Years ago I used to read lots of comics online, especially one of the earliest - Doctor Fun, which sadly stopped publishing in 2006.  You’ll need to be a bit of a science buff to get most of the jokes, but Records Your Neighbours Listen To or When Cats Try To Cook (which I used as my desktop wallpaper for a couple of years) bear comparison with The Far Side.<!–more–>

More recently, I’ve discovered Zach Weiner’s excellently surreal- and more than occasionally cruel - Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, which follows the unusual format of one or two frames with speech bubbles, and then a caption underneath that provides a contrasting (or sometimes a second) punchline.  I say unusual, because although you’ll have seen people do the same thing before once or twice, Weiner manages it day in day out.

Thanks to Digg, I also discovered AmazingSuperPowers, which does something slightly similar, although more hidden.  Does your browser show you the alt attribute when you hover over an image?  Good.  Then you won’t miss the little hidden jokes embedded there as well.  Oh and hover over the strips carefully - hidden strips sometimes pop up when you click on areas of the comic.

Reading through the SMBC archives led to references to two other comics I can highly recommend - they’ve cheered me up a bit while I’ve been ill - Subnormality (one of the Virus Comix stable) is great (the Sphynx is hilarious and my own personal favourite, although the explanation of Nickelback’s popularity is excellent too); and Cyanide and Happiness, which frequently breaks with convention in terms of jokes (even having guest cartoonists write them from time to time).

Of course I can’t finish without mentioning User Friendly.  Set in the technical support department of a fictional Internet Service Provider, UF manages to combine both one-off jokes with a continuing narrative, based around well-defined and drawn characters.

If you haven’t seen Spooky Scary Skeletons already, go and check it out. The animator - Zekey - is now working for Weebl’s Stuff animating things, and this is just a little animation that he put together. It’s completely wonderful and feels a bit Tim Burton-esque.

Connosieurs of Disney cartoons may remember the rather wonderful Skeleton Dance from 1929, which this reminded me of (a bit). They remade it in colour some time in the 30s, which is the version I remember, but here’s the original black and white (which I’ve always wanted to see since I saw the remake, ironically. Funny what knowing there’s another version will do to you):

Google’s little marketing comic for Chrome has proved a goldmine for satirists, as The Register shows…

(In case you’re wondering, I’m still using Firefox thanks.  Yes, it’s fast but I’ve too many Firefox plugins to switch.  Hmm - is there an article in that somewhere?)

Just thought I’d share with you some of the weirder subject lines I’ve got in spam lately, some of which are quite amusing.

For example, apparently “McCain unsure whether Obama a secret hippopotamus“. Yes, you heard it here first folks: John McCain not sure whether Obama is actually a large African behemoth (the Victorian name for the hippo, donchaknow?) in disguise. The tagline in the message was “UFOs sighted over UK“, which either speaks reams about the sender’s state of mind, or their opinion of mine. I didn’t click - I don’t want to buy any Viagra or fake Rolexes (I have a real Philippe Mercier, thank you, which has sentimental value far above its monetary one.)

Apparently a shocking video shows “Spongebob and Gay Sex“, which is at least more inventive than the hundreds of “Angeline Jolie nude movie” variations going round, and even slightly more believable than all these UPS tracking numbers I keep getting sent… or the “Important Message from Abbey National %CURRENTDATE“. Wow, that Mr %CURRENTDATE must be having a hard time with those bank charges, eh? Still, distinctive name - must make tracing the family tree easier.

I was interested to note the headline “Ronald Reagan chief suspect in bank robbery“. My, he gets about a bit, especially for someone who died several years ago. Perhaps it’s not the same one, just someone with a similar name. Still, it was less disturbing than the headline “Bush ‘Troubled’ by Gay Marriages. Declares San Francisco Part of ‘Axis of Evil’“, or “White Male Workers Banned in Britain” (I’d have heard by now, surely…) Still, nice to see the war on terror keeps expanding…

And in celebrity news: “Tiger Woods Will Call Next Son Monkey” (in honour of the Chinese Olympics?), “Paris Hilton Initially Denies Having Inverted Nipples“, “Osama Sighting Confirmed In NYV“, and “Mick Jagger To Make Big Screen Debut” (hint to spammers: IMDB is your friend).

Oh, here’s some good advice: “Say goodbye to your diseases!“. Righty ho then, “goodbye diseases”. Nope, still got ‘em.

What’s this? Alistair says “Let me show you my tits“… no, can see three out the window, hopping about in the garden thanks. Lovely little birdies they are too. Oh look - one just caught a worm. How sweet. I assume you meant birdies, Alistair? (Or would you like a book of names for Christmas?)

“July 80% OFF“: so I can have a whole month for only 6.2 days? Where do I sign up?

And finally, on a sad note: “Flat Earth Society Disbanded“. Apparently, “Germans have landed on the moon as early as 1942 and have made contact with half a dozen alien races“, which explains everything, of course.

Really, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Well, actually, you can, of course. Because whichever numpties sent me this trying to sell me Viagra, fake Rolexes or membership to frankly dodgy websites thought I’d do no more than have a good laugh. Had any good ones yourself? Post a comment and we’ll all have a laugh

Accidentally, I’ve discovered another comic gem on the web.

I can’t quite remember how I came across it - because I’ve been reading it for about the last 4 hours, have nearly gone blind, and forgotten to do the Thursday O/S (now that I’m back online after a week of sucky computer problems which include the amazing dead laptop, Windows XP overwriting NTLDR on another computer, a wireless network card that keeps signal for all of 5 seconds and…  okay, deep breath, calm calm…  Okay, I’m better now…)

Anyway, it’s called Dustinland, and if you liked Bill Hicks’ philosophy (and the quote on the front page sums it up nicely), you’ll love this.  There’s elements of Ruben Bolling’s wonderful Tom The Dancing Bug about it, as well, but it’s mainly stand up in a strip, with the occasional Herriman-esque panel full of words too.  Like Tom The Dancing Bug (next time can I say TTDB?) he sometimes does political, sometimes observational, but unlike TTDB (toldja) rarely goes off into surrealistic fancy, preferring to stick with observational humour based around relationships, everyday life, people watching and commenting on what’s happening in the world.

Quick tip: due to the site design, if you’re planning to read the archives, start at the latest and work backwards.  (At least it’s easier than the TTDB archive, although I’m glad that exists at all!)

Yes, okay, I like comics.  User Friendly is the only one I still read on a daily basis*, although at the peak of my habit I used to do Rose is Rose, Robotman, Over The Hedge (round about 1996 I emailed them to say something about a strip, and they emailed back to ask how I thought Hedge humour works in the UK. Well, makes me laugh), Dilbert and about 2 or 3 others whose names escape me as well.

Free OS and free app of the week tomorrow, okay?  Nighty night.

* TTDB and Dustinland are weekly.