Digital comics snuggle up to their readers with friendly, interactive attitudes. Many wonderful comics are available to read on the internet, supported by a tightly knit fan base whose input and encouragement keeps the pages coming.

The Lady’s Murder, by Eliza Frye, theladysmurder.elizafrye.com

Eliza Frye presents a lushly illustrated short digital comic based on the curious, poetic words of S. Albert Chatman. From there she spins a cunning and seductive tale of an enigmatic woman, whose personality and life you learn about through the various perspectives of those who have experienced some means of contact with her. A butcher, a doctor, a café owner—they all give the reader a sinfully different idea of what the murdered Marie Madeleine was like.

Frye’s contribution to the graphic medium shines with creativity and a unique spark that can’t help but bring a devious smirk to your lips. By the end of the comic, you know even less about the murdered woman than you did before you started reading. It’s masterfully frustrating and even more brilliant in its daring simplicity. –WITA

Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil, shadowlinecomics.com/webcomics/#/finder/

The world of Finder is a bizarre one. A long-established series by Carla Speed McNeil, Finder began back in 1996 under the author’s self-dubbed “aboriginal science fiction” genre. The series focuses on aboriginal and industrial societies and their attempts at coexisting in a distant future. The Earth is vastly depopulated, and the cities that remain are ruled by clans comprised of only those in peak physical and physiological shape. Homogeneity is key. The rest of society falls within a classed system: half-clan citizens lower on the totem pole and slaves or non-humans even further down. McNeil’s stories usually follow the lives of the oppressed, either aboriginal or half-clan, and illustrate their interactions with those in the urban sector.

An immensely detailed fiction surrounds the world of Finder, so it’s not encouraged to jump in at the most recent trade as I did. However, reading through the most recent volume, titled A Voice, was compelling enough to make me want to visit the start of the series. A Voice stars a young woman named Rachel struggling to secure the clan membership that is her birthright. This particular trade illustrates the practices of auditioning for clan acceptance, which require young women to parade about like prize horses.

A fascinating read, Finder has previously been nominated for seven Eisner awards. Here’s hoping this year is a winner. –VirtualGirl

Vs. by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari, smithmag.net/nextdoorneighbor/2008/12/08/story-18/

The best way to describe Vs. would be to call it “Green Eggs and Ham” on acid.

Mostly in black and white, dashes of color in key panels make it a wild ride for the eyes. Artist Joe Infurnari was nominated in this same category last year for his work on The Process, but this time around he’s got a co-writer, Alexis Sottile, for this off-the-wall look into the dangers of renting. Vs. is part of SMITH Magazine’s Next Door Neighbor weekly web comics series and tells Infurnari’s real-life horror stories from his various New York dwellings. Of course, there is a slight twist: it’s in verse. But don’t even think of reading this one to the kids before bedtime. Here, in Infurnari’s own words, is what you can expect: “My terrible run-ins with vociferous fowls! Frankensteinian pooches! Tentacled jam bands! Drunken cro-magnons! Pill-pushing werewolves and many, many more!”

He admits he wasn’t the greatest at coming up with rhymes, but that’s where Sottile came in. She compliments Infurnari’s personal woes, which are smoothly narrated even as his Hulk alter-ego slowly emerges. As an extra bonus, Infurnari has posted a “director’s cut,” if you will, on ACT-I-VATE—where he tells the story behind each page. –Jill aka TheNerdyBird

Bodyworld, by Dash Shaw, dashshaw.com

Bodyworld boasts a story reminiscent of days long past—when experimenting with nature and all of its elusive drugs lends one to a philosophical state of mind. Bizarre and mind-bending, Bodyworld asks the question: Are we all just parts of a greater subconscious whole?

Professor Panther is cut from the typical addict’s cloth: Arms bearing numerous bandages from drug injections as well as sporting a joint in his mouth at all times paints Panther into quite the negative corner. The story shifts into a hallucinogenic overdrive when Panther seeks out to investigate some bizarre-looking plants. Whereas a man’s struggle to fit in with society stood as the spearhead of the story’s theme, a metaphysical unraveling later permeates through the pages, and an entirely new element arises. Panther’s distaste for his misanthropic tendencies are thrown to the wind when he embarks on a journey that leads him to luring his students into drugs, seducing young women, trashing rooms and later finds him Pyro-ing out hotel rooms and fields.

Shaw creates a futuristic mind-trip dripping with metaphysical concepts. Even the art—switching from straight-forward simplicity to sketchy and frantic complexity—successfully takes the readers on a drug-like induced trip of their own. Though quite long and jam-packed with visual substance, Bodyworld fully engages your inner philosopher and leaves you yearning for a worldly connection. –Melissa Kay

Best Digital Comic - Speak No Evil, by Elan Trinidad, theoryofeverythingcomics.com/SNE/ | Mirror
Site

Like other Mexicans, Javier leaves the planet for work and sends all of his money back home. What makes this web comic more appealing than reading about the tragedies in the newspaper is that Trinidad has taken space travel and created a tale of atrocities where these workers have to undergo extreme surgeries—removing their noses and mouths, so that the corporations don’t have to maintain oxygen supplies for them. This unrealistic science fiction story shows the workers’ detached facial chunks on shelves where they are still fed and occasionally even break out into song while the workers themselves are in silent mining caves far away. Javier’s only relationship with his wife and children is through internet video calls where he can type out his words.

It’s the kind of story that can make a reader feel extremely guilty about the realities of life for immigrants, be they legal or illegal. Anyone who has ever packed up his or her entire life and set out to find something new can understand the spectrum of emotions from excitement to fear peppered with feelings of inadequacies about success. All of these emotions are tackled in this brief exploration of science fiction. The political soapbox is really in your face (no pun intended) with this series, and issues like racism are nothing new to the genre. The idea of future humans being able to live out their lives with chunks of their heads missing is absurd yet creative in preaching about age-old inequalities. –Amber Love

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