The pants are a LIE...The truth is out...

Clearly, the evil masterminds at DC comics have executed this entire 'Wonder Woman finds pants in her drawer and decides to wear them for a change' scandal as a way of keeping us from seeing what is really going on. They are shutting Zuda down. I am a big fan of Zuda, but I guess I am not surprised by this. I love the creators that they had, and the sense of community and accessibility that they brought with them, but I will love those creators wherever they go.

The thing I didn't love, and the thing that seemed to be the beginning of the end, was the ugly and awful gamesmanship played by some of the competitors in the competitions and/or their supporters. It was pretty ugly stuff. I was sorry to see that go. I don't really care what DC does now. I will support any good project that gives access to new and different and exciting creators and their creations, but that fact is independent of any specific publisher.

I wish every individual affiliated with Zuda the best of luck in the future, with whatever comic endeavors they pursue. I have no idea how specifically this news impacts anyone, but like I said. A lot of pretty great talent, and pretty stand-up folks flowed through there, no matter what you thought of the site or the competition, etc.

Sympathy for the Zuda

I have been trying to figure out what I wanted to say about Zuda for a while. Zuda is a webcomics competition and site that is owned by DC Comics. It seems to get more aggressive negative press than it does positive for no good reason in my opinion. Non-Zuda webcomics people seem to become elitists when it is brought up(or when they constantly bring it up), and many comics bloggers seem to find some way of giving a negative spin to whatever they say about it. People who don't read the comics there seem to lay in wait for opportunities to post comments about how they don't read it for one weak reason or another.

It is not uncommon to see people bashing Zuda and then giving the disclaimer that there are some great comics there, but for whatever reason, despite great comics (and happy creators) Zuda is depicted as somehow bad or doing it wrong, or secretly going to sneak into your houses and delete your non-Zuda favorites from your computer. I don't get it. I have read what I have seen written and most of it just makes me wonder where the need to slam things comes from.

I have no vested interest in Zuda. I get the bulk of my comics from my LCS and my local library, and sometimes from Amazon. I read a number of non-Zuda webcomics and know that there are a lot of really good ones out there. I also acknowledge that there are certainly a great number of areas for improvement. There are bound to be. Few things start off perfected. I am going to talk about my personal experiences with Zuda and where I think they excel.

The comics - Zuda is home to a large number of comics that I would rank among my favorite comics I am reading these days (regardless of format). Bayou, Celadore, Azure, Night Owls, Imaginary Boys, and High Moon are all very well written and drawn, and are every one of them very different from the other in style and substance. Zuda has a monthly contest that puts a lot of 8 screen 'pilots' in front of my eyes, and has introduced me to a great deal of talent I might not have otherwise found on my own. Contest winners may go on to have their comic become an ongoing series, and this introduces variety and freshness to the mix.

The Format - I like that Zuda is community and feedback -centric. This is not unique to Zuda, but I appreciate it a lot in a webcomic. It's one of the things I think can really set webcomics apart from their print only brethren. Each comic has its own open thread that everyone can post in, ask questions, leave feedback, etc. and in most cases the creators actively keep up on the posts and reply regularly to the people taking time to read their works. There is a real sense of appreciation there. All of the creators I have encountered really seem to appreciate their fans and readers. The Zuda interface itself is a flash viewer. This gets an awful lot of the hate. Zuda recently made a good number of changes to their site, and improved a number of navigation and viewing features, but that still doesn't seem to appease critics.

I have been looking at a lot of webcomics sites lately. I don't use feeds for my comics reading. I guess I am behind the curve, but that doesn't stop me from reading and enjoying webcomics. I genuinely like Zudas viewer. No, I can't read them on my iphone, but there aren't many webcomics that are practical for reading on my iphone in my opinion. In IE, Firefox and Google Chrome (yeah, I use three different browsers...) I am not currently seeing any real issues in accessing and using the Zuda site and the comics viewer. Here is what I like about the viewer

• You can browse the screens in a small view that you can still more or less read in most cases. I don't like to read them this way because...
• You can go to full screen and really see the comic in a screen fitting format that gives you the best view of the art, and is even easier to read.
• It remembers the last screen you read of any given comic and starts you out there when you revisit
• There is a thumbnails view that can scroll across the bottom of your screen for easy navigating
• Comics are submitted in a specific aspect ratio so that they fit most monitors in full screen view, so no matter which view you use you don't have to scroll around.

I just don't understand people who suggest that any of those things is just an insurmountable barrier to their accessing and enjoying comics. I could read some really good comics on the web for free, but screw that, I refuse to maximize. I refuse to use a flash viewer, and I refuse to sit for a screen load time that is generally about the same amount of time that many other webcomics take to have their whole page refresh when you click 'next'. If people have systems that flash is incompatible with, then that is a real issue, and I hope that it is being looked into or considered as an issue to be resolved in a later update, etc. If the percentage of potential viewers affected is too small to justify changing or fixing, then that is just the way it is. Those sorts of things happen sometimes, and it is unfortunate.

The sense of community, and the sense of genuine enthusiasm for the medium of comics, and appreciation of their peers and the guidance and support they get through their organization is really palpable among the creators I have had the pleasure of chatting with. It's genuine, and it's refreshing. No I don't expect that every creator needs to be my 'friend' in order for me to read their works, but I do appreciate the sense of really trying to make something work, and really appreciating their readers and peers. It's a lot like following a local band and seeing them break into a greater music community.

If you haven't given Zuda a chance, give it a chance. It isn't the enemy of webcomics, it is another avenue of opportunity for webcomics that can exist right out there alongside every other comic you like. I don't like every comic on Zuda, but you are missing out on some exceptional ones if you write it off. Zuda is on twitter, as are many of its creators. Following them is a good way to know when updates are available without visiting the site, or hearing about upcoming events, etc.

I am also not implying here that Zuda is an underdog either. I doubt it really needs me defending it in any way. I get a good bit of enjoyment from the site, just don't understand what seems to be a steady assault of it. I am tired of everything being about tearing down instead of lifting up. That is part of my general philosophy here. I realize it doesn't make me look like an important critic of the industry, but that's just not an aspiration of mine.

Zuda - August competition - Vote Rogue Royal

As is true every month, there is are a lot of great entries in the competition this month. My vote this month goes to Rogue Royal. It is a comic Sci-Fi space adventure strip, and it is awesome. The art is cute and stylish and fun. The strip is extremely funny and well done. The first 8 pages introduce us to our heroine, Ember Zeram, Space Princess, and how she acquires her weapons. Go check it out, and vote for it if you like it. I recommend reading all the entries, but this one gets my vote

Andy Bellinger's Bottle of Awesome (and Raising Hell)

Bottle of Awesome is a new Zuda Instant Winner that premiered today. The art is pretty amazing, but that should be no surprise to anyone familiar with Bellinger's work. At the moment there are only two pages up, but it looks like it will be pretty cool, the premise seems promising, and it will be updating regularly from this point on. Here is the synopsis from Zuda:

This is a story about a boy named Billy Butterman, a loser, a putz - what have you, just trying to get through grade nine. High school is a total nightmare. All the cool guys pick on him, chicks don't dig him and everyone at the school calls him "Butterpants," because he had bladder control problems till he was twelve. That is, till the day he finds a hobo in an alley. Billy notices the bum has a full bottle that he’s not drinking from and the bum tells him it is because the bottle is full of awesome and that a a sip will make him awesome as well. He warns the boy that a person can get too awesome, but will Billy heed his words?

What I imagine we will get from this series, although much different in subject matter, is the same sort of terrific art, humor, and characterization that Bellinger has proven himself to be particularly good at in his fantastic zombie apocalypse meets dysfunctional relationship webcomic Raising Hell (not for kids) at Transmission X
Raising Hell focuses on Aries & Kitty, a can't live together, can't live apart sort of couple, always on the verge of making out or beating the crap out of each other. In addition to those two, we also get a nice cast of equally interesting and well defined supporting characters. The story starts on Halloween, and we get a good long setup of the sort of folks we will be spending time with before we are plunged into gore-filled chaos and humor.

It's really good stuff, the writing and art/layout/color, are all just perfect. It moves fast and really makes it hard to pull yourself away from it.


I recommend both of these, and as always, if you aren't already making the most of Zuda and the great free comics you can get there, you really should be. I know I say it a lot, but I also say 'get free comics at your local library!' I don't get anything from Zuda but the comics I read there, I just know that there are some very good creators and and some exceptional comics there. Remember to view the comics in full screen mode for best effect!

The Imaginary Boys

Review of the Zuda webcomic with a focus on its creator 'Yamatai' aka Carlos Lopez Bermudez

The Imaginary Boys was a Zuda 'Direct Winner' It was picked up by Zuda without going through the competition voting, and is an ongoing series there. Here is the synopsis from Zuda.

It has been said that when we die, we go to Heaven or Hell. After passing away, Elise Dawn finds that there are many other places to go in the afterlife. Prepare to enter the breathtaking realms of Otherworld; alive with strange and wonderful creatures, where a stray thought can become reality.
Join Elise on her magical, escapades, exploring all the worlds between life and death with her pet Robert and newfound friends, Trauma Boy and Young Jack. Thrills, chills and dangerous adventures await them. Elise will have to rely on her quick wit and these new friends to get her through the serious challenges that await her.
Death is not the end… it’s just the beginning.

The style in this comic is far and away different from any of the other ongoing Zuda offerings, and pretty different from anything else that has even been in the contests as far as i can tell. It is not exactly a children's story, at least not for the very young, although it is filled with plenty of elements that would appeal to kids, and so far, overall would be fine in my opinion to be read to kids by a parent. In addition to that, it has plenty of levels to it that make it work perfectly as an adult read as well.

The art is very clean. The colors are perfect and simple. The character design is fantastic. This is a beautifully designed and produced comic. Yamatai (he uses that designation after a manga and anime magazine he produced with friends of his.) Is a life-long lover of comics who teaches Graphic design (which really makes sense when you see just how gifted he is in terms of the design elements of his comic). This is only his second comics project, but hopefully won't be his last. He brings a smart eye, and an interesting approach to his work.
From the artist's web site:

The Imaginary Boys is a comic made by computer using advertising designing programs. This confers it a clean style, of plain colors, and the possibility to reproduce the images at the desired size without losing quality.

This is just a good and interesting comic. We start at the funeral of a young girl named Elise. We follow her into the afterlife where we meet a fallen angel who may have made it out of hell, but may or may not be redeemed yet. We find out from him that while Heaven and Hell are certainly options, there are many other potential destinations for the departed. Young people who die and find themselves in this place are called 'Imaginary Boys' regardless of their gender. We also find out that the nature of reality is very flexible there, and that it is possible for one's imagination or belief to shape things there.

Elise is joined shortly by her dog Robert who preceded her in death. He protects her and serves as a companion and guide. She meets a variety of characters on her travels, some that may represent potential threats to her, and others that become friends, or serve to show her more about the complexities of the afterlife and of heaven and hell and good and evil.

I don't want to give too much away. Go to Zuda, at least read the first 20 pages. Remember to read it in full screen mode for maximum effect. This is a quick read, and this will bring you to the point where you have covered some important milestones. If you aren't compelled to keep going, that's fine, but it you are, you will be rewarded with an almost non-stop stream of new characters and situations. It starts out good and just keeps getting better.

I'm not gushing, I'm sharing. Go, Read, Let me know what you think!

Zuda - May Competition

Toughest month ever. There are 3-5 entries that I swear would be winners in any other month but this one. Get yourself to zuda now. Read, Enjoy, Vote. You owe it to yourself.

Here are the competing entries for May (Alpha order)


As is evident from just the small ad icons, This month has absolutely fantastic art, and wildly varied styles and genres. There are no entries that I felt were awful, no premises that I thought were flat out awful, etc. Some of these aren't developed in a way that gets you hooked completely in eight pages, and that is the first criteria by which I thinned the field for my vote.

That was the easy part. After reading and re-reading, I finally thinned the field to my personal favorite three. For me that's Sides, Freak City, and Clandestino. Each of these is great, and certainly deserves to go on. I hope they all continue somewhere, as I would love to keep reading them (among other entries as well). I finally based my vote on what I thought was the most unique when viewed against past Zuda winners. In that regard, for me, Clandestino is the one I would like to see win the contest for this month. That was not at all my initial thought when I read it. It was in the running, but didn't move to the front for me before I had read everything a few times and started to work out what made a winner for me.

Obviously, no-one is obligated to put that much thought and effort into their vote, but taking it seriously is part of what makes it fun for me.

Remember kids... Comics on Zuda are best viewed in full screen mode. If you have the skills to reach the website, you have the skills to enjoy Zuda.

Zuda - April Competition

I really think of Zuda as a community and a lifestyle, as much as it is a contest site and a great place to go for great free comics. The April contest is on, and there are some really good entries this time, as always. Go, Read, Vote.

Go read all of the entries and judge for yourself, but my favorites this time around are:


Intergalactic Law: Grey Squadron - I think I will go with my favorite descriptor for this comic. It's like an intergalactic Barney Miller. Grey Squadron may have been good cops at one point, but they have been underutilized to the point of complacency at the very least. Add to a precinct a by the book cop used to real action, and suddenly the fact that the captain's mother is a drug dealer seems like a negative thing. The art is great, the humor is... funny, and it seems to be a pretty neat take on the police precinct genre. I will probably talk about this more in the future, but this one is getting my vote this time around.


Eathbuilders - This looks to me like a sort of Aliens dynamic to me, only instead of Space Marines, you have Terra Formers sent in to fix issues in terra-formed environments.. It's a pretty great idea. I wish I could vote for three or four entries this time, as there are plenty I would like to see go further. There are a lot of interesting ideas in this, There are some compelling characters as well, for example, It is hard not to like Tor Mortensen, a sort of human satellite uplink with no people skills.


Mecha-Simian - This rounds out my three favorites for this round. It's exactly what it looks like. It's a monkey in a robot version of his old body who is a space hero. It's (almost) perfect all ages , tongue in cheek fun. It's got that sort of look of Dragon's Lair / Space Ace kitsch, with buttons surrounded by large arrows pointing to them, and space ships shaped like the enemy's head. It's not deep, but it is fast and fun.

Zuda's competition for March

I just recently finished reading all of the entries in this month's Zuda Competition. There's some really good stuff as usual. Not all of the entries are to my tastes, but there is a very nice variety of styles and genres represented here, though, and that certainly makes it worth checking out.

The two entries that I personally liked the most this month are:





Neither of these are very high up in the voting, but both stand out to me. The style used for The Dirty Mile is just cool as can be, and it is written really well. The premise as it seems from the 8 pages is similar to a number of things we've seen before, but the execution seems good enough that I don't imagine it will be an issue.

Lani, The Leopard queen is one that unfortunately the 8 pages on their own may not convey enough to fully hook people to what looks like a fantastic synopsis if they don't actually take a moment to read the synopsis. It starts with an abandonment dream sequence, which seems a little risky in a competition like this, as it may not show enough of what you are going to get if you keep reading. What it does show you is an absolutely beautiful illustration style. It has an old feel to it, and a very admirable conscious direction of being an all ages comic. That is part of the creators specific vision for this, based on comments he has made in the feedback

Check out all the offerings, let me know what you are liking there this month. More importanly though, let THEM know what you are liking.

Zuda : A love story

I figured that it was about time for me to post about Zuda again. I know that I haven given plenty of lip service to Bayou, and I previously devoted a post to Celadore, but that doesn't mean I am done talking about them.

If you really haven't heard of Zuda before, stop right now and follow this link right here

Zuda is the DC comics Webcomics division. It is set up around a monthly contest where everyone can read and rate and vote on a selection of webcomics all 8 screens long. Winners of the monthly contests get the ability to continue offering their strips at Zuda(I assume), and as such, there are an ever increasing number of regularly updating webcomics of all genres and styles. There really is a pretty great variety among the offerings, although themes of horror and fantasy and science fiction are represented perhaps more heavily than others, but within those designations the variety is still pretty great. None of the series I am reading on Zuda remind me even the slightest of any of the others I am reading there, or for the most part anywhere else. The talent that is regularly updating on this site is pretty staggering. I recently voiced a sort of half sincere 'complaint' about webcomics in general, and having to wait for relatively small bites for my personal taste. I am generally a sort of voracious comic reader, and when I start reading something great, i want to read it all, right now. It was pointed out by one of the sites top creators that they actually update at a rate of 4 pages weekly, which is a pretty great rate, actually. That got me to thinking, and I came to a different conclusion than I had previously had.

A particularly nice thing about the site isn't that I can go there and read a single web comic when it is updated and just forget about it until the next update and never look at any other aspect of the site... although you could do that and still get way more than your moneys worth. What is really nice for me is that there is such a wealth of talent there and community as well, that if you go in weekly or biweekly, or whatever, you have this fantastic online serialized anthology, with the ability to post and interact with the creators. There is also a certain joy to a place where there seem to be as many creators paying attention to the community and the comics there, as there are random readers. It really makes it a pretty cool experience that is greater than the some of its parts as they say.

Here's what I am reading these days: (along with how many screens they have up right this second)

The Night Owls - 101 screens so far of Hilarity and style. This comic strip is reliably funny and beautifully drawn. If you aren't reading it, you should be... Unless you hate funny.
High Moon - Weird Western - 134 pages - Written and drawn as well as anything in print, in my opinion. This series has the supernatural western vibe with compelling characters and great stories. Now in it's third season!
Bayou - Horror fantasy -181 screens so far, and a book due out next quarter!- (in their words) South of the Mason-Dixon Line, lies a strange land of gods and monsters. Born from centuries of slavery, civil war, innocent bloodshed, hate and strife lurks a world parallel to our own. I love everything about this.
Re-evolution - Fantasy, Action - 47 screens - The charismatic leader of the anti Gorrilla resistance is Che-huahua... He wears the little hat and a red cape which may just be his blankie. It's sort of like Planet of the Apes, only with Animals instead of people... sort of. It's great!
Imaginary Boys - Fantasy adventure - 36 screens - Elise Dawn is a young girl on a fantastic journey through the other worlds of the afterlife with the help of her dog Robert. The art is stylish and the character design is pretty fantastic.
Celadore - Fantasy, Comedy, Monster hunters, etc. Absolutely terriffic stuff 60 screens down, and season 2 starts in March!!! Great time to catch up and jump in for the new season.
Dual - Horror - 44 screens, crazy awesome premise, great read.
Road - Science Fiction, Action Adventure - Great art, interesting sort of Warhammer 40k kind of religion and technology thing going on in an extremely cool looking world.
Azure - post apocalyptic underwater sci-fi- Just started it's regular update schedule, looks fantastic so far.
I Rule The Night - Super Hero Horror, 19 screens - Absolutely creepy, but not without a dark humor to it

And this isn't close to being all there is to read there... Be smart... check them out!

Celadore

Unless you are allergic to awesome, you are going to enjoy this comic. Yes, I have been posting a bit heavy on the Zuda love lately, but I can't help it. For some dumb reason I had resisted actually getting into Zuda for a long time. I had checked out items specifically recommended by one or two people, but never even tried to go beyond that. It was as if someone gave me a giant box of pretty great comics for free and I shrugged and said "why don't you hold on to them for now." Fortunately for me I have gotten past that. In the past month I have read at least four free online comics that are every bit as good as the best titles that I am paying upwards of four bucks for in the store. The scales are off my eyes I guess. I promise that I will expand my focus beyond Zuda and cover any good webcomics I find.

Enough of that general stuff, now for something specific.


Click on this link to go to Celadore.

Celadore is written and illustrated by Caanan , and centers on the kick-butt monster hunter Celadore and her band of extraordinary compatriots. Celadore herself is no slouch, but the 'people' she surrounds herself with are positively supernatural. Jams is a 'Frankenstein-Monster', Wax is a shapeshifter, Ness is the(a?) tooth fairy, and their seems to be no end to the possibilities of other creatures that she may work with or against in her world, which looks an awful lot like this one except for the aforementioned sorts of creatures running around in it.

Right off the bat Celadore is put into a situation that you might think would end her monster hunting duties. Her soul is pulled right out of her body and ends up in the body of a young girl who had been in a coma for three months. This development doesn't slow her down, as her strength and abilities convey to the new body, and she ends up with two new companions in the form of the 'ghost' of the girl whose body she inhabits and that girl's adventure seeking, ninja-loving best friend.

I hesitate to say things like this, because I don't want anyone to think that this is any sort of knock-off. This is a truly fresh and fun comic, written perfectly, and drawn equally as well. To me it is like the best possible marriage of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Kim Possible. For the record, I love both of those to a near unnatural degree. It is different from those two shows in as many ways as it is similar, and I mean that as high praise.

I certainly hope this comic continues to be picked up by Zuda and that we get to see lots of further adventures with the cast of characters we were introduced to in this 'origin story' of sorts. I also would love to see a paper copy some day that I can put on my shelf and flip through without page loads and stuff.

If you follow the link I put in above, and you like the comic, do everyone a favor by registering a free account and submitting feedback about the comics you like. It is one of the ways they decide what to keep supporting on the site.

Zuda, it's the Zima of comics

By that I mean delicious, refreshing and totally hip, of course! Maybe I don't understand the name, maybe I don't fully understand how you know which comics will continue to be updated and for how long, etc., but I DO know that I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of a lot of really great comics thanks to that site

Zuda, as you know is the DC comics web comics arm. They have monthly contests that pit web comic offerings against each other for something... honestly I am not fully clear on how all of this works. I have poked around some, but other than the basic idea that I read things, I rate them, and I give my vote to the one that I think is best, I may be too lazy to figure it out beyond that.

Here is the December contest page

There are a number of good entries here. I won't detail them all, but my favorite two right now are:


I recommend reading all of the offerings, but Angus Frump Kills Christmas is extremely well done and non-stop funny. It is very polished in it's art and in it's humor. I certainly hope we get to see plenty more of it.

A Single Soul looks very promising, and stands out thanks to the pretty incredible pen and ink drawing, as well as what looks to be a sort of mythological horror / action/adventure motif. Given it's nature I will need to see more of it to really know anything about it, but so far it stands out a bit more than the other offerings I liked after 'angus'

If you are looking for other recommendations of top notch comics to read, I would put the following three up against just about anything else I read regularly in terms of quality and entertainment value: High Moon, Night Owls, Bayou.

Bayou

I just finished reading the 160 screens of the comic Bayou that is available through Zuda. I don't think I am exaggerating by saying that this is the best thing I have read all year. I only wish that there was more of it available.

Bayou is set in the town of Charon on the Mississippi delta in 1933. It is not a good time to be black in the south, but Lee Wagstaff and her father are doing the best they can. The story opens with Lee diving into the bayou, rope in hand, to try and retrieve the body of a young black boy who was killed and dumped in the water after supposedly whistling at a white woman. Her father is holding the rope on the shore. She is doing it because they are paying her father a very much needed three dollars and he is just too big to get into the spot the body has settled. While she is under the water she catches a glimpse of a butterfly winged version of the dead boy that she believes to be his soul.

That is the first glimpse of the kind of place Charon Mississippi is, and the sorts of creatures living and lurking just out of sight. It is doubtful that there are creatures under and around the water that are any worse than the very real, very cruel bigots and murderers that seem to be the rule rather than the exception. As the story goes on that hypothesis proves to be false.

I actually don't want to spoil the story as I am tasking everyone who even casually glances at this to go follow that link and give it a few minutes of your time. If you aren't hooked in short order I would be surprised. What I will say, is that it doesn't take long for the story to get going and for Lee to become fully involved in a heroic quest that pits her against fantastic creatures that seem to reflect and amplify everything that is wrong in the same way that she will meet new companions that do the same for the positive characters she knows, in order to rescue her former best friend, and save her father before he is lynched by an angry mob. She embarks on this with the help of a sometimes reluctant hero in the form of a very large green swamp monster named 'Bayou' who greatly resembles her good father and is himself intent on seeing his kids again somehow.

The art is absolutely beautiful. The characters are perfect, and I am not sure that I have seen expressions and emotions conveyed so perfectly. The fantastic creatures have a real sense of 'other' to them, while at the same time being easily recognizable for what they are.

I really do see this comic as a blend of regrettable southern history, blues, Uncle Remus Stories, and southern and slave folklore(real or imagined), mixed with characters that could have been pulled right out of To Kill A Mockingbird. It's just perfect. I am a father of daughters, and the bond and the love between Lee and her father, and her determination to save him is nearly tear-inducing.

I used the word perfect more than I usually do, but I did it to keep from overusing the word AWESOME.

Zuda

Rest assured, once a train has pulled fully out of the station I will be right there and ready to get on.

Zuda is DC Comics' Webcomics division. I have really only read a few things there in the past, and never previously voted in their competitions or rated comics there, etc. I have been following the comic The Night Owls there, and it is great. The art and writing both are terrific. I also read Paul Maybury's very cute Adventure's of Maxy J. Millionaire, which I liked a lot.

I went back to read more recently, and am going to try to give this thing a spin for a while. There is a competition going on right now, and after having read all of the offerings I have to say that this one is my current favorite:

I am going to admit, that this site has a fairly steep learning curve for someone like me who is slow to embrace new things sometimes. It took me some fiddling around and trial and error, but I mostly got the hang of it.

The voting/rating/commenting aspect of the site is interesting to me. I don't have a great sense of what it really all amounts to, but it is still kind of fun, and for the most part I have seen constructive criticism presented in a fairly civil way. If it gives me a free source of new comics to browse and read at will, I am inclined to like it. Like most things where you have a wide variety of creators, not all of the offerings are great, but some really are. You can rest assured that I will report on what I read there in the future.