Least I Could Lego

Least I Could Do: the comic is very much NSFW throughout the vast majority of its run.

The past week, though, has been Lego-centric and fully SFW. Heck, there's a kid in the strips, even.

Check out these couple then start at the beginning and work forward from there.

Checking in on XKCD

XKCD, another of my favorite webcomics...here are some highlights from the past year...

The Awkward Webcomic

The Awkward Yeti is really funny, and it's vaguely scientific, too.
 
Check out some of my favorites...

Actually, I have to add some words here so that awkward Yeti over there to the right doesn't block the full-width panels that I'm going to include down below.

Sheesh, that takes a whole lot of words.

Am I finished with that yet?

I think I am, yeah...

Bait and switch

From Tastefully Offensive & BatsVSupes...

Lovelorn crab

This webcomic feels very familiar, but I can't find that I've posted it before, so I'm posting it as though it's new.

Here's part one from Gunshow's cartoon about a lovelorn crab.

You'll have to head to his/her/its website to see part two. I warn you that it's very much worth seeing part two.

Thanks, by the way, to Tastefully Offensive for sharing the comic. Me, I'd rather not be accused of being a freebooter, so I'll send you back to the originator's to get the finale.

Merry Wondermark Christmas

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Enjoy some holiday comics from Wondermark (more here)...

Looking for Teachable Moments

I stumbled upon (not Stumbled Upon - I stopped using that service a while ago after getting a couple of nasty computer viruses) an NPR story about a Middletown High School English teacher who chronicles his teaching life via a blog of cartoons.

They're not all brilliant, but they're almost all spot on observations of his world, and it's one that I recognize all too well. I'll be following Teachable Moments for the foreseeable future.

Check out some of my favorites from the strip.

Sci-ence is dead, long live sci-ence

I was saddened when Sci-ence.org closed up shop. Maki Naro shuttered sci-ence.org nearly a year ago and posted that he had begun a project as a blogger for Popular Science, a post that they've used to great effect off and on for a few years, taking in a cartoonist (webcartoonist, sometimes) to great effect, posting science-themed cartoons.

I'd kind of forgotten about Maki's transition until a few weeks ago when I dropped in on Boxplot, the Popular Science blog that Maki's putting out. Let's check out some of the webcomics posted there...each of which was posted with a somewhat in-depth analysis/explanation of the issue at hand...

See, it's funny because...

Thanks to Bizarro and Neatorama.

I can see the future

Ah, Buttersafe, you slay me...

There are more panels than what I'm showing you, but I want you to go to the Buttersafe site to see the full, brilliant comic.

The Adventures of Business Cat

There aren't a whole lot of strips of Adventures of Business Cat posted yet, but the ten or so strips that have been posted are thoroughly entertaining.

My life

It really is pathetic how frequently this comic from Three Panel Soul describes my life.

The speed of plot returns just in time

I've mentioned things happening at the speed of plot before, and it's absolutely one of my favorite story tropes.

The concept makes a brilliant return in the most recent Order of the Stick comic, one of the best ongoing comics out there. Read along and catch up. The plot'll wait for you.

Cartoons...in real life

From Real Life Adventures...

I think I could test out of the introductory-level course.

Be careful out there, folks, never know what could develop...

That's about how I feel much of the summer. It's rough, ya know...

The Pale, Blue Dot

Each week ZenPencils illustrates a quote, a speech, a something.

Recently they hit one of the most wonderful quotes around, Carl Sagan's Pale, Blue Dot speech. Take a look at the full comic on their site.

And see the original photo (from NASA)...

(You have to know where to look to see us.)

...and an animated response...

Pale Blue Dot from ORDER on Vimeo.

More images of Earth from space can be found over here, too.

Update: A Gag That Never Gets Old

At some point it's just too easy...(source)

XKCD...again...

If you're not paying attention to xkcd, you're doing yourself a drastic disservice.

Today's comic is, again, a work of art...in which Randall is posting the slowest-updating animated-gif-style comic I've seen. Every half hour, apparently since midnight this morning, the comic updates to show the two main characters - cue ball and Megan - sitting by the side of a body of water, lying down, then Cue Ball waking down to dip a toe in the water. Some of the half-hourly updates have been slight movements of arms and legs; others have been larger movements of Cue Ball down to the shoreline.

It's amazing how expressive Randall manages to be while using only stick figures.

And it's amazing how dedicated and geeky his fans are...the xkcd forum thread for the individual comic...the explainxkcd post for the comic (though the site is being bombarded and is temporarily unavailable)...and a specific forum post showing each of the comics in order - and as an animated gif...

Randall, I shake your hand, sir...

Poorly Drawn Comics

Let me introduce you to Poorly Drawn Lines, a webcomic of occasional and severe weirdness.
I'm offering you a few of my clean favorites. Go for the stuff after the jump, because the one about the spider is brilliant.

Two moving years

XKCD is spectacular. If you're not following along, you're missing out on the absolute best thing on the internet.

Yes, it's got its 'your mom' jokes and its pure geekiness and also stunning visual presentations of information, but it's also got heart-wrenching moments of emotion as raw and moving as anything else on the web - or anywhere.

This past Friday's comic was another example of that...

Background after the jump and partially thanks to Neatorama...

Just deliver

I read webcomics...I read a bunch of webcomics and have RSS feeds for a whole lot of them.

Some of these webcomics are just comic strips, just chuckles or laughs or little three-panel gifts to the world presented reliably day by day for me - and a few other folks - to enjoy. Those are the ones that I like.

Then there are the ones where the webcomic artist makes little commentaries with the strip, where we learn something about the artist's life, struggles, challenges. Those can get tiresome when, for example, we get notes like these...

From Jeph over at Questionable Content -

So:

Basically what happened yesterday is i drank an entire bottle of whiskey, stabbed myself in the hand (not my drawing hand), had some kind of delirious breakdown in the hospital, got stitched up and sent back home.

Today I go to see the hand surgeon about my hand and a therapist about my emotions.

I guess something like this was bound to happen eventually. The monsters finally caught up. But at least I am ok. I feel very, very bad about all of this and would really like to apologize. I'm sorry.

There will be some guest comics for a few days. Thank you again for your patience.

Rob and Xin of Erfworld give us posts from time to time that one or the other's health or other issues impacting their self-defined once-weekly schedule and - unintentionally, I'm sure - significantly mucking up the reading experience.

We missed last week's Nonadventures of Wonderella (site currently down and replaced with a two-word vulgarity from what I can tell) because the writer's all laid up.

I would like to think that I'm solidly in the thirtieth or fortieth percentile for empathy among people, but in the long run I just don't give a crap. Yes, I'm sorry Jeph is suffering. Yes, I'm sorry that Xin's having family/health/something problems. Yes, I hope Wonderella's creator (still tweeting) gets back on the horse.

But in the end, I want my daily (or thrice weekly or whatever) chuckles (and occasional pathos), and I just don't want to hear why you can't get them to me. Dance, monkey, dance.