The Five Best Webcomics You Should Already Be Reading

I love webcomics. Well, I love comics regardless of medium, but I'm most closely in tune with webcomics seeing as I spend most of my working day in front of a PC. Loading up my webcomics tab at 6pm and watching Chrome chug and complain as those 60+ tabs spill across my screen marks the end of a hard day's work. Some would say I read too many webcomics. I'd say I don't read enough.

So now I'm sharing five of those great webcomics with you fine folk, and hopefully pick up some suggestions for new great reads. Here are my top five ongoing webcomics that you should already be reading (and if you aren't, begin now!)

Gunnerkrigg Court, by Tom Siddell

Gunnerkrigg Court is just flippin' wonderful. It's a science-fantasy epic that reads a little like Harry Potter with two female protagonists, except if Harry Potter was set in a world where Hogwarts was actually a bastion of scientific progress built a stone's throw away from a forest jam-packed with magic and mystery. The story is full of ghosts, dragons, minotaurs, smartarse fairies and cynical gods, but the real stars of the story are the two leads, Kat and Antimony. Antimony has a connection with the realm of mysticism, thanks to a childhood encounter with a hawk-headed god in a hospital, while Kat is a hands-on workshop girl, taking in her mother's footsteps as she unravels the elaborate tech that drives the mysterious Court.

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The pacing and character art of the first few chapters is a bit slow and rough, but it's impossible not be drawn into the enigmas of the Court and the tenuous balance between the high-tech university and the wild magic of the forest beyond the bridge, and the rapid evolution of the primary cast is stunning to watch. The visual humour is laugh-out-loud funny, and the artwork has evolved over the years from serviceable to stunning. Honestly, one of the best written and drawn comics anywhere, whether online or in print.

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Bad Machinery by John Allison

When John Allison's previous comic Scarygoround came to an end, I almost wept (manly tears, mind). Scarygoround was one of the cleverest, funniest, most idiosyncratic comics I'd ever read, and it updated with beautiful full-page colour spreads almost every day of the week. What's not to love?

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But Scarygoround ended, and Bad Machinery began. For a few months, I was wary. Then, once again, I fell in love. Bad Machinery isn't so much a new comic as a reimagining - the humour is still based in characters and dialogue instead of slapstick, the main cast are quirky, endearing but flawed, and there are still supernatural mysteries to solve... except now, our cast of heroes are all schoolchildren, and their mystery-solving all takes place within the framework of schoolyard relationships, 9pm curfews and damaged families.

It's wonderfully illustrated, the jokes are clever and the storylines weave and turn in unexpected directions. Flippin' Nora, you've no reason not to read Bad Machinery.

Octopus Pie, by Meredith Gran

Oh no, another slice of life comic about young, hip, attractive people! Oh no, another odd-couple mishap where two women of strong but divergent panels are forced to cohabit an apartment, and all the wacky hijinks that result!

Except that, against all odds, Octopus Pie transcends the cliches and quickly reveals itself to be an intelligent, touching, oft-times deeply affecting comic about love, identity, and family. Is it a soap opera? I suppose, but it's a smart soap, with characters built up strip by strip in marvellous layers.

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And when Octopus Pie isn't breaking your heart, it's devastatingly funny as well. Nobody forgets the first time they read the arc when Eve is asked to design a new ad campaign for her employer, Olly's Organix... and then accidentally submits her joke campaign to advertisers.

Octopus Pie. It's the fukken shit.

Akimbo Comics, by B Patrick

It's hard to describe Akimbo Comics, because B Patrick doesn't just draw one comic. He leaps around between an ever-expanding list of projects, ranging from absurdist noir fiction to Philip K Dickian scifi to the split-personality thriller Bob & Bob. His most regular updates are for Eat Shit and Die, an ongoing observational comic that functions (I think) as an authorial mouthpiece that lets B Patrick cut strips off the shallow selfishness of so many basic human interactions.

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His satire is laser-sharp and his art is vibrant and bold. And yet, somehow, B Patrick has yet to hit the really big time. I mean, he has a solid readership, but the fact that Akimbo Comics isn't discussed in the same breath as Charles Burns or Brian Wood is, in my mind, damn criminal.

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WARNING - The Akimbo Comics site is a pain in the arse to navigate. Clicking NEXT on any comic doesn't necessarily take you to the next comic in a particular storyline - instead, it takes you to the next comic B Patrick posted chronologically, which is frustrating considering he leaps between his many storylines with each post. As such, if you want to read through a single storyline, you have to use the list of comics in the righthand bar. FIX THIS PLEASE, B PATRICK.

Gunshow, by K.C. Green

You've already seen K.C. Green's work. I know you have. Panels and strips from Gunshow and his previous comic Horribleville circle the net in ever widening circles. Ever seen a reference to Dickbutt? That's K.C. Green. What about the Dark Homer saga? Or the hilarious long-form series The Anime Club? No?

Well, it's time to catch up.

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Firstly, and obviously, Gunshow is absurd. It revels in absurdity. It doesn't attempt to make sense and all it asks of you is that you don't expect coherence. But beneath the non-sequiter comedy and the cat stripclubs is a comic so pregnant with literary, historical and pop-culture allusions that you can only conclude that K.C. Green is a mad genius. I mean, who else would mash up Frasier with Edgar Allen Poe, or draw comics about Baby Rorschach?

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Read Gunshow. It's also the fukken shit.

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So, those are my top five. In choosing them, I had to prune out a lot of fantastic ongoing comics, so if you think I've made a criminal omission then please leave a comment and tell me where I went wrong!