Oxbridge Pissheads

Worthy online comics

Slow Wave is a source of much surreality, although the artwork's unexceptional. Every strip is a four-panel cartoon recording a dream sent in by the audience; it's a thoroughly cool idea with some beautifully weird results. Also, I'm in one of them.

Scary Go Round is very professionally done. It's also highly cutesy in style and content, it follows the 'wacky-but-normal buddies who blithely wisecrack their way through paranormal weirdness' formula, and the plotlines are incidental. If you can get past that, there are some brilliant turns of phrase.

Bob the Angry Flower is almost always hilarious; nicely handled bizarreness, usually centred around Bob's explosive and rarely rational mood swings and crackpot ideas. Insane, but makes sense, and handles the odd topical issue very well.

The Pinkey Suthers Show probably influenced Oxbridge Pissheads more than anything else. Nice use of solid chunks of black, simple, subtle and terse both in drawing style and dialogue, and with a vaguely Daoist tone of gentle mockery of seriousness and overenthusiasm. Usually funny; if not, pathos-loaded. Also, philosophy jokes.

Sinfest is very professional, with excellent, minimal use of line and well-structured strips. However, it's (by its own admission) derivative of Calvin and Hobbes; essentially, think C&H with sex and religion jokes and no parents or scenic beauty. It's pretty to look at and funny for a while, but starts feeling recycled quickly. Worth mentioning, but I don't really keep up with it any more.

While there's basically little in Sexy Losers but gross-out sex jokes, they're very good gross-out sex jokes, and it's well-drawn.

Everyone's got to have a favourite badly-drawn comic featuring characters who randomly kill, fuck and consume alcohol and drugs for no particular reason. Mine is Elftor, which generally has nice timing. This doesn't stop it being incredibly childish, of course. Topical issues arise, and are normally sorted out by shooting everybody.

Get Your War On is a popular cut-and-paste critique of The War On Terror; no hard arguments here, but rather catharsis for those who are already utterly certain that the Bush administration is made up of raving psychotics.

Hound's Home is a depressing reminder that at a certain age, all kids are either evil bastards, superficial uberconformists, unlovable freaks or some combination of these. It also has a monkey.

Nowhere Girl: As my buddy Laura would say: "I hate my life and I'm going to wear black and become a lesbian and kill myself. I'm so fucking cool." Gother than Wagner.

Academy X is a project by Adam Cadre and J. Robinson Wheeler, better known as interactive fiction luminaries. Big images and a lot of scrolling; very much in progress.

Tuesday is notable for its simple but effective style and innocent charm. Small archive, and not (I think) being updated any more.

Space Moose (mirror) is, well... not for the faint of heart or unviolated of orifices.

Pokey the Penguin is required reading for all those who would know a great many catchphrases to shout on the internet. Hilariously awful.

The Perry Bible Fellowship is what The Far Side would be if Gary Larson had been allowed to do sex jokes. Except that it's much, much better-drawn, and the art style varies a lot.

Leisuretown. Sordid modernist alienation! A million shades of misanthropy! Anal rape robots! And, um, art that's several orders of magnitude above copy-and-paste strips about classic videogame characters, despite initial appearances.

Cat and Girl. Postmodernist alienation! Metacounterculture criticism! Pathos!
Postmodernist alienation!

The inexpertly drawn Schlock Mercenary has variable humour, a deep vein of cynicism and lots of nicely-maintained pseudoscience. Basically, what Star Trek would have been like if all the enlightened-society and noble-hero stuff had been excised from it.

Neurotically Yours is the domain of Foamy the squirrel and his manic, vitriolic invectives against the ills of pop-culture. Admittedly, it's pop-culture enough itself to appear in Hot Topic, and it's extremely hit-and-miss, but the wrath will do your soul good.

Somewhere in the hazy territory between webcomic and web art, When I Am King seems heavily allegorical but probably isn't. Very accomplished artistic style, as well as nicely simple humour. A complete piece.

Quality Ways to Waste Your Time

Broken Saints is a subversive and poetic Flash series, full of powerful imagery and evocative music, and A Completed Piece. If you can handle the download sizes it's marvellous.

Samarost is a stunningly beautiful, if sadly all-too-short, point-and-click adventure. Occasionally it gets a little frustrating, but it's beyond censure on the aesthetic front.

Grow is a single complex puzzle: engaging, smoothly executed, and incredibly, incredibly satisfying to complete.

We Like The Moon is the finest creation of Joel Veitch, whose mission in life is to set immature Flash cartoons to immature music. Also recommended: northern kittens.

Slow Wave is a source of much surreality, although the artwork's unexceptional. Every strip is a four-panel cartoon recording a dream sent in by the audience; it's a thoroughly cool idea with some beautifully weird results. Also, I'm in one of them.	Scary Go Round is very professionally done. It's also highly cutesy in style and content, it follows the 'wacky-but-normal buddies who blithely wisecrack their way through paranormal weirdness' formula, and the plotlines are incidental. If you can get past that, there are some brilliant turns of phrase.
Bob the Angry Flower is almost always hilarious; nicely handled bizarreness, usually centred around Bob's explosive and rarely rational mood swings and crackpot ideas. Insane, but makes sense, and handles the odd topical issue very well.	The Pinkey Suthers Show probably influenced Oxbridge Pissheads more than anything else. Nice use of solid chunks of black, simple, subtle and terse both in drawing style and dialogue, and with a vaguely Daoist tone of gentle mockery of seriousness and overenthusiasm. Usually funny; if not, pathos-loaded. Also, philosophy jokes.
Sinfest is very professional, with excellent, minimal use of line and well-structured strips. However, it's (by its own admission) derivative of Calvin and Hobbes; essentially, think C&H with sex and religion jokes and no parents or scenic beauty. It's pretty to look at and funny for a while, but starts feeling recycled quickly. Worth mentioning, but I don't really keep up with it any more.	While there's basically little in Sexy Losers but gross-out sex jokes, they're very good gross-out sex jokes, and it's well-drawn.
Everyone's got to have a favourite badly-drawn comic featuring characters who randomly kill, fuck and consume alcohol and drugs for no particular reason. Mine is Elftor, which generally has nice timing. This doesn't stop it being incredibly childish, of course. Topical issues arise, and are normally sorted out by shooting everybody.	Get Your War On is a popular cut-and-paste critique of The War On Terror; no hard arguments here, but rather catharsis for those who are already utterly certain that the Bush administration is made up of raving psychotics.
Hound's Home is a depressing reminder that at a certain age, all kids are either evil bastards, superficial uberconformists, unlovable freaks or some combination of these. It also has a monkey.	Nowhere Girl: As my buddy Laura would say: "I hate my life and I'm going to wear black and become a lesbian and kill myself. I'm so fucking cool." Gother than Wagner.
Academy X is a project by Adam Cadre and J. Robinson Wheeler, better known as interactive fiction luminaries. Big images and a lot of scrolling; very much in progress.	Tuesday is notable for its simple but effective style and innocent charm. Small archive, and not (I think) being updated any more.
Space Moose (mirror) is, well... not for the faint of heart or unviolated of orifices.	Pokey the Penguin is required reading for all those who would know a great many catchphrases to shout on the internet. Hilariously awful.
The Perry Bible Fellowship is what The Far Side would be if Gary Larson had been allowed to do sex jokes. Except that it's much, much better-drawn, and the art style varies a lot.	Leisuretown. Sordid modernist alienation! A million shades of misanthropy! Anal rape robots! And, um, art that's several orders of magnitude above copy-and-paste strips about classic videogame characters, despite initial appearances.
Cat and Girl. Postmodernist alienation! Metacounterculture criticism! Pathos! Postmodernist alienation!	The inexpertly drawn Schlock Mercenary has variable humour, a deep vein of cynicism and lots of nicely-maintained pseudoscience. Basically, what Star Trek would have been like if all the enlightened-society and noble-hero stuff had been excised from it.
Neurotically Yours is the domain of Foamy the squirrel and his manic, vitriolic invectives against the ills of pop-culture. Admittedly, it's pop-culture enough itself to appear in Hot Topic, and it's extremely hit-and-miss, but the wrath will do your soul good.	Somewhere in the hazy territory between webcomic and web art, When I Am King seems heavily allegorical but probably isn't. Very accomplished artistic style, as well as nicely simple humour. A complete piece.

Broken Saints is a subversive and poetic Flash series, full of powerful imagery and evocative music, and A Completed Piece. If you can handle the download sizes it's marvellous.	Samarost is a stunningly beautiful, if sadly all-too-short, point-and-click adventure. Occasionally it gets a little frustrating, but it's beyond censure on the aesthetic front.
Grow is a single complex puzzle: engaging, smoothly executed, and incredibly, incredibly satisfying to complete.	We Like The Moon is the finest creation of Joel Veitch, whose mission in life is to set immature Flash cartoons to immature music. Also recommended: northern kittens.