i know i'm late to the party but, hey, the party don't start until the cripplingly awkward socialite walks in, amiright? anyways, better late than never because i had absolutely no idea what i was missing before i had discovered the glistening treasure trove that is webcomics.

i love comics and graphic novels just as much as the next 5 minute geek. i've gone from short newspaper reads like garfield and calvin and hobbes to more longer series like scott pilgrim and amulet. i enjoy comic spin-offs of my favourite tv shows like avatar: the last airbender, adventure time and bravest warriors. and i've made my feelings about the archie comics very clear here. overall, i appreciate being able to read books with pictures that aren't just meant for children.

but i also tend to buy a lot of comics before i actually read them which means each purchase goes through a rigorous background check to make sure they're money well spent. also, i recently [had the best day of my life when i] quit my part-time job to concentrate on school and i'm absolutely outraged to find out that the depths of my savings apparently does have an end. i know, i know, libraries have buttloads of comics and books and they're all free!! but, you see, libraries require moving myself to a different location and i am lazy. why should i walk like 15 minutes to my local library when i can just reach out from the cave of blankets that i currently reside in, to grab my laptop and order books online that will come to the place where i already am? i am very grateful to be born during the era that i have been and i feel the best way to demonstrate that gratitude is by utilising the modern technology of my time to barely do shit all. and it's from that philosophy that my discovery stemmed.

flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when i was cheerily scrolling through my instagram feed, silent tears rolling down my face as i poured over fit bodies and healthy lifestyles that i would never get my indolent body to possess, when i saw one of the bookstagram accounts i follow mention a webcomic they were reading called omg check please. i stored the name in the back of my brain for future reference and - to my surprise - i remembered it a few days ago when it was around 1:30am and i was too tired to sleep (interesting how this memory doesn't come into play when i'm trying to recall something from school hmmm).

i had never read a webcomic before and i was wholeheartedly expecting some black and white pencil sketches accompanied by cheesy captions filled with grammatical errors on a tumblr blog with a tacky theme and the title, 'welcome to my twisted mind'. what i was not expecting was what i got, and that was a really really well done comic.

at first i didn't think i was going to be very interested in omg check please because a) it was about hockey and b) i didn't know anything about hockey except that it is a c) sport and d) i don't like sports. though, as friday night lights is currently teaching me, i know i shouldn't jump to conclusions (more on that later) (probably).

and i'm glad i did give ocp a go because i'm actually enjoying it. the art is very appealing and the dialogue is really funny - like laugh out loud funny. i was also very pleased that it had an lgbtq protagonist as well as culturally diverse characters. plus, the little hockey tidbits throughout the comic came in handy for noobs like me who at first couldn't even fully appreciate the pun in the name because i didn't even know what checking was.

it wasn't hard to quickly become up-to-date on ocp but while i waited for the next update, i was hungry to satiate my webcomic-fix. so i decided to hit up my bff google and let's just say my cravings won't be reappearing anytime soon. in the past week i devoured luke pearson's short stories and annihilated what was available online in nimona. i'm currently reading octopus pie and i'm loving every second i spend with my sardonic and organic girl. admittedly i did have to scour through a bit of smut here and there to find a comic worth sticking to, but who doesn't love some lame reads that make you scoff and groan in between the actually good work? if anything, the comparison made me appreciate the webcomics i read even more.

so i guess the moral of this post is that money is not proportionate to quality and once again, the internet has me worshipping the metaphysical ground it walks upon as i am not surprised to be surprised at the riches it contains.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)