Trying to do “1 like = 1 rec” Pride Month webcomic recs again this year. Going through my reading list to pick good recs really drove home how many webcomic archives I was behind on, and prompted me to do a bunch of catch-up reading.

Here are the threads, if you want to help boost them around a little:

• Rec thread on Bluesky
• Rec thread on Mastodon

And here are 5 solid comics I caught up with along the way:

Forward – In the year 2167 CE, in the vast majority of nations worldwide, human rights have expanded and been strengthened, and crises such as poverty are all but eliminated. People have unprecedented control over their own appearance and biology, and factors such as skin colour and sexual characteristics are largely a matter of personal preference. Lee lives alone, and spends most of their time watching episodes of Martian cartoons and rating them out of five stars. Like most people who have been given everything they say they want, Lee is miserable…

This is a hard comic to pitch, because a literal summary would be something like “in the nearly-perfect future, characters hang around talking philosophy with each other. Or, half the time, at each other.” It’s also funny and weird and engaging about it, I swear.

The first sci-fi series I can think of that went “this is the future of a world where ChatGPT existed in our past, how does the present-day actual-AI landscape feel about it?” Also, 400+ strips in and we’re getting an action sequence!

Hello From Halo Head – An exploration of the multitudes a person experiences as a response to trauma. Also cartoon animal adventures. I promise it’s mostly funny. it’s a trauma comedy! a TRAUMEDY!!!!

An angel builds a happy, comfortable landscape for her best devil frenemy, including welcoming homes for a cast of adorable colorful critters. Everyone has serious emotional issues, and they’re super adorable about it.

Also, there are layers underneath with the discarded drafts of previous iterations? Don’t worry about that. Don’t even look.

Magical Women – A story about a group of magical girls who failed to save the world 20 years ago, who are now trying to re-learn how to fight evil in their late 30s after the bad guys have taken over the world.

I feel like I’ve seen a bunch of different series tackle the general concept, but this is hands-down my favorite so far.

It has the jokes about lower back pain and soul-sucking retail jobs. It has the stress of adults re-examining the genre tropes they took for granted while living them as kids, like “we sure killed a whole lot of minions-of-the-week” and “was it maybe unfair to put saving-the-world pressure on a bunch of teenagers?” It has the dystopian worldbuilding of how Earth looks under the rule of an evil alien bug empire. It has some really good dark comedy about Earth under the rule of an evil alien bug empire.

what happens next – A comic about 1. the aftermath of a murder 2. posting on the internet 3. the midwestern united states 4. being gay and transgender

Milo just wants to build a life in trans-friendly pastel kawaiicore Tumblr fandom!…and not have true-crime fans asking him about the murder all the time. A devastatingly nuanced portrait of a group with terrible problems, and no great solutions.

This is another one that’s hard to summarize, because it’s full of topics that really thwart your ability to say “look, there’s nuance here” without coming across as trying to make excuses for one side or the other. But the full-length series is such an extensive, unflinching, slow walk through all of them. Takes the cliche punchline of “umm I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor” and goes, “no, listen, listen — he was neurodivergent and a minor, okay? Now stick around for a few years while we actually unpack what that means.”

Yellow Brick Ramble – A webcomic about a trans girl in Oz. If you haven’t read Marvelous Land of Oz, please forgive me for spoiling a 120-year-old book without warning.

The rare Oz reimagining by someone who likes and appreciates the original books! Honestly, I could rec it for that alone.

Tip has already figured out she’s a trans girl while she runs off down the Yellow Brick Road, and makes (or makes) a bunch of new friends, so we’re not getting the “surprise, she’s a girl!” twist…but the series just dropped a totally different “surprise!” twist, of the “welp, at some point I’ll need to reread the whole series from page 1 with this in mind” variety.