Comics by Hob

Hob - links

If comics are your thing, you're well advised to check out all of these links. But please don't read them all at once! Just spend a few minutes at your computer and then go out and smell the flowers.

(This page is an incomplete and arbitrary list of some of my favorites. But if there's something you think I should know about, please tell me. There are links to some other, much larger links pages in the Reference section.)

Artists, Living - Artists, Dead - Ongoing Strips - Collaborative Sites - Magazines/Reviews - Reference - Fan Obsession - How-To - Favorite Stories - Other

Artists, Living

Some of these are kind of famous and some are not, but they're all mighty worthy and have nice Web sites with comics on them. (If they do a recurring strip, they're listed instead under Ongoing Strips.) This listing arbitrarily leaves out all kinds of great people; see the Reference section for links to more complete listings.

Jessica Abel: Covers the aimless youth beat and other virtuoso journalistic detours.
Graham Annable: Life and death with googly eyes.
Donna Barr: Knows it all and can kick your ass.
Nick Bertozzi: Creator of Boswash and Filthy Baby; also one of New York's tallest artists.
Matt Broersma: His name is rarely heard, maybe because no one knows how to pronounce it.
Ivan Brunetti: Joyful skill applied to dreadful hell.
Bob Burden: And why not?
Eddie Campbell: Adept of love, wine, mythology, murder, and ink. Pay him the proper respects.
Leela Corman: Officially in charge of Style in the borough of Brooklyn.
Eric Drooker: If you don't live in New York then you may not know what it's all about.
Anke Feuchtenberger: I just don't even want to look, but I must.
Mary Fleener: The expanded mind needs a drink sometimes.
Phoebe Gloeckner: Scary, precise, forthright and mysterious.
Tom Hart: Stumpy people, startling poetry.
Dean Haspiel: Is taking off his shirt right now.
Sam Henderson: Asses are always funny.
Dylan Horrocks: Travel to places that ought to exist and see what people are dealing with there.
Kevin Huizenga: A big giant storm front of condensed perception blowing in from the Midwest.
Ben Katchor: Pictures that smell like cities and fit like old clothes.

Martha Keavney: Hysterically smart-ass, yet sometimes hauntingly sad-ass.
Megan Kelso: Doesn't have any comics on her web site but that is no excuse for not reading her.
Jason Little: From Brooklyn again, lots of meticulous eye candy.
Matt Madden: A serious young man who knows what he's doing.
Mark Martin: One of the funniest people ever. Has the same name as a race car driver, yet somehow is not that driver.
Carla Speed McNeil: Best science fiction comics ever. See what human beings will be like.
Lorna Miller: From darkest Scotland, upholding the tradition of bouncy and smelly stories.
Josh Neufeld: Draws businessmen, foreign lands, and a mean Harvey Pekar.
David Rees: The clip-art comics we deserve.
Salgood Sam: There's something in the water in Montreal.
Joann Sfar: The silly, unwholesome stuff you were always trying to make as a kid.
Jacques Tardi: A warm and creepy regard for faces and cities.
Rick Trembles: There's something in the water in Montreal.
Rick Veitch: The best weirdo in mainstream comics now alive.
Lauren Weinstein: Intricate sick humor and natural philosophy.
Jim Woodring: Beautiful images from my favorite pararealist.
Dan Zettwoch: An extremely hard-working man.

Artists, Dead

There were giants in those days; some of them now have little shrines on the Web.

Abner Dean: Pioneer of neurotic nudity.
George Herriman: Did you know that cats, deserts, roaches, poetry and bricks were all invented in the 1920s?

Tove Jansson: In the forests of Finland live many beautiful lines.
B. Kliban: Sick gag cartoons, abstract gag cartoons, stuff that you don't even know what it is and so on.
Roland Topor: The merciless lullabies of the cross-hatched mind.

Ongoing Strips

Places where you can check back regularly for something new. Some can also be found in newspapers, others can't.

Achewood (Chris Onstad): Rude cats and dogs in Southern California. The horror!
explodingdog (Sam Brown): Stick-figure computer art with a gorgeous design sense and good sick humor, based on random phrases sent in by readers.
Fred the Clown (Roger Langridge): Damn, they sure do know how to draw down there in New Zealand.
The Holy Consumption (Jeffrey Brown, John Hankiewicz, Paul Hornschmeier, Anders Nilsen): Weekly strips, sketchbooks and works-in-progress by some rising stars of a particular eerie constellation.
The K Chronicles (Keith Knight): The voice of America.
Lulu Eightball (Emily Flake): Flaky.
Maakies (Tony Millionaire): Houses, hazards, pirates, prurience, liquor, languor, birds, beasts, dolls, duels, draughtsmanship, grossness and exaltation.

The Pain (Tim Kreider): Gasp at the cynicism. Snarl at the folly of the world. Plotz at the excessively good drawings.
The Perry Bible Fellowship (Nicholas Gurewitch): Its many strong points do not include maturity.
Qwantz (Ryan North): Dinosaurs—six pictures of them repeated over and over—discuss life.
Slow Wave (Jesse Reklaw): Tell him your dream and he draws it in four panels. Sweet.
Thingpart (Joe Sayers): Part thing, part stuff.
This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow): It's modern, but is it a world?
Tom the Dancing Bug (Ruben Bolling): Obsessive jokester with a technical pen. Draws small, thinks big.
Troubletown (Lloyd Dangle): It takes a trouble man...
Underworld (Kaz): "And if you stay up in the city, child / There's just two things I hope..."

Interesting webcomics that are no longer updated include The Pinkey Suthers Show and Mystery Dimension.

Collaborative Sites/Games

Comics you can join in or play with in some way.

Five-Card Nancy: You never know what you'll get.
The Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible: They want a picture for every verse. Get busy.
1000 Blank White Cards: College kids get sloshed and produce many napkin drawings.

Magazines/Reviews

Magazines and reviews.

Bugpowder
The Comics Journal
The Comics Reporter
Du9 (French)

The Ganzfeld
Optical Sloth
World War 3 Illustrated

Reference

People who are more serious than I am about providing useful information.

Andy's Early Comics Archive: Andy Konky Kru's pages including several big giant lists and a lovely archive of old cartoons from 1929 to 840 AD.
Comics Research Bibliography: Another... big... page.
EGON: Frequently updated mega-listing of comics-related events across the USA.
The Grand Comicbook Database: A very big searchable index of titles and credits for an uneven assortment of mostly American comics.
Lambiek Comiclopedia: Big list of international comics creators, with small bios and relatively up-to-date links. Hosted by a great Dutch bookstore, but in English.
Open Directory - Arts - Comics: The collaborative Open Directory subject index is starting to have a decent comics section. If something's missing, send them the address -- that's what it's all about.

Fan Obsession

If you don't know what these people are talking about, never mind. We just have to.

The Bomb: Summaries and annotations for Grant Morrison's Invisibles.
The Hostess Page: Remember those Hostess Twinkies ads on the backs of comic books in the '70s? You say you've forgotten the details? Then go to this site and may God have mercy on your soul.
Jaime Hernandez/Love & Rockets Index: A fairly complete list of who does what when in all of Jaime's stories.
Jess Nevins' Annotations: Skillful commentary on a number of way too annotatable comics, particularly Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top 10.

How-To

For people who hope to make comics worth reading some day.

The Artbabe DIY Pages: Jessica Abel's comments on drawing and self-publishing. Especially nice visuals.
A Comic Artist's Guide to Reproduction: Not a marriage manual, but a brief set of articles on Xerox, silkscreen, and offset printing techniques, by Ron Rege, Brian Ralph and Jordan Crane. Gives the impression of having been written while drunk, but it's a valuable read. (Note, this is in PDF format; you'll need Acrobat Reader.)
Creating Comics: A large collection of links to fairly informative sites.

Some Favorite Stories

These caught my fancy and you might have missed them. (People set up their web sites in all kinds of funny ways; if you can't see the rest of the story, just try clicking on everything.)

Airforce Amazons: Kellie Strøm
Alan Greenspan's Tales of Terror: John Aboud & R. Sikoryak
And What's the Deal With These Observations?: Martha Keavney
Bon eh ben je prendrai le suivant: ["Oh well, I'll take the next one"] Ibn al Rabin
Captain Americas of the World: Smell of Steve, Inc.

The Disappearing Man of Hill-Behan: Dan Zettwoch
Hutch Owen: Aristotle: Tom Hart
Piercing: David Gaddis
Self-Visualization Activities: Lauren Weinstein
Three Bottles: Joel Orff
An Unfunny Comic Strip: Ivan Brunetti

Other

Oddly, some things are not comics.

Flash animation sites

vectorpark: I believe it's that guy from The Ganzfeld. Whoever it is, you can spend a good deal of mysterious time in his or her sleek little world.

Groups of people

Booklyn Artists Alliance: A collective of book artists and self-publishers based in North Brooklyn. If it involves printing, binding, showing or even holding any kind of book, then they probably know how to do it. Some of them also know how to shred money and bury themselves in the ground.
Oubapo-America: American offshoot of Ouvroir de Bande déssinée Potentielle, devoted to fooling around with formal constraints to produce comics one might want to read.