Question went up on a discord channel, asking for webcomic recs “that you think has something really standout about them and worth checking out. I’m mainly looking for comics that you feel do a particular thing exceptionally well, particularly with the artwork. Genre doesn’t matter, but please explain why I should read them.”
…so I immediately threw in a bunch, and then figured, hey, these comics deserve more exposure than “transient links in a chat that’ll be washed away once the next conversation happens.”
No special theme to this, just a bunch of comics + a particular thing I think they do well.
Shattered Starlight: mostly greyscale with striking spot-colors, does really good things with texture, makes a world that feels gritty and lived-in while adding some of the stylistic flair of a magical-girl series
Kochab: pretty characters explore a mysterious fantastical setting, all done in delicate lineart and amazing vivid color palettes, with a touch of animation
The Stoop-Gallants: great comic timing, not just in the dialogue + punchlines but in the art + background details (also: lovable characters and an engaging plot)
Shiloh: vivid lighting that really captures every scene’s weather and time of day, detailed and stylish city settings (I’ve saved a bunch of them in my inspiration folder), great with dramatic angles, still don’t know where the plot is going but it sure is fun to look at while I find out
Lady of the Shard: does amazing things with monochrome pixel art — the artist can convey a stunning amount of expressiveness and atmosphere with a minimal amount of lines (also: fun sci-fi story, heartwarming romance)
Apricot Cookie(s)!: cute anime style that perfectly suits all the tropes and references it builds on/gleefully subverts/makes canny self-referential jokes about
Lore Olympus: hardly needs recs since it has literally millions of followers, but here I am anyway, lovely art where the different theme colors for each character are used in a way that enhances the style rather than simplifying it
Bite Me!: wacky historical vampire farce, another one with great comic timing and delightfully expressive characters, I can’t tell how much the art is traditional and how much it’s really crisp digital doing a lovely impression of traditional when it wants to
broken: accidental friendship + rescue from a dystopia, really gets across the eldritch horror with a combination of on-point designs, shifting colors, well-placed animation, and medium-breaking tricks like “this reality shift is so big it overwrote the page layout”
Schlock Mercenary: great job of sci-fi worldbuilding, slowly escalating the problems that are caused just by having to work on a galactic scale, along with the problems caused by the tech to solve the previous problems (also: fun interspecies mostly-lighthearted comedy)
