Just in time for Halloween, Mike Russell has released the second print comic of his Sabertooth Vampire webcomic. I can't get enough of these hilariously silly comics about a vamp who is literally long in the tooth.

You can grab the latest set of Sabertooth Vampire comics for just $6, or get both comics for $10. Woo!

Sabertooth Vampire Unleashed [CulturePulp]

I heart Halloween. I love the creativity, the festivity, the gentle scares, the macabre fun. And I love when webcomics get in the mood.

Girls with Slingshots has an awesomely fun story arc on how Halloween brings out both the little kid and the boozewolf adult in all of us.

Evil Inc. has a face-to-face meeting with the Great Pumpkin -- and he's out to avenge his smashed brethren.

Jack Scully has a freaky guest comic at Love Me Nice, starring everyone's favorite uncannily cute 'toon, Carolina.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal celebrates Halloween with, oddly enough, an old people on the Internet joke.

Each year, R. Stevens dresses his Diesel Sweeties characters in Halloween costumes for a series of spooky, sexy comics. This year, expect Sexy Magneto, Sexy Harley Quinn, a Star Trek/Arrested Development mashup, and a chicken in a Chicken Walker.

At My Cardboard Life, Philippa Rice had readers vote on Cardboard Colin's Halloween costume. A walking, talking piece of toast may not sound scary, but for Colin, it ends in screams.

John Allison dressed his Bad Machinery ladies in costume -- each gal as her favorite British queen.

Dresden Codak has a costumed donation wallpaper available: the entire cast dressed as the crew from Team Fortress 2.

But my personal favorite of this year's webcomic crop is this supersized installment of Ellie on Planet X featuring zombie jack o'lantern Ellie!

And, as I mentioned earlier, Something Positive's Randy Milholland running his kid-killing watercolor series "The Last Trick-Or-Treaters," and Lucy Knisley's latest essay "Scaredcited" examines the role of horror in our lives.

What did I miss?

So this was a nice surprise when I fired up my RSS reader this morning. Kukuburi, Ramon Perez's dreamlike adventure comic updated for the first time in well over a year.

I have a soft spot for all the comics to come out of the Transmission X studio (including Sin Titulo and The Abominable Charles Christopher), but Kukuburi has always been the Pokey Little Puppy of the group. The infrequent updates have been particularly damning because it's such a visual story. By the time I see a new page, I've forgotten Nadia's trek through Perez's candy-colored fantasy world. I've forgotten her skull-faced nemesis and why he pursues her. I've forgotten (I'm ashamed to admit) La Brigade du Chapeau and their haberdasher conspiracy. Each update requires an archive binge, and my heart has already been toyed with so many times.

So I'm going to wait until I know Kukiburi is back for good before diving back into old comics. But Perez swears the next update is Wednesday. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Kukuburi]

Lately, when I meet a new person who knows I write about webcomics, I'm inevitably asked, "What webcomics should I read?" I find this a bit of an absurd question, like asking what books one should be reading, or what TV shows one should watch. It depends a lot on individual tastes. So, with that in mind, I've decided to start writing little capsule guides to various webcomics so folks can decide for themselves what webcomics they'd like to read.


Family Man
by Dylan Meconis
Status: Ongoing
Synopsis: In 18th-Century Germany, Luther Levy, son of a Jewish convert, has just returned home from the University of Gottingen, where he was supposed to receive his doctorate in theology. But after delivering a possibly atheistic dissertation, Luther finds himself back at home with no degree, no patron, and no faith in God. Just when he thinks he's doomed to a life tutoring upperclass brats, a mysterious academic offers Luther a lecture post at an unorthodox university. The University of Familienwald seems the answer to Luther's non-prayers: he is a respected lecturer, can continue his studies, and is drawn to the rector's daughter, the beautiful but cool university librarian Ariana Nolte. But not everything -- or everyone -- at Familienwald is precisely what it seems, least of all Ariana, who slips away from the university each month at the full moon...
Categories: History, Religion, Drama, Supernatural
Read it if you like: jokes about Christian theology, gorgeous sepia-toned artwork, the Age of Reason, and very subtle werewolves.

*Deep breath*

My name is Lauren and I suffer from depression. Frequently. Burst-into-tears-at-the-slightest-provocation depression Hide-in-my-room-and-stop-talking-to-my-friends depression. Stop-updating-my-blog-for-months-on-end-because-oh-god-what's-the-point depression.

Allie Brosh, creator of the blog-punctuated-with-hilarious-MS-Paint-cartoons Hyperbole and a Half apparently shares my occasional serotonin deficiency. In her latest installment, she offers a window into her depressive episode, complete with the oh-so-helpful superego who walks around berating her for being depressed.

Brosh's story has a happy(ish) ending, one that makes me a little jealous. Man, I wish my depression would eventually eat itself.

Adventures in Depression [Hyperbole and a Half]

When Karl Kerschl came out with that gorgeous hardcover of The Abominable Charles Christopher, it was a teensy bit out of my price range. But now that the hardcover is sold out (sad!), Kerschl is taking pre-orders for the much more wallet-friendly softcover edition.

Pre-order copies (which ship November 11) are available for $20 (US? Canadian?), which is a bargain when you consider how much adorableness is packed onto each page.

Pre-Order The Abominable Charles Christopher Softcover [Abominable CC]

Okay, so I already linked to these on io9, but I can't help it, I just love Randy Milholland's "The Last Trick-Or-Treaters" comics. Yes, it's all about killing small children, but the way Milholland riffs on it, it's terribly funny. Plus, I particularly enjoy the way he uses his running watercolors to complement the gore.

The Last Trick-Or-Treaters [Rhymes With Witch]

My first thought upon seeing Ryan North's new Dinosaur Comics magnet words set was that it's a shame that the Dinosaur Comics dry-erase board isn't magnetic. Then I realized that you could just print out a giant T-Rex and paste him to your fridge. In fact, everyone should do this anyway.

Dinosaur Comics Best Words Magnets [Topatoco]

Bad Machinery may well be my favorite webcomic running -- which, if you've seen the webcomics queue in my RSS reader, is saying quite a lot. It's full of bizarre but compelling mysteries and witty Britishisms. Plus, everyone from the mystery-solving teen protagonists to the  (often not terribly evil) antagonists to the dorky omega clique is just so darned likable.

And the full range of creator John Allison's oddball comic powers are on display in the current storyline, "The Case of the Lonely One." In their second year of grammar school, our junior sleuths are introduced to Lem, who at first seems your typical loner weird kid. He smells weird, has trouble making friends, and eats nothing but raw onions (hence, the weird smell). But gradually, more and more students are drawn to Lem until he's the most popular kid in school and, to paraphrase the good Doctor, "Everyone eats onions now. Onions are cool." Star mystery-solver Shauna finds herself alone amongst the Lem-zombies and must, for once, solve a case without her friends.

"The Case of the Lonely One" wraps November 11th, and is rolling toward its final crescendo. Now we know the truth behind Lem's onion-eating, friend-stealing ways -- which have proven at once wackier and less insidious than Shauna could have imagined. It's left me jonesing for each new update -- and something about today's page left me particularly in stitches.

The Case of the Lonely One [Bad Machinery]

Lucy Knisley's latest comic essay focuses on fears -- and the relationship between supernatural fears and our honest, earthly ones. Be sure to check out page two, where Knisley has laid out a beautifully executed, crowd-sourced page featuring her readers and their fears. (Although she didn't participate in said crowd-sourcing, your faithful blogger's greatest fear may or may not be pictured at left.)

I also rather like her take on the appeal of zombie movies. Personally, I've always suspected that people enjoy zombie movies more out of a perverse idealization of the apocalypse than fear of the roving undead. Then again, I tend to have zombie nightmares.

Scaredcited [Stop Paying Attention]