserve it because people deserve happiness and hes not been an asshole to disqualify him from it?

Man I feel you… and kinda envy you for them really going forward and kiss you so they could make it happen.
Back when I was just 17 I had a similar experience, only they weren’t as forward as your friends: We literally just met on summer holiday, almost midnight, they were half-hugging each other asking me if I wanted to go to the beach with them (just them). And my dumb ass just went “I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m supposed to be back at the tent at midnight because we leave for home first thing in the morning.”

I was still a virgin at that point, so I don’t think it would be great for any of us, but still I wish I wasn’t that dense xD

Looks like you hit another “reflect and share” type of post commentaries Jackie; I remember jumping around comics a decent bit back in the day – Questionable Content, El Goonish Shive, xkcd, Multiplex, Cyanide & Happiness, Gone With the Blastwave, and countless more I’m forgetting I’m sure. Some ended and others we simply went our sperate ways; I still pop in time from time with EGS and xkcd and catch up, but the only thing at this point that has anything close to “appointment viewing” to steal from the older TV times is Between Failures, so a hat tip to you sir.

And to direct back to the comic itself will just add once again love the dynamic with these three right now, have enjoyed seeing how these three interact.

In the fairly days of webcomics I accumulated about 50 that I read regularly. As you noted, a lot of them just stopped without warning. QC I’ve read almost from the beginning and still do. I’ve long been puzzled by your dislike of him, since I’ve never seen ANY Comment section for QC (I have always read it on questionablecontent.net). It was moderately annoying that there wasn’t one, since I’ve been amused by the sturm und drang in other comics’ Comments, but it’s also happily insulated me from any flame wars. But then I can generally ignore an artist’s personal opinions if the comic’s story is interesting enough.

Recently I discovered Yours Trudy, and had the work and joy of running through its 5-year archive. It was wonderful discovering something “new” – that hadn’t happened for me in years. And I’d happily go back and reread almost any arc in the very long run of Schlock Mercenary archives, just for the storytelling and marginal comments.

I find QC weirdly amusing. I gather from comments about it on other sites that Jeph is a deranged unstable flake who is steered by fanservice, but I like that his AI characters are AT LEAST as f—ed up as his human characters. 8-D

There IS (or was) a forum on his site. I looked in once, years ago, and said Oh hell, NO!

Yeah the community was not fun to interact with, severe Tumblr syndrome. If you know, you know. Like a progressive rainbow coded version of the Westboro Baptist Church.

No comments section, but he would post updates. He posted pictures of himself fleeing the US for Canada after the excessively right-wing president was elected. You know, Obama.

I still stand by this: Questionable Content was at its peak when Marten and Dora were dating. Since they broke up, it’s been all downhill. I still check it every now and then, but all I see just confirms I was right to drop it. It’s not the comic I loved anymore.

I still check out Penny Arcade every now and then. Depends on what is big in gaming circles at the time. I don’t like the art like Ivused to, but it’s far from repellent.

I recently started reading Girl Genius again. Still great!

Yeah, that was a bummer. It also more or less started the great gayification, didn’t it?

I assume Dora’s wonderful, tiny but extremely loose wife Tai (?) is cheating on her like crazy by now. Or perhaps they are in an open marriage. Who knows?

I actually appreciated the breakup for how it played out, since Dora had been getting on my nerves for a while. I was hoping that Marten would finally get some development beyond “generic band guy who takes it easy.” Even got some hints in that direction. Then he massively devolved to the point that someone literally throwing themselves in his arms felt forced and hollow, and somehow became second string in his all-new all-better relationship AGAIN.

Questionable Content was one of the first webcomics I started reading in 08. I shuffled through some over the years (nerfnow,EGS,sam and fuzzy), but QC was the constant. Jeph eventually rubbed me the wrong way after the police robot quit because “being a cop is wrong” with no further explanation. Sister Claire I felt like I was no longer the target audience and I didn’t want to have to read the novels that the author wrote to understand what was going on in the main story (it also didn’t help that it seemed like every single character was a lesbian). Dumbing of Age I hate dropped. It didn’t help that I read into some of the garbage David Willis has said/claimed over the years. I enjoyed his comics for a while (rookies, Joyce and walky, shortpacked) but DoA genuinely missed me off with the characters.

It’s funny, because that was exactly where I quit reading Questionable Content too. It wasn’t a huge offense, but I was getting pretty fed up with Jeph’s shenanigans and it was just the final grain of sand. If he hadn’t routinely been forcing characters to act unnaturally at the time, I would have shrugged it off as a single blip in an otherwise-solid comic.

He can write very believable characters, and it is one of the things I really appreciated about his comic. Being able to write them believably also makes it much more obvious when he decides to have them act out of character, and he had started doing that rather frequently, often as a shortcut for a plot point that could be reached naturally but it would take longer than he wanted to spend on it, and it had been grating on me for a while. If it hadn’t been Random Background Character 74, it would’ve been someone else soon enough.

It was hilarious when, literally in a single-comic montage, Faye transformed into looking like a butch lesbian so he could have the romance with Bubbles. I really like Bubbles, I liked her story, I didn’t mind that Faye formed a relationship with her, but it was hilarious just how he blitzed her into “muscular lesbian in tanktop with new hair cut” in one comic so he could move into this new arc.

But it made sense in that arc; considering she quit Coffee of Doom, joined an underground Robot Fight Club to work on robots, and apparently worked there a year or so going from the montage of her working there… Of course she would get buff from handling robot parts and welding equipment. The hairdo…. Well that’s Jeph continuing his dislike for long hair? I still keep up with QC if only from morbid curiosity but yeah his politics is way out there. When he decried OBAMA as “right wing extremist”….. Yikes

When I open Chrome, there’s a row of 10 icons leading to my most frequently opened web pages. 9 of them are webcomics. The first three are Dumbing of Age, Between Failures, and Questionable Content.

I’ll say one thing for Willis – he seems to take this seriously, as a business, like a nationally syndicated newspaper cartoonist of yesteryear, more than the rest of y’all do. He’s the only one who has a cartoon up every day, Monday through Sunday (though his Sundays aren’t extra-sized like the old newspaper ones that, yes, I know still exist, but barely, but that wouldn’t work so well with the page formats with electronic delivery). And he’s mentioned recently that he’s a year ahead.

I don’t mean to say he’s the only webcartoonist that does that – I don’t know if he is or not. He’s the only one of the strips I follow that do. Some of them aren’t even regular – you may only do three days a week, but at least you do so reliably. Oglaf has problems doing one a week. Some of the rest are “visit every day, maybe there’ll be something new, maybe there won’t”

But the first three are the most important to me. The characters in all three of those strips, including yours, have become people that I care about, that I want to keep up with. I often skip your opening monologue, because frankly I’m not as interested in you as I am in the characters, and I feel that way about the other two cartoonists as well. I rarely interact with their comments sections (I don’t think QC even HAS a comments section). I just like reading the strips. It’s how I start my day, just as once upon a time I used to get the newspaper delivered every morning and would start out by reading “the funny pages,” as we used to call them

Oops. Accidentally hit enter before putting my name in. Surprised it worked

Sluggy Freelance, even with how many times the dude takes breaks for health and scripting issues… Consistently posting for well over 25 years.

On the other end of the consistency scale you have Fred Gallagher and his MegaTokyo comic. Updates whenever, sometimes once a year. Doesn’t really look good when his focus seem to be on other things

Lots of them are like that. I dropped some I was enjoying because the pacing was glacial due to the endless delays. Although Least I Could Do was very consistent, probably because they relentlessly tried to get their idea turned into an animated show.

I think it’d be funny if that was now their permanent postures – waiting at line, ordering fast food, opening doors…

Furries. Perhaps they’re trying to..you know…. Pounce on John like a couple felines

I used to check in daily to the QC Reddit thread, because I pretty much stopped reading, and at one point they had up to 3 alternate takes on it, SquirrelClamp is the best.
You’d get weekly debates on when QC lost its way that sounded like my second wife and I doing The Battle of Who Could Care Less about the earliest one of us could say our marriage was in trouble. Some said the breakup of the original couple, some said when Emily left, or the space thing, or of course suddenly robots. Lots of complaints about Claire, many just reeking of homophobia, which is too bad, because I think they are a weak character without complaining about the lack of straight humans.
I’ve read QC start to finish 3 times, and my stopping point was pulling the last stable character, Roko, into the quirky, unfunny soup of mediocrity.
There’s a site for bad webcomics, and several entries insightfully explained some specific character or logic issues that I hadn’t worked out. But as I read through their content on the wiki, I noticed 3 things: so much of the older posts were super anti gay and trans, the updates they posted years later to fix that often doubled down, and…liking something is a vulnerability they didn’t risk.
I do curate webcomics on NG, but many are risqué. A bunch that I thought were lost, or that I lost track of, wound up on ComicFury. So I check my subs there, my favorites on TWC, and about once a month I check my favorites on The Duck. Every now and then when a site hosted by and artist goes down, I might check Wayback Machine if it’s worth the effort. I tried that with a low success rate on QC’s 2000s guest artists.

View/Forview who did Cheer is on CF, I’d recommend Space Pulp. Adam-00 who did CAGEGIRL is doing a non-superhero one about soccer called Danube Pebbles. Incase finally finished Alfie, Stahlberg finished Android Blues, Jillyfoo is near the end of Saturno the Demon Eater, Sindy Anna Jones and Hollis Chester are between stories, um, lots of NSFW stuff in what I’m mentioning. Obligatory Octopus Pie mention. Wilde Life has been fun. Tonnerre, Silver Grass, and Cloudy With a Chance of Faeries cover the pride flag segments. Steeple was also fun and ended. YAFGC is the oldest Ongoing webcomic I know.

I don’t think it’s homophobic to notice a strange fixation on LOTS of lesbians in QC, at least when I quit reading. I don’t have a problem with lesbians, it was just sort of weird how he kept turning women gay–it started to feel like a weird fetish or some over-compensation.

Penelope and Wil seem to still be a thing,just off screen? On screen we still have Marigold and Dale together, essentially gone rich from V-tubing (Marigold is apparently a V-tuber), having hired May as manager, and Momo is on her third or fourth chassis, seemingly “maturing”?

Haven’t heard from Steve, whether he and Cossette are together or not. But since Marten and Claire moved to Canada, with Marten starting a coffeeshop at a really weird place known as Cubetown while Claire has taken the position of The Librarian of Cubetown … It makes sense that Steve wouldn’t feature anymore as Marten’s best friend.

Other than that, Dora and Tai are married. Bubbles and Faye are living together still, Pint-size did not move to Cubetown, so he’s still wreaking havoc on Northampton.

I think that if I’d never read Jacques political opinions I’d have been fine, but… When I quit I realized I was just reading out of habit and what had drawn me into the world had stopped a long while ago.

Schlock Mercenary was another one where the author decided, in their blog at the bottom, to go on a rant that was, essentially, “if you don’t agree with me, then you’re wrong and you should feel bad about it because *I* am infallibly correct about this!”

Jackie, I think you’re about the only Webcomic author I’m still willing to read in blog form.

Comics that just… ended that I miss: Templar Arizona disappearing and the author never even mentioning why… Count Your Sheep ended on what looks like a cliffhanger.

I would like to recommend Order of the Stick to anyone who hasn’t heard of it. It’s really slow to update, but is still making progress and nearing a likely end but it’s a good read. (For reference, I’ve been reading this, OoTS, Gunnerkrigg, Girl Genius, and Questionable Content for years.)
On the main topic of today’s comments, I would ask a retorical question to all; do you believe a story belongs to it’s creator once it’s released into the wild? There likely isn’t an answer, but this whole conversation reminds me to Ctrl+Alt+Del where the creator is basically a pedophile or Neil Gaimain, where the more that you learn–the less of a good man he is. While I stopped reading CAD, I honestly enjoyed it before the universal reboot. Now I simply ensure that my money doesn’t go to him–but in my eyes the story no longer belongs to him once it was released into the wild.
(My apologies for a lack of coherence.)

Order of the Stick was pretty funny, at least if you’re into TRPGs, but the time between strips started to regularly double so I dropped it. (But I still have the bookmark somewhere.) I classify it an example of creator burnout. In fact, I think there are at least two major events to handle before we can see THE END. A bit like One Piece, except without the Japanese work ethic.

(I can understand the Stick guy, it’s just that … I’d like to see the story wrapped up.)

Goblins was another TTRPG adjacent comic that started well then stopped being updated regularly and has gone… really odd.

To the point I quit.

I lost track of whom was who and where and just never got back to it.

…okay, just so I know…you AREN’T the same Mr. Blue from the Shotgun Shuffle comments section…are you?

Nope. I skimmed the comments aboove so I overlooked that there was another. I`ve used this name consistently here, but nowhere else.

Are you asking about intellectual property, or are you discussing the idea of separating the art from the artist? It sounds like the latter, and my answer would be precisely that there is no simple answer. It’s going to depend. Can I watch a movie knowing the lead actor is sort of a douche? Yes. Can I enjoy a movie knowing the main actor has been found guilty in court of being a terrible person and sick freak? No, probably not; I will be constantly pulled out by their face. But I can still enjoy The Naked Gun despite OJ Simpson being in them, because his character is a joke, it’s a goofy comedy, and the man is dead. It really is going to depend.

You are correct in that it is most certainly the latter. Intellectual property is a whole different discussion. While I have no issue with your comic creators, the worldwide system is twisted and broken into such an insane mess that it serves the exact opposite of its intended purpose.

I recently started reading Rigsby, WI, and I’d be curious to know what you (Jackie, or anyone else) think about it. If I’m interpreting correctly, it’s set in a similar kind of social world as Between Failures, but it’s very different stylistically. More depressing, for one, and the characters are teenagers.

I’ve read a lot of webcomics. Many have fallen by the wayside. My current list:

Schlock Mercenary (stalled)
Dungeon Crawler Carl
My Giant Nerd Boyfriend
Nerf NOW!!
Pixie Trix – Exorsisters (seems to be wrapping up)
Pixie Trix (sex comedy that’s getting a bit tedious)
BETWEEN FAILURES
Questionable Content (I’m back after an extended hiatus, we’ll see how long it lasts)

… and about 40 mangas/manhwas/etc which frankly dwarf the above.

I wonder if Jeph can recover the strips from the waybackmachine at archive.org if he didn’t take proper backups? Tedious but doable.

I had a similar experience with dumbing of age. Loved Short packed and It’s Walky, and for a time I loved Dumbing of Age. Until they did somethings with Joyce’s character arc that made me scratch my head. She has plenty of flaws and strengths as a character but eventually there came a scene that just made me feel like it was far too out of character.

He has many backups of the pages so he’s fine there at least.

He might just purge the old, it gets in the way of whatever new ideology he thinks is in this minute. Can’t argue the characters are out of character if their old thoughts and actions are purged.

Hi all – Back in my day webcomics were just a part of my internet surfing (remember that term, eh?). I enjoyed reading Slate and the Atlantic and followed Homestar Runner and other old Flash animation stuff. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more love for Girl Genius – technically this started as a print comic, but the archives have 20 years or so of comics and although it’s been on a bit of a romantic treadmill with the main characters, it’s well-drawn and a lot of fun to follow. Plus the author drew the Phil and Dixie comics in the old Dragon magazine, so there was some nostalgia for me in finding it again. I think at this point it’s all gone or behind paywalls (or on Youtube), but Between Failures keeps on keepin’ on – thanks Jackie!

By random chance, I read another comic where you can almost draw a line from Between Failures to QC and then onward and hit somewhere around … Scott Pilgrim.

This was never an endless web comic, it’s six volumes and then we’re done, but the mood is something like QC: contemporary with weird gaming and fantasy inserts that are never explained. If you find QC characters annoying, know that Scott Pilgrim is 10x worse than anyone else. I had read it once before but at that time I was hung up on the girlfriend with her seven evil ex-boyfriends. This time around I thought Scott himself was nearly the bad guy. He’s some sort of spindly useless eater, except he’s somehow excellent at fighting and the girls love love love him. Still, it’s well-drawn and the dialogue is quite good.

Scott Pilgrim ended up with a ton of books sold and a movie. Probably the best case result for nearly all comics.

Scott Pilgrim is absolutely not a good guy, but it’s all from his perspective and he’s really self centered. So it’s harder to notice. He might get less so over time, as he realizes this about himself, but I don’t think he ever leaves the villain protagonist category. That said, the ex-boyfriends aren’t really that great either.

I used to have a list as long as my arm of different comics I’d read every day, then the pandemic happened and I fell into a bad depression and stopped reading all of them. In the last couple years I’ve started to pick some of them back up and get caught up again. QC is by far my longest read even before stopping, quickly followed by this (which when I went to get caught up on it, I just went all the way back to square 1 and re-read the whole thing so I wouldn’t forget anything). The only other one I really keep up with now is one I discovered recently called Behold the Scruffs which almost stopped entirely a few months back.

I used to be caught up with LFG, Dumbing of Age, Whomp!, Gunnerkrig Court, Birds and Nerds, MGDMT (RIP), Awkward Zombie, Bittersweet Candy Bowl, Paranatural, Johnny Wander, Monsterkind, Table Titans, d20 Monkey, Three Panel Soul, and about 20-30 different comics on Webtoons. Now I’m down to 3, and trying to get caught up with all those again is so daunting, or impossible in a lot of cases. I logged in to Webtoons recently and a lot of the comics finished and are now no longer available to be read for some stupid reason.

It was a real scare when I went to read QC on Friday and the site gave a 404 error, though he said on Bluesky that his server guy said everything should be back up and good to go by this week.

For old webtoons I think you can usually read 1/day for free through the app (though that can be annoying), or you can find an alternative source.

In regards to the comic: Being flanked by flirty furry girls is just telling me to root for the “Poly-cool” even more and I’m jealous of John having the attentions of both the ladies I really like XD

In regards to the blog: The only survivors of my original webcomic bookmarks to remain in my regular rotation are Between Failures, Questionable Content, Dominic Deegan, and Kevin & Kel. I find them all enjoyable for their own reasons, but mostly I enjoy various story aspects.

Reading through the comments, I’m seeing a lot of Webcomics I followed for atleast some time, 8-bit Theater was my first, and I feel is still a fun read.

One I haven’t seen mentioned was Templar, Arizona, which I remember catching my attention back in the day, but I never got sound to finishing. I feel like I ought to.

I also was once a happy follower of Sinfest, which was a strange little webcomic in the style of Calvin and Hobbes with some real charm. And which I have recently discovered has become the authors personal soapbox for hate speech. That was a very distressing discovery.

I keep thinking he’s going somewhere with that but the longer it goes the more I think he might just believe what he’s saying. At one point he was really far left and now it seems like he swung hard the other way, but given his history I just can’t believe it isn’t some elaborate bit he’s doing.

At one point I also thought it was going to be some big hoax of his, but this has been going on for years, and the level of hate he’s sunk into it and the messages he’s given air to, would not be washed away by any “it was all a joke” statement.

The level to which that author has fallen is a big reason I still appreciate having this webcomic being the heartwarming little slice of life that it is.

I think I’ve mentioned that Sluggy Freelance was my first, but I don’t think I have mentioned how I got there.

Back in January of 2016, I was reading about Cerebus Syndrome on TVtropes. This led me to Cerebus rollercoaster, the page image for which was Sluggy Freelance. From there I just started reading any webcomic I stumbled upon.

Now it’s just Sluggy Freelance and Between Failures.

I used to love QC, but these days I forget it existed for, like, two weeks at a time, then read it in one go, just because I, like you, see it as a connection to a part of my life that doesn’t exist.

Between Failures, on the other hand, I never miss an update for. Been reading since it was in black and white, and still find it as good. Keep it up, Jackie

Keep up the good work, Jackie.

If you’re looking for a web comic, I haven’t seen Freefall mentioned by anyone else. Several thousand strips, still updated 3x/week, and I know literally nothing about the author except that I enjoy their work.

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

Huh, funnily to enough I like both your comic and QC for almost identical reasons. They are stories about people trying to exist, I like that there isn’t a threat to deal with and people are just kinda exploring what they can do for and get from the world. I do find it strange you’d assume the creator would hate you but I’m going to assume that might have a lot to do with why you see him as pretentious and self absorbed. For what it’s worth I appreciate as a fan of QC you seeming to hold…empathy for the whole hacking situation. For anyone curious his personal website has the last bit of the comic right now so if anyone like me enjoys both it’s still updating.

It’s fairly easy to extrapolate a reaction when you are presented with so much evidence of similar reactions. I almost never get along with other creatives.

I’m still so mad about the ending of Stand Still Stay Silent. It was an incredible webcomic that died because the author allegedly went nuts on religion that supposedly conflicted with the webcomic she was creating. Such a shame.

My list of webcomics ordered by “how much a look forward to an update”:
1. Between Failures
2. Freefall
3. Grrl Power
4. Kill 6 Billion Demons
5. Goblins
6. Dragon Mango
7. Penny Arcade
8. Darkwynd Chronicles
9. Sluggy Freelance
10. O Sarilho
11. Swords and Sausages
12. Geek Fortress
13. XKCD
14. The Order of the Stick
15. SMBC

I like webcomics and I apologise for nothing.

I also like webcomics, my bookmark folder is around 150 entries. Thanks for the comic list, there are a few I am not familiar with, so yay, new comics to check out.

I think the “professional” look and consumer social media, killed webcomics. I followed so many back in the 00s early 10s. Most were scanned pencils, or crude digital scetches, or beautyful art and experiments. They focused on telling the story or using the media. And engaging in the community.
Then more and more standardization arrived.
It became more like printed comics. More sellable.
Yhe forums and dashboards went away, and people became used to a feed feeding them. Not creating together.
And that has killed the core of welcoming.

Feel like chiming in on what became the main discussion, as someone who just discovered Between Failures about three months ago and blitzed a full archive read in about a week, before formally adding it to the rotation. I’ve definitely gone through a few webcomics over the past couple decades, with all sorts of results.

Caveats: I am a HEAVY reader, if I like a webcomic I have no problem doing a full archive dive to catch up, but at the same time I usually stay casual as far as characters/storylines go. It’s not my story, it’s the author’s. For me to dump/abandon a webcomic means it’s completely lost my interest, and that rarely takes less than months of poor decisions or a change so drastic/horrible that it no longer looks like the webcomic I originally read.

Still read:
-MTWTF – Questionable Content. Yeah, it’s not what it started as, but it’s never pushed me to say “Well, this sucks too much to read”, either. And as one of my originals, it probably gets a little extra leeway, not that it’s ever even teased getting to that point, IMO.
-MWF – Wilde Life, Between Failures, Nortverse. WL was actually a bit of a late start, although I had been with Zap to the end. Already talked about here above. Nortverse was originally a Tu-Th read, then I realized it works better for me as a MWF. And it’s a blast.
-TuTh – Pixie Trix, Evil Inc. Pixie came from Menage a 3, which came from Eerie Cuties/Magick Chicks/Dangerously Chloe. Never read Sticky Dilly Buns or Sandra on the Rocks. Evil Inc. was one of my originals back in 2005, and I’ve never really felt the need to cut it loose.
-Random: Nerf Now. Fun little window into gaming, even if updates are far more sporadic than the others.

Finished/Defunct/Removed: (* = still has a bookmark on my browser)

-*Zap!: Same author as Wilde Life, and one of the first to finish many, many years ago.
-*8 Bit Theater: An… alternate… retelling of FF1? To mid-20s me, that was too good to pass up. And worth the years of following.
-*Go Get A Roomie: Kinda sad I caught this one very late in its’ original run, near the end. But it did get the full archive read before it got into the final storylines.
-*Eerie Cuties/Magick Chicks: Not sure why I keep them specifically bookmarked, considering I still have Pixie Trix in the active rotation.
-*Rival Angels: Fun little wrestling comic that did its’ run, then ended gracefully. If someone asked, I would happily recommend a full archive read.
-*Sandra & Woo: This one might get trimmed, it fell to pieces down what ended up being the final stretch. Not as bad as one of the upcoming ones, but it definitely went into “yikes” territory.
-Sinfest: Speaking of “YIKES”… it was never great, but it was a fun read until about… 10 years ago? Maybe a bit more? I’d have to go look, and frankly I have zero desire to revisit the cesspool it became, even if it’s been cleaned up since. This one’s firmly a “Leave The Memories Alone”. Locked in the basement, preferably.
-Ctrl-Alt-Del: Yeah, yeah, I know the author’s heavily disliked. In my case, I never felt the need to walk away until recently, when it went to the “split” where non-subscribers got left behind more and more. Have I done subs for webcomics? Yeah, a couple. But neither of them ever did something like this, subs just got extra stuff not actually part of the story. Not a situation where a non-sub is now MONTHS behind the subs. That ended up being my bridge too far.
-Adventurers: Early me went through a handful of RPG-based webcomics, this was one of them and it actually went to a proper end! Which… yeah, not good for the rest.
-RPG World: …like this one, which just suddenly went poof. Silly, yes. Fun read, also yes. But I legit don’t think I’d want to re-read it now, knowing it gets cut off like way too many of my RL attempts at RPG games cuts a little too close.

And I know I’m forgetting some others, but that’s life.

I have a fairly large RSS feed, but I am not sure how many comics I would still read without it, especially ones that dont updated on a schedule

I’ve been reading webcomics since before Y2K was scaring people. So many over the years that I can’t recall all of them anymore. Deep ones, fan servicey ones, silly ones, just plain weird ones. The recent passing of Michael Poe (Exploitation Now, Errant Story, Does Not Play Well With Others) has been a gut punch but at least there’s a promise of his stories being put up in a permanent fashion for re-reading.

But I refuse to be pessimistic for anything other than future planning purposes. There’s still a decent number of story-driven webcomics out there, both ongoing and finished. I think a secret strength of most of webcomics is that so long as the sites remain up (or viewable on something like the Wayback Machine), they can be enjoyed by new fans for years after they’re fresh.

Girl Genius has been mentioned a few times by others above me, and is an excellent example of mastering one’s genre. They’ve even had the decency to take their names off the Hugo awards for a bit to better strengthen the category and give illumination to others. Speaks volumes for the Foglio’s character.

Grrl Power is an interesting look at a ‘superheroes and everything else’ style of world. The art has evolved well from start to present. There’s a bit of fanservice, but that’s to be expected for a setting where skin-tight clothing is the default uniform.

Clown Corps is taking a bit of a hiatus to plot and detail out its final chapter. It’s as silly and ridiculous as any story involving crime-fighting clowns should ever be, and the characters are what really brings you back time and again. It also has my respect for being a story designed to be finite (a rarity in a world where corporations refuse to let any IP truly die).

Monster Soup is amazingly beautiful and gives you answers in a slow-drip feed style that keeps you wanting more like a leaky faucet in a desert. As ever and always, it’s the characters that are the draw; imperfect but likeable.

Marry Me had two chapters over on Keenspot, an outlandish premise that still somehow played out somewhat realistically. It got turned into a movie starring J-Lo and Owen Wilson, but got trampled by an end-of-Covid box office slump. I picked up a copy in the $5 Wal*Mart movie bin (still on the to-watch list for me & my wife).

Speaking of Keenspace/Keenspot, Zebra Girl has been finished for almost a decade now, but Joe England has produced perhaps some of the best artwork to have ever graced their site. He really sold me on just what a monochromatic comic can deliver visually, and backed it all up with characters that grow over time. I’m actually proud to say I was able to read his comic when it was ‘live’. He’s since started a new comic in the same universe (Witch Warp) that I have to sit down and dig into when I can get a comfortable weekend to myself.

Witch warp is pretty good so far, but seems to be on pause right now because of some family issues he’s having.

I was a big fan of MGDMT (Manly Guys Doing Manly Things) before it ended. Some arcs tugged at the heartstrings, others left an ick. The feel however, much like here, left me happy to have read it. I do so enjoy your work and stand by that this series continues to be worthwhile for me to dedicate time too.

Whenever webcomics come up I feel like Roy Batty. (Also a super commonly quoted in a lot of webcomics). I used to have dozens and dozens of webcomics I’d check daily. I remember looking for anything interesting on webcomc sites. Rankings, rings, forums. I was sure it was going to be the next big thing in comics from way back in the 90’s, and I guess with webtoon it has become that. But it feels like the creator-first style like this never got to be as big as it should have. So many comics just stopped with no updates, so many great stories never finished with no explanation. Sometimes it was worse. I hope some others remember LANBob and the weird webcomic they had, until the artist killed himself. I hope most of the ones that got dropped were like the guys from MacHall, who got into using their skills professionally, or at least didn’t just lose a passion or something. Thinking of my history with webcomics makes me so sad, because despite the rather low average art skills, the passion was so much higher than with traditional comics. There was also so much interesting experimentation. Those ones seemed to fare the worst, the people with the drive to try and do something really out there artistically never seemed to last long. But it feels like something that was just…moved on from. Like a lot of the early internet, I suppose. But this feels like a bigger loss than flame wars on IRC, or the death of generic anime message board #570.

Homestuck actually just restored its archives to the original form (and there is also a very cool fan project that lets you experience the site as it was as the comic released, too!)

Really? That’s fantastic.

I think you’d enjoy Leftover Soup?

2980 Jagerin.

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