SCHMUCK is the brain-child of pop culture man about town and award-winning photographer Seth Kushner. He sets out to tell a semi-autobiographical story  in the hands of a host of talented comic artists featuring the brutal honest of real life when looking for love. One of the dominant themes is coming from a Jewish background, facing family pressures to find a nice Jewish girl, and all of the chaotic mishaps of the average pop culture obsessed Joe facing embarrassment, miscommunication, and repetitive disappointment looking for the “one”. 

But SCHMUCK has a heart underneath its gritty crude input from main character Adam Kessler’s friends, a belief that love will find you in the end. SCHMUCK has appeared in 10 installments since its inception in 2012, and will be building towards its conclusion throughout 2013. Interspersed with the comic episodes are semi-autobio narratives as bonus features following the same narrative time-line as the comic, known as THE SCHMUCK DIARIES. Both the comic and the narrative episodes can be read for free at their home site of TRIP CITY, a multi-media arts salon that features several other intriguing webcomics and a mind-boggling variety of artistic talents at work.

SCHMUCK #1 kicks off with the ominous title “Boobs, Beers, and Bowel Movements” and the self-depricating humor of Kessler’s inner monologues are a highlight of the series. Series artists include Kevin Colden, Bobby Timony, Sean Pryor, Ryan Alexander-Tanner, Pierce Hargan, Shamus Beyale, George Schall, Stephen DeStefano, Skuds McKinley, and Leland Purvis. Giving so many artists a shot at visual storytelling means that readers get new insights into Kessler’s character and the world he moves in as imagined through the lens of the diverse experiences of a generation.

Hannah Means-Shannon writes and blogs about comics for TRIP CITY and Sequart.org and is currently working on books about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore for Sequart. She is @hannahmenzies on Twitter and hannahmenziesblog on WordPress.

Sinfest is most probably a comic everyone has heard of – Tatsuya “Tats” Ishida’s daily strip has been going strong for some thirteen years now but things have recently taken a surprising feminist turn.

Sinfest has long focused strongly on interactions between recurring characters and exploring (often metaphysical) themes including religion, sexuality, gender roles, provocative humour, political issues and parodying pop culture, and the strip has seen a strong twist towards promoting feminism in the last two years. It’s a move that has seen a huge influx of new fans, and a world of butthurt from a vocal minority of older fans outraged that the comic is now focusing on women and the ways in which our society can silence their voices.

Main characters Slick and Monique have evolved a lot over the years as the former has had his panel time reduced and his social consciousness slightly raised, while Nique has gone from being the irritated sex-object of Slick’s affections, to an opinionated cropped-hair feminist who questions gender norms.

The two friends live in a world populated by normal people, as well as a reefer-dude who happens to be a pig (Squigley), religious (Seymour) and satanic (Li’l Evil) zealots, God, the Devil, Jesus, Buddha and The Dragon (who represents Eastern religions), terror-porn fan Uncle Sam and a depressed Lady Liberty. And Obama. Other characters include the adorable Criminy, a reclusive bookworm, and his girlfriend Fuschia, an escaped devil girl. Oh and Tats himself along with his cat Percival and dog Pooch.

Originally the comic was indeed a Sin-fest, stuffed with black comedy and poking outrage for humour, but it has changed slowly but surely over a period of time. The most recent change, that of addressing the patriarchy and portraying its hold on society as akin to the Matrix, is by far the most subversive. Not only is the comic addressing themes that many other webcomics are failing on, but it is doing so with an already large fanbase attached to the comic for very different reasons. Forums and message boards are overflowing with former “fans” berating Tats for being a misandry-lover or brainwashed by feminism.

While the comic had formerly poked fun at all ideologies and religions (similar perhaps to South Park albeit slightly softer as years went by), fans who expected feminism and talk of “mansplaining”, “hetereonormative assumptions”, gender performativity” and so forth to be a lead into an epic put down of a so-called feminist agenda, were very mistaken. Tats, aware of how his comic had previously played into patriarchal norms and reinforced institutional sexism was now clearly changing his mind and turning the lens squarely on himself and his own paper universe.

Nique, the glamorous and fun girl who loved to shake her booty at guys for a reaction was shown the Matrix of Patriarchy and allowed to voice her thought patterns and come to her own conclusions. In an act of defiance she close-crops her hair and rejects what society says she should look like. In this one strong act, one character known for her very feminine look defies the male gaze upon her. Not to say that femininity is bad – of course it is not. But in the world of comics where a huge majority of women look very much alike, and in our world of celebrity culture where the same is encouraged and the different seen as troubled, it was a hugely important move. And a brave one (albeit for a male creator) due to the dedicated audience base of the comic, with its vocal male membership.

The same audience reacted just as Tats predicted in Nique’s own journey – horror, rejection, accusations of brain-washing, and complete entitlement. How could he ruin their beautiful female character who wiggled her butt and teased the men? Ruin equaling, of course, the cutting of her hair that for Nique signaled the ownership of her own agency.

There are a great number of women created webcomics that are exploring similar themes – The Adventures of Gyno-Star and I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space are two of my favourites – and they are sadly overlooked. Sinfest already had a huge internet presence and the creator could have easily continued on his same path for many years with great success. Instead Sinfest became one of the few big webcomics to not only address feminism and sexism in our society, but to do so honestly and intelligently.

Tats, known for being so unknown in real life, ignored the haters and has continued on this new path. Sinfest still features daftness and heart-warming strips, political satire and amazing adventures starring the whole cast of wonderful characters, but it now does so in a way that is about both entertainment and education, as well as being a very welcome sight for those of us beaten down by sexism elsewhere online.

Other characters have evolved too – especially Seymour starting to realise how much he has conflated his fanboyish worship of Jesus with his fundamentalist religious beliefs, and Li’l E losing his memory and making new friends, with his backstory being fleshed out a little in heartbreaking fashion.

Sinfest has always been a fun and entertaining strip, but now I heartily recommend it to each and every reader I meet. Sinfest Volume 1 is available from Dark Horse (and contains the pre-2000 non-web strips), as is Sinfest: Viva La Resistance, and there were three self-published volumes at one point too. And as with all webcomics, the entire series can be read for free at the website – so indulge yourself today!

(NB – Sinfest also appears in the Nemi magazine in Norway, which is named after the most popular strip – Lise Myhre’s Nemi. Which is also the best comic strip in the world and frustratingly only 4 volumes have been translated into English – argh!!)

Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter.

Just wrapped up by creators Danny Djeljosevic and Eric Z, The Ghost Engine is a funny, smart series told over the course of four chapters. Featuring great character work and especially zippy dialogue, the series is a buddy story following two people who have ghosts in their heads.

One of the main joys is watching just how massive Becky’s hair gets over the course of the story, as Eric Z shows off a brilliantly expressive style, which can capture very small moments on somebody’s face and tell a whole load of story not present in the dialogue. The creative team seem very well-matched in that sort of way, putting together a story which alternately shows off both the scripting and the art. It’s also very funny, whilst remaining focused on the storyline – which is high concept and fascinating for it.

The story is complete now, and it tells a satisfying whole storyline. It also looks like the creative team will be reuniting for a new project next year, which I’m excited to see. For the moment though, head over to http://www.theghostengine.com, where you can read this story in its entirety.

Steve is tweets @stevewmorris

Sin Titulo is a master class in comics storytelling, courtesy of the ridiculously talented Cameron Stewart of Seaguy, Batman and The Other Side fame. It is also the only webcomic I’ve experienced genuine rage when reading, because my goddamn 16 MB/s connection wasn’t loading the next page fast enough.

The comic is a “dark, neo-noir semi-autobiographical mystery thriller concerned with dreams, family, and memory”, a description that doesn’t quite do justice to either the phenomenal artistry or the clever and paranoia soaked storyline. After a dreamscape beginning, we follow Alex Mackay as he discovers that his grandfather has passed away since his last visit to the nursing home. Things soon take a sinister turn as a photograph left in the old man’s personal effects show him smiling with an unknown and mysterious looking woman, before the photo is hurriedly snatched away by staff.

As Alex clearly observes an orderly exiting a resident’s room after sounds of sexual abuse filter through the closed door, the first tendrils of claustrophobic dread start to take hold and Alex’s obsession takes root.  But this is a story where nothing is as it seems, and each instalment ends on an enticing cliffhanger. Not an ordinary comics cliffhanger mind, but one which changes the entire shape of the story, often in Lynchian fashion.

While the story reader in me wanted to race ahead and find out what the hell was happening, the comics aficionado in me was busy cooing over the expert way in which mood and pacing are deftly handled. Sin Titulo is drawn with loose lines and a noirish palette, using an effective blend of realistic backgrounds (and grotesque bad guys) with a more cartoonish lead, but it packs one hell of an emotional punch. The smallest of gestures root the reader firmly in Alex’s world, with tight shots and changed perspectives ramming up the tension to an almost unbearable level. The use of shadows and black in particular is creepy as hell.

Frequently slipping into the surreal and dreamlike, the comic nonetheless keeps Alex and his past front and centre as his relationships – and failings – drive the story forward even as he seems to be losing his grip on reality. The hooks planted early on start to tug, the threads unravel, and comparisons to Lost were not unexpected. Indeed, racing through this comic I began to have nagging doubts – what if the questions Sin Titulo were raising could simply not be matched by the ending? Lost was a programme I soon ran out of patience with, smoke monster and polar bears be damned. It became less about intriguing twists and more about impossible scenarios that could never be satisfyingly resolved.

To my great relief, Sin Titulo nimbly escapes that fate, with an ending that is both startling and narratively rewarding. Stewart did go on hiatus near the end of his run but the comic came to its end in October 2012. Fortunately, for my sanity, I only found out about the comic the following month when Stewart appeared at the Dundee Comics Day alongside Grant Morrison and other collaborators. Being able to read through the comic in one go is certainly a different experience from the tenterhooks that longtime readers must have gone through – and I’d love to hear their thoughts!

I’m a big fan of Stewart’s work (he draws ladies with muscles! and boobs! and chub!) but what still amazes me is the sheer speed that he works at while delivering such high-end work – whether that be on Batman & Robin, Seaguy or his own webcomic. Here’s hoping another is in the works!

Sin Titulo has won a Shuster Award for Outstanding WebComic Creator/Creative Team and an Eisner for Best Digital Comic. Like the Abominable Charles Christopher‘s Karl Kerschl, Stewart is also a member of the Transmission X collective.

A collected edition is out from Dark Horse later this year – huzzah. And as with all webcomics, the entire series can be read for free at the website – so indulge yourself today!

Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter.

Let’s try something a little different, as we’re a short way into our 24 hours now. Bottom of the Ninth was launched last year by Ryan Woodward, and is an animated comic strip. If you click on each panel of each page, there’s usually a sound clip or animation detailing the progression of the story at that point. It’s an interactive piece of work which adds sound and music and motion to the story, to play around with the idea of what a comic really is.

You also have to work out for yourself that the pages turn if you click the bottom right-hand corner. The images here are from his concept work, because each page of the comic is a carefully-crafted multimedia work which tells a simple story. The ideas and experiments don’t detract from the comic itself or make it unreadable – they create a different experience, much like Think Tank does.

You can pick up the comic as an app – that was the original intention – but it works just as well on your computer, if you have a fast computer. It’s a lovely thing, with the animation not distracting too much from the story itself. Woodward’s art is as interesting as his animation, and the story is interesting too. It’s an experiment above all else, and a successful one. Have a look at http://www.bottom-of-the-ninth.com

Steve is tweets @stevewmorris

JL8 is probably one of the main reasons I’ve been feeling meh about DC lately. Because this, THIS, is how our heroes should be done!

Our favourite DC heroes – Clark, Bruce, Diana, Barry, Karen, J’onn and Hal – as they were in elementary school. If they were all friends and had their powers and were even more awesome than usual. The strips are utterly adorable while keeping the heroes very much in character, and it is all ages. That’s right, superheroes for the whole family to enjoy.

Yale Stewart has been uploading the strips twice weekly since last year, with over 120 instalments now under his belt. Obviously this is not an official DC project, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that any higher ups are too busy hoping Diana is not going to inadvertently break Karen’s heart with her lasso of truth at her 8th birthday party! The feels man, the feels.

The star of the show is almost certainly little Bruce, wearing full retro Batman gear while fretting that he does not look scary enough (his darker costumes are all in the wash). The pint sized crusaders best friend is the adorkable Clark, whose mega crush on Diana has led him to getting writing advice from Neil Gaiman and buying Anya’s Ghost for her birthday present. Meanwhile Barry is your typical hyperactive 8 year old, albeit sliiiightly faster, while he and Hal attempt to show new student J’onn the ropes of Earth living. And oreos.

In a lot of ways JL8 reminds me of my own misbegotten childhood favourite read – Calvin and Hobbes. But even dorkier. They may be 8 years old, but these kids are a lot truer to their characters here than many of their more grown up interpretations.

Why DC is not paying Stewart bajillions to actually put this in print and raise the profile of its heroes across this new demographic (approximately 4-104 years old btw) is a mystery. I may not be rich but I would give buy the hell out of that and give it to everyone I know.

As if that wasn’t enough, Stewart has also used his JL8 art to raise a ton of money for good causes in the aftermath of various horrible events in the last year. SUPERHERO.

Sadly no collection is likely to be forthcoming until DC come to their senses, but until then if you’re a fan of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Power Girl, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Neil Gaiman (coughSandmancough) and/or comics that are fabulous, go and read this now!

The strips are also archived here (for easier non-tumblr reading) and the facebook page is definitely worth a like.

Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter.

Every Friday, Stately Beat Mansion invites round a comic creator or two for a cup of tea, complementary Kit Kat, and a chat about their work in The Phoenix. The Phoenix is a UK series which features a range of the best all-ages comics available, from all kinds of wonderful creators – all compiled into a single issue each week! The Phoenix have very kindly commissioned a whizzy spaceship just for this feature, which sails across to The Mansion every week with a new creator onboard.

This week sees Rob Deas cruise on over to tell us about Troy Trailblazer, a series appearing in today’s newest issue. If you want to find out more, then try an issue of The Phoenix for yourself!

Steve: Who is Troy Trailblazer?

Rob: Troy Trailblazer is an intergalactic archaeologist and all round action hero. Think a young Indiana Jones in space and you’re half way there. Joining him on his adventures are his trusty sidekicks Barrus, a super tough, blue fuzzball and Blip, a highly practical maintenance and evaluation droid.

Most stories centre on the search for a particular treasure such as the Starfire Sword (Phoenix issues 27 – 32) The Creation Stone (Phoenix Issues 42 – 51) or The Flute of the Desert Kings (Issues 58 – 59). Our heroes usually get sidetracked by some dastardly villain and end up in whole load of trouble before prevailing in the end.

Steve: What’s your favourite thing about this week’s story?

Rob: Well it’s the start of a brand new series, Troy Trailblazer: And the Princess of Paragon, and it’s a little different from my earlier tales in that it doesn’t centre on the search for treasure. It’s exciting to be breaking away from my trusted formula.

This time Troy is roped in to helping a beautiful alien princess escape a fearsome pack of Bounty Hunters, a task which leads him to the hostile bounty hunter planet of Barabous. I’m really pleased with the villains in this story; they’re a real nasty bunch and make my previous bad guys look pretty harmless by comparison.

I’m also trying lots of new things visually this time around, taking my art back to basics with zero photo textures, fewer 3D models and hardly any digital effects, all stuff I used to use a lot of. I’m still working completely digitally but I think the pages have a rawness and an energy about them that was perhaps missing in my earlier adventures. It’s really exciting to be experimenting with new techniques.

Steve: What inspired the character?

Rob: Troy is all about channelling my inner 9 year old and thinking back to what I used to love back in the day.

I grew up in the 80′s so a lot of my inspiration comes from classic Saturday morning cartoons such as He-Man, Thundercats, Ulysses 31, Transformers, Mask, Action Force etc. I used to love the whole action figure/cartoon crossover thing and even now I tend to think very commercially. When designing characters I usually ask myself “Would this guy / gal make a cool action figure?” If the answer is ‘no’ it’s back to the drawing board.

There’s nothing pretentious about the way I create my stories, it’s all about fun characters, thrills, spills and ultimate bang for your buck action!

Steve: Where else can people find your work? What else do you have coming up in the future?

Rob: I used to be better known for my work on classic literary adaptations such as Manga Shakespeare: Macbeth and Pride & Prejudice for SelfMadeHero. Both very different from my work on Troy, especially Pride and Prejudice which called for a much softer line and a more delicate approach, a challenge I really relished.

I also do a lot of work for Medikidz, a publisher specialising in medical comic books that help explain illnesses to children in an accessible way, using a team of young superheroes that travel inside the human body. I’ve worked on 4 full-length titles for them over the last 3 years and helped to redesign their core characters.

To find out more about my other work head on over to my website: www.rdcomics.co.uk.

As for the rest of 2013, I’m supposed to be starting a new Medikidz book in August, providing character designs and development for a TV project, and hopefully starting another Troy adventure later in the year – so plenty in the pipeline!

Thanks so much to Rob for his time! Troy Trailblazer will be appearing this week in The Phoenix #73. You can also find a behind-the-scenes look at his work on the series over here. And thanks to Liz Payton, who fueled up the spaceship!

I think comedy is the toughest impression to pull with comics. It’s not easy to create something humorous and memorable – something that makes you laugh out loud – using the visual narrative. Josh Mecouch, the creator of Formal Sweat Pants,  makes it look easy.

I first learned about Formal Sweat pants because Rob Delaney tweeted the link to his webcomic ‘Rob and Mitt’ during the 2012 election season. Mecouch (has to be a pen name) was illustrating Rob Delany’s tweets to Mitt Romney. The amount of heart and soul to these comics which will become so dated is pretty extraordinary.

Formal Sweat Pants is  a webcomic that used to update every Monday. Mecouch has masted the three panel strip format. Topic, premise, punch line. It’s the kind of humor you hear on your favorite podcasts like “You made it Weird” with Pete Holmes and Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. Find more at http://formalsweatpants.com

Gunnerkrigg Court is a comic that I find myself trying not to visit for as long as possible, only so that I can then drink up a nice long chunk in one go before reluctantly slithering back into withdrawal. The plot is always veering off in spectacular new directions, with cliffhangers and revelations and I WANT TO KNOW MORE!

When I first read Chapter 1, The Shadow and The Robot, all those years ago I was immediately intrigued by the premise and the writing: a spooky school, female protagonists(!), and a very clear sci-fi/fantasy scope. The characters of Shadow and Robot caught my imagination completely, and Antimony Carver was an intriguing lead – her look was a little unconventional, particularly in respect to the detailed background art, but it has been wonderful to see Tom Siddell’s art progress over the eight years that the comic has now been running.

The sheer scale of the story is, I think, pretty unparalleled in any other comic, incorporating science, magic, fantasy creatures, mixed mythology, mysteries, political battles, sci-fi elements, friendship, romance, parental relationships, betrayals, alchemy… all with two young girls at the centre, Carver and her best friend Kat. And her other friend Reynardine, a creature who is a wolf shape trapped in the body of Carver’s stuffed toy.

Much of the drama is down to the setting, the mysterious Gunnerkrigg Court boarding school and its antagonistic relationship with the neighbouring Gillitie Wood – a clash of science versus nature, technology versus magic – and Carver’s ability to transcend and blur the borders. Flashbacks help fill in the gaps of the story that took place years before between Carver and Kat’s parents and other members of the school.

The Wood is home to Ysengrin and Coyote, magical creature and god respectively, alongside a host of mythical creatures, while the school has students like Zimmy and Gamma, a mysterious pair that can travel inside dream worlds. As the story progresses, Carver finds out more about her unique heritage, while Kat becomes the savior of the robots due to her incredible tech skills, and the pair make friends at school while navigating the more traditional teen waters as well as their more ethereal adventures.

There’s one little chapter of Kat and a boy, which I won’t spoil, but man. The feels. And of course the intermittent adventures of City Face, the famous pigeon are hilarious to read.

From 2006-09, Gunnerkrigg Court won six Web Cartoonists’ Choice/Webcomic List Awards, and earned thirteen nominations. Siddell has also chalked up more nominations and awards around the world, and Gunnerkrigg Court is one of the few webcomics to have generated a huge Wikipedia entry and its own Wikia.

The comic has been collected in three volumes thus far with a fourth out later this year. They can be bought via the website’s shop, or at any online/offline book store. And as with all webcomics, the entire series can be read for free at the website – so indulge yourself today!

Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter.

Juan Santapau’s The Secret Knots is a launchpad for a variety of different comics – sometimes a long-form work, sometimes a single story in a page, and sometimes an extended work of fiction within a long, single frame. It’s an absolutely lovely piece of work, punctuated by superb, charming writing and utterly gorgeous artwork.

His work reminds me a little of Fiona Staples, but with a more washed-out use of watercolours on each page — which gives things a wonderful sense of life as the flatter-colouring on the characters pops out at the reader.

It’s only recently that Santapau has made a consistently-updated story, in the form of The Strange World of Martin Kardec. I’d tell you more about it – but really, I’m just utterly charmed and spellbound by the words, art, story and creation. It’s a story of the occult, and of childhood – like much of the work on the site – but told through the eyes of the children. And in their eyes, the ideas seem magical and tangible. It’s a stunning thing, and I really hope you go take a look. Find more at http://www.thesecretknots.com

Steve is tweets @stevewmorris

It’s only hour 4 of 24 hours of Webcomics and already I’m cheating a bit by spotlighting the work of a single cartoonist more than a single webcomic. But heck, it’s all about reading comic on the web.

Sam Alden is a young Portland cartoonist who is rapidly developing with comics on his own website and Study Group, and even a few in print. Like many young, prolific cartoonists, it’s hard to find a well organized archive of his stuff—he has several tumblrs and blogs and twitters and so on. The main outlet seems to be his site Gingerland. Fortunately he just posted a guide to everything he has online. HIs work covers a lot of territory—his art starts out in the Craig Thompson school, but he’s getting more and more experimental as he goes on. His work has everything from heavy duty autobiography to weird fantasy. I think what interested me the most about his work is that he’s very young and very talented and taking full advantage of the freedom to tell all kinds of stories that today’s younger cartoonists have at their disposal. It isn’t about drawing one thing or for one style any more.

To start out I’ll recommend Farmer’s Dilemma—it’s short and if you don’t like it don’t go on.

But I think you will like it. The less I say about it, the better, but it’s an anthropomorphic story of family, belonging, and survival starring a young fox who was adopted by chickens. There is a single panel in here that is perhaps the most horrific thing I have seen in a comic this year. It’s a beautiful, haunting piece of work.

If you like that try Hawaii 1997. Like a lot of Alden’s work it’s autobiographical, but it’s also mostly a wordless storyboard about a magic moment on a nighttime beach: a miserable young boy meets a girl on the beach and they run around together. Yeah it’s a little Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but I think it transcends the cliche. If we’re lucky, we’ve all had one of these moments, when life becomes magical and full of possibilities…but the last panel reveals the price for such a moment. Alden draws it in pencil on yellow paper and still manages to captures the sparkling sky and water of the enchanted moment. It’s a technically very accomplished piece of work.

Haunter is a full color story of adventure and dread being serialized on the excellent Study Group webcomic portal. It’s another wordless fantasy, this one about a treasure seeking hunter who runs into an ancient spirit that is also a hunter. You shouldn’t try to steal stuff from ancient spirits. Told in almost animatic format, it’s a tense, exciting chase that’s still going on.

Finally, Alden’s longest piece to date is the still ongoing “Eighth Grade” which is about the most terrifying thing in life: middle school. Simon and Tom are smart kids about brutal survival mechanisms and about making witty but cruel jokes about other kids, but completely ignorant about everything real in life, and smart enough to know they’re ignorant. Emma is a classmate they torment, and torment is another word for craving the approval of. Throw in parents who have pretty much the same problems except they also are caretakers and you have everyone’s eighth grade.

Well not mine, since I was home schooled…whenever I read a painfully accurate depiction of what I missed out on, like this, I think I’m kind of lucky. “Eighth Grade” starts out a little rocky art-wise, but Alden’s use of black and white and lettering improve dramatically as the six chapters go along. It’s a soap opera, but one that rings true.

Alden has several comics mentioned in Buzzfeed’s big webcomics roundup and work in several magazines and comic anthologies coming up. He’s only 24, and I suspect we’ll hear his name a lot more in the next few years.

I’ve been following Colin Bell’s webcomics for a little while now – his previous work includes Jonbot Vs Martha – and his newest webcomic is a beaut. Written by Matthew Meylikhov and Bell, the strip is drawn by Nina Cadman and tells the story of a noir detective who is also a kittykat. He swears  space helmet and worries about dames! If only Tumblr were around in the 1950s, they’d be all over this.

Cadman goes for a cartoony style which helps to underline the difference between the seriousness of the storyline and the silliness of the characters involved. The creative team go all-in with the noir storyline – giving protagonist Space a drinking problem, tendency to start bar fights, and crapsack town to live in.

Mixing noir and space allows for a silly sense of fun in the comic, but it’s the exaggeration that makes the strip work. Every idea or detail is ramped up to a ridiculous degree – the narration doubles up on sarcastic irony so that the strip actively questions itself (a step beyond anything Chandler would’ve tried). Rather than making fun of noir stories, it makes fun of ITSELF for making fun of noir stories. But also, it makes fun of noir stories.

It’s my go-to if I need to laugh out loud in a ridiculous fashion – you can find more at http://www.detectivespacecat.com/

The Abominable Charles Christopher is one of those rare comics that I recommend to absolutely everyone regardless of their age, genre preferences or comic reading habits. It’s also one of the hardest comics to describe in a way that fully conveys the beauty and genius inside, as it is essentially the tale of a Yeti or Abominable Snowman and his woodland friends.

Which sounds ridiculously twee, but the rich cast, realistic art, and huge emotional depth will have you hooked from whatever strip you first glance at. Karl Kerschl is a famous name of course, having worked on Adventures of Superman, Majestic, Teen Titans, as well as being part of the ace Transmission X collective.

Charles is on a journey, and without a clear destination in sight it is very much the tale of journeys – not just Charles’ journey, but the life journey of every animal (and god) that crosses the page. We can break away from our hero for days at a time, watching the birds deal with their marital problems, the rabbit who yearns to be an actor, the D&D troupe, the cat who would be king, mathematical otters, gossiping bees, and many more.

“Life is a journey, not a destination” is an oft used quote, (mis)attributed to everyone from Emerson to Aerosmith, but this comic is the one piece of literature, art or any media in fact, that has really helped me to enjoy the ride rather than worry about the far off goals. The Abominable Charles Christopher is both soothing and challenging, reassuring and devastating – particularly in the side stories of Townsen and Vivol.

The Abominable Charles Christopher has been collected in two gorgeous deluxe limited hardcover volumes, with embossed faux-suede covers. Volume one has also been published in paperback. The website shop appears to be down at the moment – Volume 2 just arrived with me this week after pre-ordering last year (sketch edition!) and I was lucky enough to find a rogue copy of Volume 1 hiding at the back of a Forbidden Planet last year (which resulted in a rare public performance of my Snoopy dance of utter joy).

Kerschl has won one Eisner Award, been nominated twice, and has also won a Joe Shuster Award for the comic. And as with all webcomics, the entire series can be read for free at the website – so indulge yourself today!

Laura Sneddon is a comics journalist and academic, writing for the mainstream UK press with a particular focus on women and feminism in comics. Currently working on a PhD, do not offend her chair leg of truth; it is wise and terrible. Her writing is indexed at comicbookgrrrl.com and procrastinated upon via @thalestral on Twitter.

We’ll kick off a day of Webcomics with something educational. Did you ever wonder if cinnamon comes from giant mythical birds or not? Then Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, by Andy Warner, will be for you.

For the next 24 hours, we’re going to be sharing 24 webcomics with you here on t’Beat. For the most part we’re going to steer away from comics you’ll already be totally aware of – Hark A Vagrant, Achewood, that sort of thing – and towards projects that are hopefully new to you. We’ve got a mix of styles and ideas, and at times we may well stretch the definition of ‘webcomic’ close to breaking point. At the same time, the main goal here is just to share some comics with you. Give them a try!

The first webcomic is Andy Warner’s Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, which was recently nominated for The Stumptown Comic Art Awards.

Taking a different ‘thing’ in each strip and explaining it to readers, the comic reminds me a little of Horrible Histories in the sense of humour it displays. The comic revels in the grossness of the past, and how invention and creation has led our silly species to slowly grow a bit of self-respect. Whilst brief, the comics take the very basics of each invention and make it quickly accessible and interesting – this is a series which writes about postcards and kitty litter, and manages to offer readers an entertaining read each time.

I love this sort of comic, which offers something different and goes along in a different direction. There are currently 12 full strips available at http://tapastic.com/series/303 right now, along with a few other bits and pieces. It’s funny, clever, and very well done indeed. Worth a look!

As a follow-up on the very fun and well-received “24 Hours of Women Cartoonists” event in March, Team Beat is reassembling starting at midnight E.D.T. tonight for “24 Hours of Webcomics.” Steve, Laura, Hannah, Henry and even the Beat have put together a list of our favorites, some well known, some obscure. I know it’s a getaway day tomorrow, but if you’re looking for some holiday reading on your tablet or laptop, be sure to check back tomorrow.