6 Webcomics That Deserve a Print Run

6 Webcomics That Deserve a Print Run

Webcomics have always been digital creatures, but with popular strips pulling down tens of millions of hits per month, publishers have come calling to reprint strips like Penny Arcade, Perry Bible Fellowship, and PvP in book form. Although the mega-popular xkcd just announced a print collection, making one of our dreams come true, some of the best webcomics that deserve book deals are still internet only. Here are six that need to make their way from pixels to print:

6 Webcomics That Deserve a Print Run

    Nedroid Picture Diary by Anthony Clark -- Beartato is a bear with a hinged head reminiscent of Canadians on South Park, and his Reginald is his best friend, a giant anthopomorphic bird. Their bromance is rife with high fives, competitive egotism, and deadpan absurdity so earnest that it lands out of left field right in the funny bone.

    Anthony Clark

    xkcd by Randall Monroe -- Created by an ex-NASA employee who liked to doodle, xkcd is a hugely popular strip about math, science, love, and the general world of geekdom -- drawn entirely in stick figures. With tens of millions of hits every month, it is one of the biggest success stories in webcomics.

    Randall Munroe

    A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible by Dale Beran and David Hellman -- A vacationer returns from Florida with a box of dead baby alligators, which he revives as red-eyed zombies that call out from the basement for their mother. A father tries to console the ghostly double of his dead daughter. A man informs his coworker, a jar of jam, that his wife has been cheating on him with giant ants. One of the weirdest comics you'll ever read, A Lesson... feels like an unsettling, half-remembered dream painted on the computer screen.

    Dale Beran and David Hellman

    History Comics by Kate Beaton -- Kate Beaton was working in the isolated oil fields of Alberta, Canada when she first started making History Comics, a hilarious one-off strip about historical figures ranging from Genghis Khan to Pope John Paul. But thanks to the internet, mere geography could not stop her from becoming an internet phenomenon with comics that are quick to educate readers that history just happens to be full of people who did dumb, hilarious things all the time.

    Kate Beaton

    Anders Loves Maria by Rene Engstrom -- A Swedish comic (in English) about the irresponsible heir to an art fortune and his pregnant (former) girlfriend, Anders Loves Maria recently contradicted its own title with the breakup of its two title characters. The course of this webcomic never has run smooth -- but then, who would want it to? With art that switches between watercolor and digital, and characters whose personal flaws are deep enough to qualify as fjords, "Anders Loves Maria" is the story of 20-somethings on the path to adulthood, with all the bumps, bruises, and stupid, stupid choices that often interrupt it.

    Rene Engstrom

    Overcompensating by Jeffrey Rowland -- Created by the former author of the webcomic Wigu, Overcompensating (supposedly) trades fiction for (sort-of) fact by chronicling the events in the everyday life of Jeffrey Rowland. Of course, his everyday life apparently involves owning a dead, alcoholic cat named Joanna and cameo appearances from Andrew WK and machine elves, but who are we to judge?

    Jeffrey Rowland

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