Achewood – Chris Onstad
Surreal, character-driven comic about depressed stuffed animals, tech bros, and weird neighbors; starts rough but becomes a darkly funny, emotionally sharp epic.
A Softer World – Joey Comeau & Emily Horne
Photo-based three-panel comics with poetic captions; mixes deadpan humor, melancholy, and sudden, often very dark twists.
Bone – Jeff Smith
Long-form fantasy adventure that starts Looney Tunes–goofy and slowly becomes an epic with real stakes, warmth, and gorgeous black-and-white art.
Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson
Classic strip about an imaginative boy and his maybe-imaginary tiger; blends slapstick, philosophy, social satire, and pure childhood joy.
Cul de Sac – Richard Thompson
Kid-centered strip with wildly expressive art and sharp, gentle humor about family, anxiety, and growing up in suburbia.
Cyanide & Happiness – Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick & others
Simple stick-figure art with aggressively dark, absurd, and often very offensive jokes; loves shock and subverting wholesome setups.
Dinosaur Comics – Ryan North
Same art every day; changing dialogue of wordy, philosophical T-Rex monologues about ethics, time travel, God, and nonsense.
Dresden Codak – Aaron Diaz
Dense, beautifully drawn sci-fi comic about transhumanism, philosophy, and weird technology; mixes big ideas with dry, nerdy humor.
FoxTrot – Bill Amend
Family strip with a strong geek streak: math jokes, gaming, pop culture references, and sibling warfare.
Goblins – Tarol “Thunt” Hunt
Follows low-level goblin NPCs in a D&D-like world; combines gamer humor with surprisingly dark, serious story arcs.
Hark! A Vagrant – Kate Beaton
History and literature jokes with expressive, loose art; skewers canonical figures, tropes, and weird old book covers.
Invisible Bread – Justin Boyd
Simple, clean art with gentle surrealism and everyday awkwardness; often adds extra punchlines in hover text.
Kill Six Billion Demons – Tom Parkinson-Morgan
Over-the-top cosmic fantasy about angels, demons, and a reluctant chosen one; heavy-metal theology with bursts of sharp, weird humor.
Killed By Porn – Stjepan Šejić
Adult/NSFW shorts that blend porn, workplace comedy, and meta-jokes about the adult industry and tropes (often lumped under his “Shiniez” erotica work).
Nimona – ND Stevenson
Completed comic about a shapeshifting sidekick and a supervillain; funny, queer, and subversive take on classic hero/villain stories.
Octopus Pie – Meredith Gran
Follows Brooklyn 20-somethings through relationships, jobs, and existential dread; starts gag-heavy, ends up as a deeply character-driven dramedy.
Oh Joy, Sex Toy – Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan
Sex-positive, educational NSFW comic about toys, bodies, and sex culture; very cartoony, nonjudgmental, and often very funny.
Oglaf – Trudy Cooper & Doug Bayne
Explicit fantasy-comedy series; gleefully filthy, queer, and inventive with sex jokes, but also full of sharp worldbuilding.
O Human Star – Blue Delliquanti
Finished queer sci-fi comic about a dead roboticist resurrected in an android body; mixes identity, family, and AI themes with gentle, wry humor.
Order of the Stick – Rich Burlew
Stick-figure D&D parody that evolves into a sprawling, surprisingly emotional epic; full of meta-jokes about game mechanics.
Owl (Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack / other Gurewitch work) – Nicholas Gurewitch
Beyond the main strip, Gurewitch’s collected/experimental work stays in that space of beautiful, children’s-book visuals masking very dark or surreal twists.
Peanuts – Charles M. Schulz
Melancholic, philosophical strip about anxious kids and an imaginative beagle; deceptively simple but emotionally and thematically rich.
Perry Bible Fellowship – Nicholas Gurewitch
Short, self-contained strips that combine cute or old-timey visuals with brutal, absurd, or poignant punchlines.
Phoebe and Her Unicorn – Dana Simpson
Modern girl-and-magical-friend strip; whimsical, dialog-driven humor about friendship, awkwardness, and imagination.
Questionable Content – Jeph Jacques
Long-running slice-of-life about indie/nerd 20-somethings, gradually turning into cozy near-future sci-fi with AIs and robots.
Scary Go Round / Bad Machinery – John Allison
British supernatural-comedy comics; Bad Machinery focuses on schoolkid detectives solving bizarre mysteries with dry, very specific humor.
SMBC (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) – Zach Weinersmith
One-off gags about science, philosophy, economics, religion, and dating; often ends in bleak or hyper-rational punchlines, with alt-text bonuses.
Sunstone – Stjepan Šejić
NSFW BDSM romance comic that’s surprisingly wholesome; focuses on communication, consent, and dorky, charming characters.
The Far Side – Gary Larson
Single-panel absurdist classic about cows, scientists, and strange humans; concise, often dark jokes with a skewed view of the world.
The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal – E.K. Weaver
Completed BL road-trip comic; more drama and romance than gag-a-day, but with low-key, lived-in humor and realistic characters.
Toothpaste for Dinner – Drew Fairweather
Minimalist, crude-looking art with dry, sometimes nihilistic one-liners about work, life, and the internet.
xkcd – Randall Munroe
Stick-figure comics about math, science, programming, and relationships; mixes clever technical jokes with surprisingly sweet or poignant strips.