Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.
Award nominations for both the NCS Divisional Awards and the Nommo Awards came out in the last week, so let’s take a look at what webcomics earned nods from each of them.
I’ll start with the National Cartoonist Society’s annual awards, which are given out every year in conjunction with the Reuben Award. While their categories range from comic books to graphic novels to advertising to greeting cards, they have two categories focused on online comics — a long-form category and a short-form category. Let’s start with the long-form nominees.
First up is Emily Flake, a very prolific cartoonist with comics appearing in places like The New Yorker, The Nib and others (she’s also a comedian/performer). Based on the image on the NCS site, it looks like she’s nominated for her comic “Visions of the Post-Pandemic Future (Revised),” which appeared on the New Yorker website in April of last year.
The comic showcases the anxieties that came with the “return to normal” we experienced last year, when everyone started getting vaccinated and we thought life would be the same again. But of course it wasn’t, and Flake captures why very well here.
Also nominated this year is Meredith Moriarty, creator of the webcomic Third Shift Society on Webtoon. Moriarty’s work on it is absolutely beautiful:
The Third Shift Society is about a down-on-her-luck woman who takes a job “working for a Paranormal Detective with the head of a Jack-o-Lantern” and fighting the forces of evil.
Finally, the last nominee is Dan Piraro, who is best known for his long-running comic strip Bizarro. Back in 2020 he launched a long-form online comic called Peyote Cowboy. It’s about a desperate cowboy trying to protect his son, and in their search for food he accidentally eats some peyote. Then things get weird, as the son disappears and the cowboy seeks him out.
Next, turning to the short-form category, first up is Rich Powell, who is nominated for his one-panel gag strip Wide Open. It’s currently available on GoComics.
Scott Nickel is the creator of Eek!, and as luck would have it, today’s strip features Aquaman (kind of):
And Jonathan Lemon is the creator of Rabbits Against Magic, which also appears on the GoComics site:
Let’s wrap things up with one more award nomination — this one is for the Nommo Awards, which are presented by the African Speculative Fiction Society. They released their shortlist last week, with only two entries in the graphic novel category: Roye Okupe and Godwin Akpan’s Iyanu: Child of Wonder, which was published by Dark Horse, and a webcomic called IJournal by Awele Emili. a “medical pharmacologist with a passion for art.”
In addition to her comic, Emili also works in animation and design, and has worked for clients like World Bank Group, Facebook, Universal Music Group and Sandwich Magazine, among others.