Literature Webcomic Recommendations?

[Wandering Seraph]

Hi there! I've never made a thread of this nature before, so hopefully this is the right forum.

Comics aren't usually my thing, especially classic ones. I just don't like their tone and many lack narrative depth. I do find the occasional webcomic to love, but because of my particular taste, it's difficult to find the really lovely webcomics under the mountains of formulaic, trying-to-be-the-next-rabid-fandom ones.

I adored Hyperbole & A Half, Nimona (when it was online) and finished enjoying Always Raining Here just a little while ago. I would love your recommendations for any other comics that are similar to those. I enjoy thrillers, romance, humor, and stylized art (not so much classic cartoon-y style). High fantasy is very hit or miss with me because a lot of it feels too caught up in its own "coolness" and I dislike how self-indulgent it can get. I also appreciate LGBT+ representation, being LGBT+ myself, but any recommendations are welcome! I'm just looking for something new to read.

 

[mon]

What Lies in the End is a pret good story if you're looking for LGBT+. I would recommend Teahouse too if it wasn't discontinued ): Killing Stalking if you like thriller though it is pretty (understatement) dark. Oh, and Cheese in The Trap. The comic is 100x btr than the drama. The story telling and the pacing for it is amazing.

 

[calypso]

I normally use Webtoon for my stories, so I'm gonna drop some stories down below!

LGBT+ Stories -
Always Human
A Matter of Life and Death
Shoot Around (Honestly my favorite one, the girls are all so adorable in it.)
Big Jo (Later in the season, but it has awesome messages about body positivity too!)
Castle Swimmer
Small World
#Blessed
Under the Aegis (Best 'bromance' that's literally a romance.)

There are probably more LGBT+ comics floating around Webtoon, those are just the ones I've read! Discover is filled with a bunch of cool stories. Below are just some stories I love, excluding the ones above ^^

Hooky
Phantom Paradise
Muted
Space Boy
Yumi's Cells
Days of Hana
True Beauty
A Good Day To Be A Dog
Purple Hyacinth
Wind Breaker
Room of Swords
Edith
Lookism
My Dear Cold-Blooded King
Blood-Ink
Siren's Lament
Subzero
Let's Play
I Love Yoo
Super Secret
Girl's of the Wild's
SIDEKICKS [Has an odd style, but I still loved it.]
Orange Marmalade
Where Tangents Meet
Annarasumanara
About Death
Lore Olympus


yeet that's a whole hecking list but webtoon is good for daily updating! Plus the discovery page is great, so many stories.

 

[Spoiled Bread]

I love Ha Il-kwon's webtoons. His artstyle is unique and I like the stories. God of Bath is my favorit but I think Anarasumanara has the most stylized artstyle.

Still, my fav in general is Magical 12th Grader. It's a magical girl parody with decent story that can even be dark at times.

 

[Abyss]

I will add:
Demon of The Underground
Unsounded
UnOridinary
Love Advice From the Great Duke of Hell
Rhephiam

I'm sure there's more I'll add later XD

Lookism is awesome.

 

[satanael]

I'm amazed TJ & Amal hasn't been recommended to you yet. It's a slow delicate burn between a college grad who gets booted out of his family because he won't Marry The Girl; he has too much to drink and makes a promise to Some Stranger that he'll drive this random-ass dude cross-country in exchange for SS paying for all their gas mileage.

 

[Blatherskiter]

Romantically Apocalyptic is such an underrated web comic. If you lost dystopias and, well, postapocalyptic settings, this is for you. The art style and immersive writing is just nsifisofjsifn

 

[PhoenixMire]

Lookism, Bastard, Sweet Home, Lost in Translation... idk, all ones I've enjoyed

 

[Aroxus]

I second Sweet Home, and also Bastard from the same author. Sweet Home follows a zombie apocalypse, but it has its own unique twist of it. Bastard is about the son of a serial killer and his battle with his father.
I also recommend Winter Moon. It’s one of those “characters play a vr mmo” like Sword Art Online, but here it’s more focused on them playing the game. It follows a girl who rips off dudes by pretending to be their girlfriend, and a flaming homo who’s a pyromaniac. It’s really funny and it gets updated three times a week.
I also really like My Darling Signed In. It’s about a guy who pretends to be a girl in an mmo and scams guys for items. He starts playing a new guy, where he seduces a guy and marries him in game. The guy falls in love with ‘her’ for real, and because of circumstances finds out ‘she’ is actually a ‘he’. He then blackmails him to be his real life boyfriend and they start dating. It’s really cute and it’s one of my favorites.

 

[jones573]

I saw this post awhile ago and wanted to make some suggestions and then totally forgot, so here I am now!

Gunnerkrigg Court is one of my all time favorite comics, I've been reading it for 10+ years now and I still love it as much as I did when I was younger! It's got that classic 'kids grow up at a magic-y British boarding school' tone of HP, but I'd say that's mostly where the comparison ends. Thematically I'd say it's about the dichotomy between science and magic, as well as a coming of age story with all the difficulties of navigating relationships, learning about failure, and taking responsibility. It follows the main characters, friends Annie and Kat, as they learn about their respective fields of magic and science, explore the Court, and get into shenanigans of both the mundane and extraordinary kind. Side characters include a magic fox spirit, a variety of robots from cute to creepy, a ghost and the bureaucratic organization he works for, and some very strange fairies.

The art is very.... stylized (and a bit blocky) at first, which I think some people find weird, but I actually really enjoy watching the art style change and develop over time. It's also got what I consider one of the best integrations of LGBTQ+ content in media depicting young adults- It's not until much later in the story (like... Chapter 40? Out of the current 70 chapters) but I think it's done very naturally as the main characters become older and more interested in romance and dating.

There is a LOT of it (70 chapters online, and like 6 published volumes) so I def don't recommend binge reading it, especially as some of the later stuff can be emotionally exhaustive, but it's a lot of fun and I definitely encourage it for folks who enjoy theorizing about the media they consume- It's got great lore (within the story itself, plus it uses a lot of world mythology and alchemy and stuff) and it's clearly been well planned out, as each time I reread it I make new connections and find something else to get excited about!

Gunnerkrigg Court updates MWF and has never missed an update in the decade I've been reading it, and I'm not sure when it will be ending- I wouldn't be surprised if it wrapped up soon, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it kept going for years.


I also recently discovered O Human Star and LOVED IT. It's about... Robots, sort of? It's more so about rejecting gendered expectations of who you should be and who you should love, and all the ways we can hurt or help each other in an effort to be understood, and the robots are a cool way of framing those themes. Basically, the previously deceased 'father of modern robotics' wakes up as a robot many years after his death and learns that his former partner (in both the 'we make robots together' way and the 'we are secretly a couple' way) has a daughter? That's sadly the best I can do for plot summary without going too in depth and/or spoiling stuff. The artist does some really beautiful framing/repetition of scenes from the past and present story lines that aren't as obvious in the online version, so if your library has copies I might recommend reading it that way to get the double spread pages, but it's a great story either way!

O Human Star updates on Mondays and has a planned eight chapters, currently on Chapter 7.

 

[The_Omega_Effect]

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