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Top 10 Funniest Webcomics

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By on Arts, Humor

The subject of humor and what someone thinks is funny is always relative, subjective and a matter of personal opinion. But that is what this site is all about…personal opinions. With that in mind here is a list of the top ten funniest webcomics on the Internet today. Whether you agree or not, you’ll probably find something you will think is funny and add to your weekly reading. Please feel free to add your own personal favorites in the comments…they are always welcome.

10. Frenetic Funnies

Update: Frenetic Funnies is no longer publishing new comics, so Cyanide and Happiness gets the open spot (see below).

The one-panel laughs come hard and fast, hence the name Frenetic Funnies. Jeff Swenson, both artist and creator has done a wonderful job with his webcomic. It is in it’s eighth year covering topics from superheroes to weight-loss to aliens and everything in between.

Superman Glasses - Frenetic Funnies

10. Cyanide and Happiness

Cyanide & Happiness began as a small series of comics drawn by Kris Wilson at the age of 16.  Kris shared his comics with the forum of Stickdeath.com. The webmasters of Sticksuicide (Matt Melvin, Rob DenBleyker and Dave McElfatrick) eventually gave up on StickSuicide and started Explosm.net. They saw potential in Kris’ comics, so they invited him to continue the comic daily. Explosm is currently run by Matt, Rob, Dave, and Kris.  The current name “Cyanide & Happiness” comes from a strip in which one character is selling cotton candy made of cyanide and happiness. Now quit reading this boring history lesson from Wikipedia and go read the comic. Here is one of my favorites.

Visit Cyanide and Happiness

9. The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Image result for The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Dr. McNinja’s story has many absurd plot twists, and often makes allusions to outside works, most prominently Dr. McNinja’s quote of “What would Batman do?” Starting with “So What Is A McNinja?”, each page also uses tooltips to add background information and in-jokes, such as the author comparing the comic’s visual style to Frank Miller’s comic Sin City.

8. Achewood

Achewood is a webcomic created by Chris Onstad. It portrays the lives of a group of anthropomorphic stuffed toys, robots, and pets. Many of the characters live together in the home of their owner, Chris, at the fictional address of 62 Achewood Court. The events of the strip mostly take place in and around the house, as well as around the town of Achewood, the fictional suburb which gives its name to the comic, and is likely a thinly-veiled Palo Alto, California. The comic’s humor is most often absurdist, generally lacking a set punch line, and sometimes branches into the surreal.

7. Dinosaur Comics

Each comic uses the same artwork, with only the dialogue changing from day to day. (There are occasional deviations from this, such as several episodic comics). It has been compared to David Lynch’s “The Angriest Dog in the World” comic, and also made references to it. The strips take on topics including ethical relativism, the nature of happiness, the secret to being loved, and so forth.

6. Toothpaste for Dinner

A new drawing is posted every day at 12:00 AM, EST. Each comic features small, simple drawings, paired with short captions or dialogue. The style of humor on Toothpaste for Dinner encompasses surrealism, irony, social commentary, cynicism, and schadenfreude, among other sub-types of humor. Each cartoon is entirely self-contained (except in certain cases of a series, such as the horoscope series.)

5. Questionable Content

Questionable Content is a slice-of-life webcomic written and drawn by Jeph Jacques. The plot centers on Marten Reed, an indie rock aficionado, his somewhat troubled and mysterious roommate, Faye, and his girlfriend, Dora. The supporting cast includes Marten’s anthropomorphic PC (AnthroPC) named Pintsize, Marten’s best guy friend, Steve, Marten and Faye’s eccentric neighbor, Hannelore, Faye’s good-natured yet vacuous co-worker, Raven, and Dora’s ex-player older brother, Sven.

4. Penny Arcade

The strip regularly features the two authors’ cartoon alter egos, Tycho Brahe and Jonathan Gabriel (“Gabe”), who represent Holkins and Krahulik respectively. Holkins and Krahulik have explained that the characters were not originally meant to represent them, thus they are not caricatures. The two characters spend much of their time playing and commenting on computer and video games, forming the basis of the humor in the strip. Another theme, albeit less common, is the use of conflicts between the two in real life. The strip also sometimes refers to other Internet subcultures, and often features in-jokes that are explained by the news posts accompanying each comic, usually written by Holkins.

3. Goats

In the beginning, Jon and Phillip were geeks and they watched TV a lot. That is, when they weren’t at the Peculier Pub, consuming great quantities of beer. Jon was particularly unsuccessful with women, suffered from amazingly low self-esteem and had little in the way of spine, job or coolness. They hung out a lot with a talking goat named Toothgnip who had a way with the Ladies (later revealed to be due to his Panties of Potency). At some stage Phillip managed to corrupt two members of an extraterrestrial species. And so Neil and Bob (pun intended) became new and omnisexual members of the cast. You can see how this comic has the seeds of humor with a description such as this.

2. xkcd

The subjects of the comics themselves vary. Some are statements on life and love (some love strips are random art with poetry), and some are mathematical or scientific in-jokes. Some strips feature simple humor or pop-culture references. Although known for its crudely drawn cast of oddball stick figures,the comic occasionally features landscapes, intricate mathematical patterns such as fractals, or imitations of the style of other cartoonists (as during “parody week”).

1. Player vs. Player (PVP)

The comic chronicles the adventures of a fictional video game magazine company and its employees. A popular but often controversial figure in the field of online comics, Kurtz is usually willing to share his opinions about comics and gaming culture in his blog, which is hosted on the same website as his comic strips.

Originally, PvP focused on video gaming and the larger “nerd culture” including comics and RPGs. Over the years, the humor has broadened to include technology jokes, relationship humor, in-jokes about and mocking of the generation gaps between the different characters, with gaming increasingly taking a back seat. Kurtz occasionally comes under fire for his satire. Sometimes Kurtz will speak of his father’s open disdain the the strip.

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86 Comments

  1. Jules on

    I have heard of some of these webcomics but the one that caught my eye was Dinosaur Comics. The premise was interesting and when I read a few I liked it. Thanks for the list although I don't get Achewood, but you can't please everyone.

    Reply
  3. Fee on

    I'm suprised that Cyanide and Happiness wasn't on the list.. Say what you will of it, but it has to be one of the most linked comics found on the net

    Reply
  5. TopTenz Master on

    After two comments alluding to a webcomic Cyanide and Happiness, which I wasn't familiar with, I watched a few of the animations and must agree it made me laugh. Thanks for mentioning it. This is what is good about this blog, sharing new information. Visit Cyanide and Happiness I think you'll be glad you did.

    Reply
  6. Sam on

    I agree with everybody else that Cyanide and Happiness should be on here, although I suppose it's not for everybody.

    Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal can also be amusing 😀

    Reply
  7. Tim on

    It`s definitely a challenge to know which webcomic is really the most popular. What I mean is that there are a LOT of comics in a language of non-English. So maybe some Chinese webcomic is talented and the most wonderful and the best in the universe, but we will never find it, just because we are not surfing on chinese webpages every day…

    Reply
  8. William on

    Ok and what about Sluggy Freelance located at http://www.sluggy.com ?? It is the most awesome of webcomics ever and has grown so much that it will bring down guest-artist websites in an hour because of the directed traffic. Now that is power.

    I should also put in a bid for Punch n Pie. It's a newer one I Stumbled-Upon recently. I can't recall the URL but just google it.

    Reply
  10. Muskrat on

    So glad someone mentioned Joy of Tech, that is one of my favorites. A few on this list I hadn't seen…going to check them out.

    Reply
  17. Arkanis on

    Alright, what kind of drugs are you on? PvP as #1? Are you INSANE? PvP sucks ever since they stopped being about video games. It's all drama, all the time. I like how xkcd made the top 3 though, although i think Questionable Content should have been at least #3…if not #1

    Reply
  18. Pace on

    Ya Cyanide and Happiness should definitely be on the list. It's hilarious.

    http://www.explosm.net

    Also, is Perry Bible Fellowship strictly a webcomic? I would agree that it should be on this list if it is, but aren't the comics originally in a book?

    Reply
  20. Andrew on

    How about Ctrl-Alt-Del?

    It's a bit on the nerdy side. (OK, totally), but it still has it's humorous moments, especially poking fun at the gaming community.

    Reply
  21. Amy on

    Those are all equally hilarious, Dinosaur Comics is my favorite on the list.

    ALso, check out Married to the Sea, Pictures for Sad Children, Red Meat, A Softer World and Big Fat whale. Hilarious.

    Reply
  35. Wonders on

    I would really like to know where 8-bit theatre is I mean that is a really good one going on since around 2001 and has to match to penny arcade.

    Reply
  39. XUSNLT on

    This topic is a tad foreign to me – which is odd considering the cartooning that I did when I was younger. I have to admit that I audibly laughed at the xkcd bobcat joke. "Would not buy again" indeed! I'm glad that there is so much feedback on this topic because I'll be wasting even more time chasing all of the links down!

    That's the sign of a good list – lots of feedback based on opinions not on the value of the list itself.

    Reply
  41. Marc on

    I read a lot of webcomics, and I've only heard of two of these. One of them, Penny Arcade is only funny every once in a great while. PVP on the other hand is consistantly good.

    Reply
  43. Gwen on

    I like all of these on your list. I do like Garfield without Garfield though. It is very surreal. I am not sure if it belongs on the list however. It is not for everyone!! There is another one that I run across every once and a while, yet I am unsure of its name. I like dark and surreal cartoons/webcomics. Ah well.. Very good list.. I enjoyed it.

    Reply
  46. Anon on

    Girls with Slingshots!

    Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!

    No Need For Bushido started out absolutely hilarious. Not as much recently.

    Reply
  51. Scarlet on

    Cyanide and Happiness!

    It's not quite as funny these days, and it bothers me that Kris's stick figures' head heights keep decreasing (soon they'll be just heads with no bodies), but it's still random and funny as hell! Honestly, it takes a genius to be as random as these guys are.

    I'm gonna try out each of the comics on this list! I could use some laughs, and if these are any good I know I won't regret it!

    Reply
    • NoriMori on

      Wow, when I posted about C&H on here, I didn't realize how many had already mentioned it. Sorry about that! It must be getting annoying and repetitive…

      Reply
  58. Rand on

    Userfriendly.org is another web comic that is really good and one that should be added to your list. With archives going back years, its the story of a small ISP in Vancouver and the problems and issues that occur. Really good and well recommended.

    Reply
  60. Slarty Bartfast on

    I am glad SU sent me here. So many new comics to see.

    Thanks everyone. My submissions aren't webcomics necessarily (except SUBNORMALITY) but they are on the inter-webs, so – -um, enjoy!

    HOOPLEVILLE
    http://www.hoopleville.com/

    This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
    http://www.thismodernworld.com/

    SUBNORMALITY
    http://www.viruscomix.com/subnormality.html

    And I'll repeat Amy's link (30July2008) for Big Fat Whale too
    http://www.bigfatwhale.com/

    Keep scribblin'

    Reply
  62. marionette on

    I was very surprised Cyanide and Happiness wasn't on here like a lot of people. The comics are often very crude, offensive, and filled with warped dead-baby comedy… but they are definitely hilarious.

    Another webcomic I find funny is Do You Work Here: http://dywhcomic.com

    Anyone who has ever worked in retail can relate. (And if you like that, although it's not a webcomic, you should check out http://notalwaysright.com/ for hilarious stories of when the customer… isn't always right.)

    Reply
  66. NoriMori on

    Hey, I just recently started reading a webcomic called Blank It! (http://blankitcomics.com). It needs to go on this list!

    And btw, Dinosaur Comics is completely FTW. I also was liking Dr. McNinja…jeez, I need to start reading those again!

    Reply
  67. Heather on

    Well, I must say. Amazing Super Powers just won a place in my bookmarks. I was really expecting C&H to be #1 on the list but I am glad they gave it a mention later on. There is one comic that I enjoyed that's HORRIBLE – I mean absolutely horrible but hilariously funny. It's set to appear like old 50s art but with hilariously sarcastic and crazy new captions. If anyone might know what I'm talking about let me know!!!!!!!!! I saw it once and closed it apparently without bookmarking it or anything and I haven't been able to find it again since. 🙁

    Reply
  68. Khawaja Abdur Rehman on

    Nice list. Here's one of my favorite web comics

    http://www.pidjin.net/

    Fredo and Pid’jin are two white pigeons who want to kill you and everyone else on Earth. Their Holy Mission is to bring The End Of Our World. These are the chronicles of the Evil Pigeons and their quest to drown all life in a sea of thick blood.

    You may scream in terror, your sphincters tightening shut as your soul tries to make an emergency escape, but nothing will save you now. The end is here. Enjoy it.

    Reply
  75. Arthur on

    ORDER OF THE STICK!!! the most entertaining webcomic i have ever seen!!! Not only is it funny, it has an actual storyline!!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  82. Stefan on

    Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is great for those that enjoy xkcd and people who generally enjoy humor.

    Reply

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