Sunday Comics | ‘Beetle Moses’ arrives on Comics Kingdom

Check out recent webcomics by Harris Fishman, Coleman Engle, Kay King and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

Beetle Moses, the quirky comic strip featuring a lot of animals and pop culture references by Harris Fishman, has debuted on Comics Kingdom.

If you aren’t familiar with Beetle Moses, well, you probably are, as it’s one of those strips that’s done well on social media and probably went across your feed at some point without you realizing it. It’s typically three stacked panels, so already it looks like a meme from the get go.

Fishman spoke with Canvas Rebel about it just a few weeks ago, and this quote resonated with me: I make webcomics, which as a medium have the benefit of being shareable since they are built for social media. Comics are an interesting artistic medium because it feels like they are often overlooked by creators of fine art, and also not respected as an art form by casual consumers. People who love comics know that neither of these mentalities are true, and that the world of comics is endlessly rich and saturated with incredible writers and artists. Webcomics fall into an even less respected niche, and there is some blame to go around. There’s a lot of same-y looking styles thanks to trends in oversimplification over the last decade. Webcomics are still a very new medium, and they differ slightly from printed comics in a few ways. Webcomic creators are still feeling out the ground floor to see exactly where webcomics can go. I think in some ways this freed me as a webcomic artist, since I had a few viral hits early on that broke the typical conventions of the contemporary “scene”. A lot of casual viewers still look at my social media accounts as a “meme page” and don’t consider that I’m one guy actually drawing these things. But that doesn’t discourage me at all. In fact, I think there are some amazing fine artists who would grow both on socials, and in their own creative journey by trying their hands at comics.

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Alex Segura + Nickolej Villiger launch ‘Mara Llave – Keeper of Time’

The pulpy sci-fi comic strip is available on Comics Kingdom.

Secret Identity and The Black Ghost writer Alex Segura has teamed up with artist Nickolej Villiger for a new comic strip on Comics Kingdom called Mara Llave – Keeper of Time.

Described as a “sci-fi/time travel romp,” the new strip has only had three installments thus far, but already has introduced a world overseen by a group called the Time Keepers.

“In the wake of what many call ‘The Great Schism,’ (though the remaining Keepers themselves refer to it as ‘The Giant Eff-Up’) the Keepers are all but gone, leaving the time stream vulnerable to an assault that could destroy the universe as we know it,” the description reads. “But one keeper survives – an aging human man named Kent Gordin, stranded in the 21st century. As the life he’s known falls apart, Gordin holds on to one sliver of hope – a child, an alien from a distant world, shunted to Earth to escape a militaristic, fascist regime that threatened to destroy her family.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Tea Fougner

The editorial director of comics at King Features talks about their website Comics Kingdom, legacy comic strips, finding new creators and more.

Tea Fougner is a writer, editor, cosplayer and currently the editorial director of comics at King Features. In this job she oversees a wide variety of strips ranging from Beetle Bailey to Zippy the Pinhead, Prince Valiant to Macanudo, Mark Trail to Rhymes with Orange.

Fougner loves comics and comics history, and in recent years has been introducing new artists, new voices and new ways to pay tribute to characters and strips like Flash Forward, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Flash Gordon movie.

Fougner and I attended college together many years ago, and we spoke recently about Comics Kingdom, newspapers and getting at the heart of legacy comic strips.

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