Links

Here's a list of some better strips than mine for you to read and forget about me. By the way, I am not responsible for any of the content on these sites. Duh.

Rob and Elliot

This comic is the funniest on the internet. It deserves to be made into a TV series and then a film. I've been reading webcomics for six years and Rob and Elliot has been my favourite since I discovered it. Read it.

Penny Arcade

Penny Arcade has excellent artwork, an unsurpassable script and witty satire. It makes me laugh out loud when I'm alone in a room. That's the hallmark of good comedy. Hell, the site's worth visiting for Jerry Holkins' news posts alone. I can't read him without using the thesaurus at least twice: the man is so articulate, he's practically English. My respect for Penny Arcade keeps increasing.

PVP

PVP is excellently characterised, well-scripted, well-drawn and well-plotted. I've raved in the past about how much I love Scott Kurtz but there have been periods when I have doubted his divine wisdom, shall we say. His was the first webcomic I was exposed to and as such it as always represented an inspiration to me. Finding out my hero was a human being led to a period of disillusionment for me. However, I'm cool with that now. He is a human being and a damn funny one too. The strip is still hilarious at its best and I can now say with pride that I am a subscriber to the animated series which is pretty damn awesome. Good show, Mr Kurtz!

Scary Go Round

Hurrah! Another comic strip from good old Blighty. John Allison's style portrays with humorous accuracy the off-beat, surreal conversations that sexy twenty-somethings have. In Scary Go Round, he combines the youthful air of quirky surrealism with an altogether darker theme of death and the occult, all of which is delivered in the style of a 50 minute T.V. show. If Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Monty Python's Flying Circus and a trendy Ash album collided and somehow murged into a single work, then it might look something like SGR. Excellent and original!

Starslip Crisis

Starslip Crisis is an enjoyable and rewarding read. You will rarely find a story told with such intelligence, ambition and heart outside a Brad Bird movie. I was actually moved to tears reading it at one point - not because anything particularly sad was happening, just because Kris Straub has made me really care about these characters and this plot point was paid off in just the right way. It was really satisfying and heart-warming; I couldn't help but get a lump in my throat. Excellently characterised, witty, intelligent and cultured. Essentially Frasier in space. Can there be any higher recommendation?

Least I Could Do

This comic is a Godsend because its subject matter is something I can actually relate to. After all, most webcomics seem geared towards, well, nerds and geeks. People obsessed with comic books/Dungeons & Dragons/demons/boys who turn into girls. It's not that I am unable to enjoy such comics; reading them has exposed me to enough of this 'nerd culture' to be able to differentiate between Green Goblin and Green Lantern. But I don't read comic books, you know? Least I Could Do is at least about a subculture I am actually a part of (i.e. that of having sex, something nerds don't seem to care too much about).

Penny & Aggie

This comic is great. It's style is unique (or at least I have no experience of anything like it), it's funny, touching and well-drawn. Everything comes together perfectly. Anyone who has ever been a teenager can relate to this, regardless of gender.

Sinfest

Sinfest is an example of the comic as an art form. It's a clever commentary on the human condition, mainstream Judeo-Christian cosmology and modern society in general. It's smart but cool, philosophical but unpretentious. On top of all this, it's always very funny. I don't know how Tatsuya Ishida does it but he does it and he does it better than anyone else does it or could do it. That's called genius.

Atland

I had reservations about posting a link to Atland because even though it's funny and well-drawn, which is all you can really ask of any strip, Nate Piekos has something of a boob obsession (a boobsession?), without any trace of irony, and I didn't want people to think I was endorsing the objectification of women. I'm already walking a fine line as it is. Still, based on some of the e-mails I get I think some of you might like this comic. Some of you will absolutely hate it. Is that a recommendation? Make up your own mind.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I'm sure the artist himself would be the first to admit that the art for this strip isn't up to the same standard set by the likes of Penny Arcade but then neither is my comic. It gets the job done and that's all that really matters. It doesn't stop this strip from being downright laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Real Life

This strip is lots of fun. It's light-hearted, funny and colourful. The characters are likeable and Greg Dean's insight into the average person's day-to-day life lends them genuine empathy. It's like watching a sitcom and a stand-up comedian simultaneously - half the time you'll say "My life is just like that! It's funny 'cause it's true!" and the other half you'll say "This situation is so unlikely and crazy! What joy!" Who else could make a strip about their job at the airport one day and then have his characters travel to Mars the next?

Zebra Girl

Zebra Girl is a funny and well-written high-concept fantasy drama about a girl who gets turned into a demon by magic. Whatever assumptions you made based on that last sentence should be thrown out the window because this comic avoids pretty much every cliche in the book. It is best enjoyed in long bursts in which thirty comics are devoured at a time. As it is, the update schedule is punishing. It's worth the wait but I can't help but feel that Zebra Girl is a story ill-suited to the webcomic form.

Nodwick/Full Frontal Nerdity

This is fairly gentle comedy - nothing to make your livers overflow with controversial gall here. Aaron Williams has made two comics about Dungeons and Dragons (a game I don't play myself) from the perspective of the characters in the D&D universe itself and the geeks who play the game in the real world. I love the fact that one of the characters in FFN only exists as a web-cam. He's human but stragely disembodied - good fun.

Sore Thumbs

I understand that something very clever is going on with what appears to be a very simple strip consisting of surreal humour, simple characters and an underlying political satire. I read somewhere that the strip is in fact a parody of Cecania the protagonist 's point of view, the simplisticism and black and white dualism reflecting the inner workings of Cecania's mind rather than those of creators Owen Gieni and Chris Crosby. That would mean that whenever Cecania's brother is charactersied as a stereotypically ignorant and heartless neo-conservative, what we're actually seeing is a satire of the Democrats' habit of over-simplifying the political situation in America. So...Cecania is being characterised rather than her brother. But is her brother still a jerk or is that just her perception of him? It's all very Ian McEwan. Good comic, though.

VG Cats

Another gaming comic, you say? Not quite. By showing the same colourful characters experiencing different situations in various games each week, VG Cats manages to simultaneously derive its humour from character-based comedy and satire at the same time. Great art, too.

Ctrl+Alt+Del

I used to think Ctrl+Alt+Del was really funny but lately it seems like Tim Buckley hasn't been trying. Either that or I've grown out of it. The script certainly lacks the craftsmanship and intelligence of comics like Scary-Go-Round and Penny Arcade but if you don't like to be challenged too much by what you read then you can have fun here. It's certainly a lot better than most of the crap on the internet.

Honourable Mentions

Alpha Shade http://www.alpha-shade.com/www/pages/pages.htm

The Book of Biff http://www.thebookofbiff.com/

Comedity http://www.comedity.com/

Cooties http://cooties.comicgenesis.com/

Fortune's Fools http://fortunesfools.comicgenesis.com/

Homestar Runner http://www.homestarrunner.com/

Joe Loves Crappy Movies http://www.digitalpimponline.com/strips.php?start=0&title=movie

Multiplex http://www.multiplexcomic.com/

8-bit Theatre http://www.nuklearpower.com/

All content in this website is the property of David J. Bishop and Copyright ©David J. Bishop 2004-2008

Unauthorized use of any Life on the Fourth Floor materials including characters, images, animations and texts is strictly prohibited.

Life on the Fourth Floor is hosted on Comic Genesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.

Sincerest thanks to BlamBot.com for their fonts.