Plug Week Day 4 — Enter the comics.

Underappreciated comics are scattered all over the Information Superhighway (just who the hell comes up with these idiotic metaphors?). These are the comics you take a look at and see that they are clearly a labor of love. You can’t help but wonder why they are not published in paper and getting the big bucks for their work. Usually, when you see the author’s comments, you find out he works in something entirely unrelated to the comic (I’ve found that working retail is a common trait between a lot of authors. which may go a long ways into explaining the amounts of - funny - frustration found in their comics).

Following, in no particular order, is a brief comment on each of the comics I’m linking to the left. The stuff I put there, I read myself. So I can tell you that it is all good. If the comment on a comic gets you interested, well, you should click on its name and go there, shouldn’t you?

Elf Only Inn - By Josh Sortelli

A few weeks ago I got together with some friends to drink beer and do nothing. We ended up browsing through most of Sortelli’s archives. We laughed our asses off. Tear jerking stuff. Best of all: after I sobered up I came back to the site and the jokes were still funny! He hardly needs any plugging, since he’s usually in the TWC top ten lately, but I just like it so much I had to put a link to it.

The characters are representations of people in a chat room, and Sortelli makes the most out of that situation. Recently he started drawing all panels (it used to be a cut and paste comic). While the old style certainly had a charm to it, the new one has apparently allowed him to explore new situations. The comic updates Monday Wednesday and Friday and Sortelli should lay off that ugly ass avatar he uses at the TWC forum and get himself some woot avatar, because Woot kicks ass (hope that’s not a drawing of himself or something to that effect).

Paste - By Allan Hatt

This one is utterly different from most stuff that is out there. Allan is an old school Illustrator who works with the traditional tools. The site is clean, nice, and the comic hits you in the face like a huge ear-biting steroid-pumping boxer’s uppercut. Featuring whatever is on Allan’s mind at the moment (well, actually, what was there 3 months ago, since that’s how long a buffer he has — isn’t that hardcore? I can’t get a freaking one-week buffer strip yet!). Sometimes it has a ongoing story. My favorite is about a psychic grain of rice (how the hell do people come up with this stuff?).

Allan is known as AlienHate in Rocketbox Comics, where he hangs out from time to time. He sometimes posts stuff here in the shoutbox too. His avatar in Rocketbox is just plain creepy.

It Never Rains - By Reggie Reno

Reggie spent much of his adolescence playing pranks and involving himself in suburban warfare. He had a crew of guys - The Mollusk - that trashed around a lot and used to cover cars/houses with food. He also had love interests. He was your run-of-the-mill weird suburban prankster kid. Now, we can see his story in comic format (he says the story is real and his). With charming art and amazing writing, It never Rains is a comic you won’t fully appreciate unless you read through the whole archive from the beginning, so this one is a whole-afternoon commitment kind of thing, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Reggie apparently spends most of his time in IRC. I don’t, so I have only interacted with him via email. He seems like an ok guy.

Updated every weekday. Reggie likes to say “fuck” and comes up with all sorts of word games, most of which end up in appropriately named sections at his site.

The Repository of Dangerous Things - by Amanda Hardy It’s hard to believe Amanda has never taken art lessons. The art on her webcomic is amazing (she colors it with markers) and the concept is pretty damn unique. RDT is the story of a place and the people related to it. The Repository is a warehouse of sorts that houses all kinds of monsters/ghosts and altogether weird stuff. The extremely hot and ill-tempered Miss Harper handles administrative tasks and doubles as Amanda’s avatar in the TWC forum where she’s known as skoolmunkee. Amanda can also be found posting in Rocketbox from time to time (where she’s known as rdtcomic). She’s one of the brightest people out there (and real hot too, from what I hear =) ).

— sergio on April 10, 2003