Webcomics

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, by Prudence Shen and Faith Erin Hicks, is a YA comic about high school and friendships. As the about page says:

"You wouldn’t expect Nate and Charlie to be friends. Charlie’s the laid-back captain of the basketball team, and Nate is the neurotic, scheming president of the robotics club. But they are friends, however unlikely — until Nate declares war on the cheerleaders, and the cheerleaders retaliate by making Charlie their figure-head in the ugliest class election campaign the school as ever seen. At stake? Student group funding that will either cover a robotics competition or new cheerleading uniforms — but not both.

"Bad sportsmanship? Sure. Chainsaws? Why not! Nothing can possibly go wrong."

"Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong" updates pretty frequently and has great clean stylish line art by Hicks. The dialogue is snappy and the writing fast paced, characters are very well designed. The two main characters are white males, but the supporting cast is fairly diverse with POC and women given speaking roles. The comic touches a bit on bullying, and Charlie's got some issues with his parents in the background, and one of the members of the Robotics Club is a young woman which is always nice to see.

I'm a fan of Hicks' work, and this project really showcases her strengths well. This is Shen's first book, but the writing and dialogue feel very tight and polished with none of that "new author" feel.

Paranatural, by Zack Morrison, is a kids' comic about a group of twelve year olds who live in a town thick with monsters, ghosts, and other creatures. Some of the kids, and adults, can see ghosts and have special abilities and tools which they can use to fight the ghosts.

Max is the POV character, a new comer to the town and school. As an outsider, everything is as new to him as it is to the readers, and explanations are less info-dump-y than they might otherwise be. It's a gripping comic mixing adventure/fighting and mystery. The art is pretty slick and the color is well done. The character design is good with different characters having different silhouettes and their personalities coming across through their clothing/hair styles. The ghost/monster design is also excellent and very creepy. The dialogue is snappy. Morrison is doing a great job of setting up big whacks of mystery and hidden worlds and revealing little bits and pieces of them, leaving the reader wanting more. Heck, the characters want to know more, too, but the child protagonists have a hard time getting the truth out of the knowledgeable adults around them. And, of course, they're still dealing with school work and teachers and other students (including bullies) and finding their place in the social order.

It's a good comic and a fast read. If you haven't read it before you'll get up to speed pretty quickly.

"Shauna. Charlotte. Mildred. Three schoolgirl sleuths. Jack. Linton. Sonny. Three schoolboy investigators. Tackleford. One mid-sized city with a history of countless mysteries. Is there enough room at Griswalds Grammar School for two groups of kid detectives? There better be, because once these kids have set their sights on solving a mystery there's nothing that can derail them. Nothing, except maybe gossip, classwork, new football player cards, torment from siblings, or any number of childhood distractions." (from the first collection's description)

"Bad Machinery," by John Allison, is a long-form webcomic about a group of school children in Tackleford, West Yorkshire, England who solve mysteries. Allison has been creating webcomics since 1998. His previous efforts, "Bobbins" and "Scary Go Round" featured adults doing adult things, sometimes involving current events and real world situations and other times venturing far afield into some truly off-beat paths.

In some ways, "Bad Machinery" is a big departure from his earlier works. The target audience isn't adults, but children. The characters aren't adults in the work place, they're kids in school. The stories are still quirky, but they are much more focused and tightly scripted. And, of course, they all center around various mysteries... most of them supernatural in origin. Allison, of course, is no stranger to the supernatural world. He's dealt with Ghost Trains, Leprechauns and Fairies, Zombies, Devils, Hell, Warlocks, Ghosts, Witches, Grim Reapers, Parallel Dimensions, Time Travel, Elves and Goblins, and more in his previous runs. And his current stories are set in a very established world, one that he's spent years fleshing out and making real. However, one needn't go back and re-read the years and years of previous comics if one doesn't want to. Don't let that be a barrier to picking up "Bad Machinery."

"Bad Machinery" features an ensemble cast of 3 boys and 3 girls from varied socio-economic backgrounds and very different personalities. Shaunna, Lottie, Mildred, Linton, Jack, and Sonny are initially at odds in a girls vs boys dynamic. Who is better at solving mysteries? Who will solve the most mysteries? Who will emerge triumphant? Over the course of the stories, the two groups learn to work together and form a network of friendships and relationships. Behind the mystery solving, we learn more about the individual characters and their histories and personalities, and watch them grow and mature as well. Allison isn't afraid of shaking things up, and change is a constant but quiet theme in his work.

Allison has a fairly diverse cast with an equal gender split and female characters who are as fleshed out as male characters. While he only has one POC protagonist, his characters have different economic backgrounds and family situations (although all are heteronormative). He is fantastic at showing the different threads of friendship and shifting relationships of middle school, and spot-on at portraying sibling relationships. His characters have unique designs/body shapes and differing body language, and have unique voices as well. In a script without the speaker noted, you'd be able to tell who's saying what.

Oni Press has published the preamble and first story, and you can buy it through Topatoco: The Case Of The Team Spirit. In addition to the already-published story there's some reworked art and a bunch of extras. In Allison's words: "Running to about 140 pages, it features many new pages of story and loads of extra material, including an in-depth guide to the fake history of English football that I can only describe as "dense", "nutty" and "extremely time-consuming to write"." Or you could just read the original story online, starting with the preamble. You can find a list of all the chapters here, but my favorite is The Case Of The Fire Inside for so so SO many reasons.

"Bad Machinery" is currently between storylines, but there's a bit of filler in the form of another "Giant Days" feature, a short about a previous character's college experience.

Having been kicked in the pants by a special someone, I'm going to try really hard to post a review of a webcomic every day this week.

I also want to stick to a theme this week.

This weeks' theme? YOUNG ADULT WEB COMICS, webcomics aimed at a younger audience.

I'm especially looking at Bad Machinery, Monster Pulse, Paranatural, Selkie,What Birds Know.

Any other suggestions? Link us up in comments here OR write and post your own reviews!

EDIT TO ADD:

Now that I think about it, most (all?) of these aren't YA, they're more middle school.

It seems a little silly to call a comic on the internet, with a world wide following, “top secret.” But "Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary” by Erika Moen, is at its heart very personal and very much a diary. Moen talks, in her strip, about sexuality and gender, about coming out as a lesbian and later about her confusion of being attracted to and falling in love with a man, about breaking up and making up with lovers, about her family, about her dreams, about her goals, about her quirks and habits and mental illness. And also about her really horrible flatulence.

One might expect something so personal to fall into the realm of navel gazing, but there’s something universal about Moen’s diary comic. Everybody wonders about themselves, everyone falls in love, everyone has quirks, and everyone farts. “Dar” is a slice of life comic, specific enough to have a very solid and definite personality, but general enough to be accessible. Moen writes about herself and the people in her life, and in doing so, she writes about the human condition. Also, she’s a really great artist and her comic is very stylized and fun.

Check this comic out. It’s personal and universal all at once, and is pretty kick ass as well.

This comic is often not safe for work, as it discusses human sexuality and has nudity fairly often.