For years people have taken to the web to create comic strips without fear of censorship or having to answer to print media advertisers. Now there are thousands of web comics, making it difficult to know where to start if you're new to the genre.

From Garfield Minus Garfield to Homestar Runner, here are 20 great web comics to turn to for an entertaining read, in alphabetic order.

Have a favorite that's not on this list? Tell us more about it in the comments.

8-Bit Theater - Created by Brian Clevinger in 2001, 8-Bit Theater takes the idea of doing 8-bit artwork to the extreme. All of his characters are sprites in a series that loosely revolves around the plot of the RPG game Final Fantasy I, but only in that it is a framework for the humor. Most of the jokes are broadly drawn and take in all aspects of the RPG genre.







Ctrl+Alt+Del - Ctrl+Alt+Del is a strip that focuses primarily on video game related humor, but does branch out into other types of stories. The strip is published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and also has the rare honor of earning creator Tim Buckley his primary source of income.

Cyanide & Happiness - Started by a then 16-year-old Kris Wilson in 2004, Cyanide & Happiness is now written on a daily basis by an alternating crew of four people. While all four tend to maintain the peculiar stick figure style that Wilson started, the comic does occasionally deviate from that formula. The humor in this cartoon is a little darker; for example, a recent strip points out misspelled words in a suicide note.

Diesel Sweeties - Diesel Sweeties is about a world where robots and humans co-exist, and there are even instances of human/robot relationships. The strip started off as being web only, but has shown up in some newspapers' syndicated comic strips. The series features an art style that is somewhat reminiscent of the 8-bit video game style, but a bit more polished.

FreakAngels - FreakAngels is written by comic book fan favorite Warren Ellis and tells the story of a futuristic London that has been devastated by a massive flood. There is one update a week, but it is done in comic book style with six pages per update.







garfield minus garfield - What happens when you remove the title character from the comic strip series Garfield? You get an existential journey through Jon Arbuckle's twisted mind and reality where there is nothing wrong with talking to yourself. Easily one of the biggest hits ever in the world of web comics, having even gotten the blessing of original Garfield creator Jim Davis, and a book deal.

Girl Genius - Written and drawn by Phil and Kaja Foglio, Girl Genius has been a winner of multiple online awards, even though it started life as a comic book. The series is set in a Victorian style with touches of Steampunk and the Industrial Revolution thrown in.

Homestar Runner - Homestar Runner is a Flash animated series that has gotten so big that it has its own wiki to keep track of the whole thing. While it has always been popular, series co-stars such as Strong Bad and TROGDOR the BURNiNATOR have at times surpassed Homestar Runner in popularity.

Kevin and Kell - Kevin and Kell was created by professional cartoonist Bill Holbrook, and centers on the family life of Kevin (a rabbit) and his wife, Kell (a wolf). They live in a world totally populated by animals. While animal humor does play into the series, it is mostly about life and relationships.

MegaTokyo - Based in a fictional version of Tokyo, MegaTokyo follows the adventures of a pair of American anime and video game enthusiasts. The series started off as all humor, but as it shifted to having longer storylines since one of the creators left, and the remaining one, Fred Gallagher, decided to do the series by himself and take it in a more serious direction.







Penny Arcade - Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Penny Arcade is dedicated to geek culture. From video games to television shows, nothing is sacred to this popular strip. In a weird piece of synergy, the series has been turned into a series of downloadable games for the Xbox 360.

PvP - Another in the long line of web comics based around geek culture, PvP has been running since 1998 and started off as a strip based around the employees of a gaming company. With over 10 years under its belt, the strip still comes out five days a week and has even made its way to a printed comic series from Image Comics.

Questionable Content - Questionable Content started off as a strip with a heavy focus on indie music scene jokes, but with the added quirk of personal computers with an attitude that can walk around on two legs. These days it is more about life in general, with some indie music references, and yes, the computers still walk around. Jeph Jacques, the creator of QC, is one of the few web comic creators who is lucky enough to make his entire living from the revenue generated by the series.

Red Meat - A popular alternative newspaper comic strip that is available in 75 publications and can also be found online. The series uses static images of its characters that rarely, if ever, move and tends to be fairly dark in its humor. There are few other places in the world where you can find a character like Milkman Dan, a sadistic dairy employee.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - A single panel comic strip with a twisted and dark side. It is almost Far Side-esque in style, but definitely benefits from the fact that it doesn't have to go through censors to appear in a newspaper.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja - Published in a comic book format, with new "pages" being released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Dr. McNinja follows the adventures of a doctor who happens to also be a ninja. This is rather easy to figure out as he is always wearing a lab coat as well as a ninja mask.







The Joy of Tech - Created in 2000 by two Canadians, Liza Schmalcel and Bruce Evans, The Joy of Tech tackles all sorts of different technology related humor, with a heavy emphasis on jokes that make Apple fan boys the punchline.

UserFriendly - Written and drawn by J.D. Frazer since 1997, UserFriendly is set inside a fictional ISP, Columbia Internet. The humor tends runs on the geeky side, with some jokes that revolve around a Linux kernel.

What's New with Phil & Dixie - What's New by Phil Foglio was the must read strip of the role-playing game crowd in the 1980s. Although it was originally published in the pages of Dragon magazine, it has now made its way onto the Internet where you can read the archives from the series spanning (sporadically) from 1980 to 1998.

xkcd - "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," xkcd is quite popular with the tech crowd, mainly because its jokes usually make you scratch your head at least once. For added fun, hover your mouse over the comic and you'll find a bonus joke or an explanation for the head scratchers, in the images' alt tags.