Webcomics | BookTube – Rogan Shannon

Yes, I consider comics to be books, including webcomics!

Hello, and welcome. A while ago, in one of my wrap-ups, I asked you if you would be interested in what webcomics I read. Quite a few of you said yes, so here you go. If I don’t say where it’s from, it’s from Tapas. And the majority of these are from Tapas. This will be mostly long-form comics. I’ll link a few “slice of life” comics at the end along with some bonus long-form ones. Also, many of these comics are still in progress, so I will say specifically if they are finished. I will link all the comics I mention as I go. So, in no particular order, let’s get into it.

Always Human This is on WebToons. It’s fantastic! Someone recommended it to me when I asked about webcomics, and… It’s beautiful. This is a finished one. It’s set in the future, it focuses on two main characters. Both women, and it’s sort of a lesbian romance, kind of. But it also includes a lot of struggles with identity, and disability, and… It’s beautiful.

Sharp Zero Oh, the queer representation in this is FANTASTIC. They have bi, pan, ace, genderqueer/fluid, trans, you name it, they have it. They even have a few disabled characters. Sharp Zero is set in, I guess, the not-too-distant future where superheroes are a real thing, and there’s a lot of them. The main character’s a normal person and then he somehow becomes a “superhero” but we still don’t know what happens, because it’s still in progress.

Desert Rose The main character, a boy, has a celestial being in him. It’s hard to be a normal boy like that. The story follows him and another main character on their journey to unite the nations and save the world. Now, the main character, the boy, is trans, and so far, one disabled character! There’s also magic and fun stuff in this!

Everblue It’s hosted on its own website. You know Waterworld? Similar concept with no land, just islands that were built by people. So Waterworld, and Avatar: The Last Airbender, kind of. Those two combined. Kind of. It’s really good! It does take a while to update because… Several reasons, but it’s worth it. Worth it.

The Property of Hate It’s on its own website. I’m not even sure how to describe this story because it’s very…different. Unique. It’s… I really don’t know how to describe this story. I tried looking up the website to see if it had a blurb, but no. It’s really interesting, definitely a good read!

Sprinter I’m just going to insert the blurb for this one. “Sprinter was supposed to save the world; she saved herself instead. Raised beneath the weight of an overwhelming responsibility, an impulsive flight whisks her from an ordered life into one of adventure. But it’s not long before she’s forced to acknowledge the consequences of her decision.” This comic is beautiful. The art style of this comic is interesting because the majority of the comic is in black-and-white, but each character has a specific color associated with them. So parts of their clothing will be of that color. It’s really cool.

The Flying Ship The story opens with the king announcing, “If you want to marry my daughter, you must create a ship that can fly.” So that’s a very interesting start. Right now, the comic is mostly following the main character who is homeless, she travels. She ends up with a dog, traveling around. I’m not going to say anything more than that. Other than one, the story has magic, kind of magic, it’s fantasy. Also, the main character is queer…in some way, and disabled!

Scandinavia and the World It’s on both Tapas and its own website. This is a cute comic. It basically takes the Scandinavian countries and turns them into a person. They have a head that looks like a stereotypical person that lives in that country. It has different stories about their cultural differences, or things that are special to their cultures. Sometimes it’ll show how they behave when they’re in a group. It’s really cool. This is kind of short-form but long-form? That line is blurry, so I’m just including this because it’s a good one.

Lochbank Cryptid Society I will insert the description for this one as well. “Three teenagers start an after school club dedicated to hunting cryptids and legends of their small town, only to discover a conspiracy bigger than anything they set out for.” This is good so far! It has one non-binary character, and I think a couple of the main characters are queer too.

Demon House A woman who needed an apartment found one for very cheap, and moved in. The landlord basically told her, “Just so you know, many tenants can’t, don’t live there long. So just be aware, because they keep saying there’s ghosts in the house or something.” She thought, “That’s fine, I can handle some imaginary ghosts, pfft that’s fine, whatever.” Moved in. Oh. The whole house is full of demons. And the story goes from there. It’s really good. One character is gay, at least one is bi, and there’s several ace characters. I think there’s a few other queer characters too but I don’t remember specifics.

Cupido It follows a person who has the ability to see the marks that connect soulmates. He sets out and tries to connect soulmates without screwing up things. He does that with a friend. It is good. The main main character is bi, and his friend is gay.

Himawari Share It follows three international students living together in Tokyo. This comic is SO relatable, because I experienced living internationally for a year. And the way this comic is done is beautiful. The main main character used to live in Japan, but moved to the US when she was seven. She speaks only English. So she came to Japan as essentially an international person, being lost, not sure… Not really fully understanding everything in Japanese. So, the artist does this. You know the dialogue bubbles? She writes in both Japanese and English. If the character understands what’s being said, she will show the English words clearly, but if the character doesn’t understand, she will show a blur in only the English text. And you can almost see the evolution of the character’s understanding of Japanese. At the beginning, there’s a lot of gaps, and as it goes on you can see more and more words, and less gaps. So that’s really cool. I like that, I relate so much to that experience.

Les Normaux This is a world where the real world and the supernatural world exist, but the real world doesn’t know about the other. They exist together, but hidden. This story is set in supernatural Paris. It’s really interesting because it’s basically a parallel world, but existing in the same place. It follows a human wizard that finds out he has magic, and he can do that stuff. So he moves to Paris to learn, it goes from there. The queer representation in this is pretty diverse. It’s really good.

MaryDeath This has a very similar feel to Calvin and Hobbes. So if you enjoy Calvin and Hobbes, read MaryDeath. Death is a personified, Mary is the only one who can see him. They have conversations about the universe, about death, about different stuff, similar to Calvin and Hobbes.

Project Nought I’ll insert here. “Ren didn’t expect to be thrown over a hundred years into the future for an exchange trip, but it’s apparently what he signed up for.” It’s interesting so far. It’s still really new so…we’ll see what happens. This is by the same person who drew Rock and Riot, the comic I mentioned in my wrap-up. So I’m guessing that, based off that comic, this probably will have a lot of queer representation in it down the road.

what qq This is a “slice of life” comic, but it was drawn by a deaf trans masculine genderqueer person. I wanted to include this because they’ve recently been doing a long form comic of their experience figuring out who they were.

Aaaaaand that’s all! I know it’s a lot, but I read a lot. This was probably less than half of what I read on Tapas. I read a lot so… Anyway, I hope you found some that you’re interested in reading, and if you do read any of them, let me know in the comments what you think of it!

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Bonus comics

Long form comics

– Empyrea: https://tapas.io/series/EMPYREA

– Haibi: https://tapas.io/series/Haibi

– Alec in Wunderland: https://tapas.io/series/Alec-in-Wunderland

– Help Wanted: https://tapas.io/series/HelpWantedcomic

– DPD: Arcane Affairs (This is in the same universe as Help Wanted): https://tapas.io/series/DPD-Arcane-Affairs

– Unfamiliar: https://tapas.io/series/unfamiliar

– Heavy Horns: https://tapas.io/series/Heavy-Horns

– Flóra (same artist as Cupido, be sure to check out the thumbnails on Tapas!): https://tapas.io/series/floracomic

– The Witch Journals (relatively new, but looks like it’ll be very good!): https://tapas.io/series/The-Witch-Journals

Short form