Scans_Daily

Hark! A Vagrant, by Kate Beaton of Nova Scotia, Canada, ran from 2006 to around 2016. (Beaton officially declared the comic over last month, due to ongoing book writing-and-drawing commitments, but the archives will remain online.) Beginning as a casual LiveJournal hobby, the sleeper-hit webcomic went on to satirize and teach history (in which Beaton has a graduate degree), and also to cover English literature, Canadian society, personal childhood memories, and self-described "nonsense comics."

( 'A corpse, eh? Bloody lack of discipline' )

"The cat seldom moves anything except his tail and eyes and often gets taller or shorter from panel to panel. The lettering is often more incomprehensible than the joke it is designed to carry. On the other hand, they were only paying ten quid a week, so what do you bloody expect? Would Barry Windsor Smith have put all those pre-Raphaelite fiddly bits into 'Conan' for ten quid a week? Would he bollocks! Even so, there are occasions when I've felt almost embarrassed to be receiving even that much, which is why the proceeds of this current compilation -- or at least my share of them -- are being donated to Greenpeace."
--Alan Moore on his own drawing ability, Afterward to Vol. 1 compilation, 1986

( 'Tails don't fall in love, you slithering simpleton.' )

As dedicated an objectivist as Ditko has been, bringing the world such sombre and verbose ideologue heroes as Mr. A and the Question, he's also recognized that comic books should still be, well, comic at least some of the time. So it was that during his time at Charlton, he created the satirical strip Killjoy, which ran as a backup feature in E-Man nos. 2 (Sept. 1973) and 4 (May 1974).

The premise was simple: silent superhero Killjoy captures a criminal, then disappears and (it's implied) reappears in one civilian guise or another. The criminal and his or her minions weep and wail over Killjoy's violation of their inalienable right to commit crimes, as do the liberal activists Mr. Hart and Mr. Sole. Lather, rinse, repeat with other criminals.

( Subtlety? What's that? )