In two days, it will be a five year anniversary of my webcomic. A few months ago, I made two lists to celebrate 500 comics: top 10 least favorite and top 10 favorite comics. I can’t pinpoint an exact post, but I do remember a fan telling me that I should rank pieces of fanart to celebrate a future milestone. I went through all the fanart that I got in these five years and picked my favorites. I’m not doing a “least favorites” list because these pictures were made as a gift to me. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Some ground rules before we start. I’ll be judging these based on their quality, how much they stand out and the story that comes with them. This will be a subjective list. I’m also going to limit myself to one piece of fanart per character. I figured, it’ll make the list more interesting. Besides, I got over a 100 pictures to go through, I need some kind of bottleneck. Let’s finally get started
Number 15: Wanda (February 7th, 2024) - created by Una
I admit, when I share a piece of fanart, I’m kind of lazy with titles. I’ll add dates, just to make them more identifiable. In this picture, Wanda’s clothes look a bit off, but she still looks cute. The curly hair fits her well. Like I said before, Wanda’s usual hairstyle doesn’t translate well to realistic art, so I get why a lot of people change it. I already changed Hope’s default hairstyle, so maybe I could do the same to Wanda.
Number 14: Determined Disaster (September 25th, 2022) - created by Briar
A lot of fanart I get is people taking my quotes and placing them over a background. If you want to do it, that’s okay, but there’s a good chance it’ll just blend in with the crowd. There’s still a few that I want to put on the list, however. I really like this combination of a font and a background. It’s like I’m about to watch a classic Disney movie. The whimsy levels are off the charts.
Number 13: Brothers Forever (July 24th, 2022) - created by Zira
Like I said, this list will be subjective. If you’re an only child or have terrible siblings, I don’t know how you’d feel about this picture. As for me, this piece of fanart goes straight for my sentimentality and refuses to let go. I love the combination of this quote and two boys fishing on the beach. I know that the comic version of my brother isn’t the nicest person, but hey, the real life guy never complained about how he was portrayed. He did complain about my stilted artstyle, though.
Number 12: Tamashii Close-up (May 1st, 2022) / Anne Cap Close-Up (May 22nd, 2022) - Created by S.
Okay, I’m bending the rules for this one. I figured, these are both made by the same artist and they look similar, so I can put them both in Number 12. Not much to say about these two, I just think they’re drawn well. I can’t choose a better one without resorting to nitpicking.
Considering how Anne Cap can’t stand Tamashii, don’t tell her she’s sharing a spot with her.
Number 11: Buff Side (May 15th, 2022) - created by Azariah
This one has a story behind it. A few years ago, I pointed out that a lot of my fans copy and paste my quotes and turn them into fanart. This lead to a pretend feud where people would constantly make fanart out of my quotes, no matter how hard I made it. At one point, I claimed that I hacked my website; if you copy and paste anything from it, I would sent a naked picture of myself to your entire family.
Two people drew my self-insert buff and half naked. I thought it was a pretty funny outcome, so I put one of the pictures on the list. Just to be clear for the newcomers, there was no actual malice behind the “feud”, it was all in good fun.
Number 10: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (February 26th, 2023) - created by Kadence
Anyone can copy and paste my quotes, but not everyone can write a scholarly analysis of them. In the description of the comic, I claimed that it’s pointless to tell people not to look for a deeper meaning; they’ll do it either way. I can enjoy this picture on two levels; I’m laughing at the malicious compliance, but I also appreciate the effort that it took. Kadence even added the “Works Cited” section. I wish I was your professor so I could give you an A.
Number 9: Another Self-Insert (February 4th, 2024) - created by Kyrie
This has to be one of the most unique art pieces that I got. No one but Kyrie used my art as a base to make their own self-insert. They even gave themselves a superhero alter-ego.
If I could give people a piece of advice, it’s okay to use a base if you’re just starting out, but sonner or later, you should try drawing without one. Riding a bycicle is a lot more fun without training wheels.
Number 8: Safely Inspired (May 19th, 2024) - created by Kyrie
Sometimes I worry that I’m making Safety too boring. A lot of the time, her role is just to react to other character’s goofiness. Pi Brain and Bobby do it too, but they can also be funny by themselves. On the other hand, Safety gets fanart relatively frequently, so I’m clearly doing something right.
This is my favorite drawing of her. Her coat looks sturdy and her hair looks soft. Yeah, Kyrie took some liberties, but their drawing would also work as the embodiment of safety.
Number 7: Equal Opportunity Oppressor (November 3rd, 2023) - created by Rita
In many fandoms, there are characters that get little to no screentime, but are still popular. Despite his few appearances, Anne Cap’s pet snake, Roadspike, gets a lot of love. I guess snakes are more beloved than I thought. A fan once said that Roadspike was too cute for people to tread on him and I replied that, as far as the government is concerned, that doesn’t matter. It lead to this piece of fanart. I love how detailed this picture is and how it’s shaded. Besides, we all like taking the piss out of the government.
Number 6: Parallel Rivers (January 30th, 2022) - created by Azariah
A few years ago, I didn’t know what to post on Wednesday, so I thought, “The river Sava looks nice. I could take a picture and post it.” You ended up enjoying it more than I expected. One of the fans asked me to write a poem about it, so I wrote four lyrics. Two fans made art out of it, so I picked the one I liked more for this list (the other one isn’t bad, I just wish it didn’t obscure the river). This picture captures two moments of spontaneous creativity; I appreciate that.
Number 5: Zeal (November 29th, 2023)- created by Rita
This one is connected to another milestone. I decided to celebrate my 400th comic by turing four ideas into people. The fans gave me their suggestions, so I picked the ones I like the best. Here’s the end result. Coming up with four new designs was a challenge and I wasn’t entirely happy with the end result, but you guys really liked them. All four of them got fanart and, in my opinion, Zeal got the best one. I like her hair, her work outfit and the mess behind her. I’m sorry I didn’t make more use out of those four ideas, but I couldn’t figure out how to make them stand out from pre-existing characters. Maybe I’m not as creative as I think.
Number 4: The Comments Celebrate (June 9th, 2024) - created by Fans
Throughout these five years, I got a lot of greetings from the comments; people wishing me a happy birthday, merry Christmas, happy toilet day, etc. One of the readers wrote me an entire poem, congratulating me on 500 comics. I usually put empty space around pieces of fanart so they don’t stretch and take up the entire computer screen, but this poem is so long and wide that I didn’t need to do that. Thank you for all your effort, Fans.
I know I said this list would be subjective, but I figured, I’d look like an absoulute egotist if I put a poem that’s praising me on the number one spot. Number four is a good place for it to be.
Number 3: La Libertè (Febrary 5th, 2023) - created by S.
If I ranked characters by how much fanart they get, Freedom would win by a landslide. Hell, I probably have enough material to make a “Top 10 Favorite Pieces of Freedom Fanart” list. I understand why; she’s a pansexual libertarian tomboy in a revealing dress. Of course people will want to draw her.
Because of my “one picture per character” rule, I could only pick one. There are a lot of pieces of art that I liked, but had to pass up. I chose the Les Misérables reference. I once said that Freedom’s favorite song is “Do You Hear the People Sing” and it inspired this. I think my favorite part is how Freedom’s hair is drawn and how the light shines behind her. Nice work, S. You won against some steep competition.
Number 2: Infinite Piece Puzzle (October 11th, 2024) - created by Bellamy
I can recall several moments where I shared a controversial opinion or told a politically incorrect joke. I thought, “Crap, I took it too far. People are gonna be pissed at me.” They ended up making fanart out of what I said. I had a choice between several of those kinds of pictures and I went with this one. I talked about how I discovered I have autism and I used the puzzle piece symbol; something that a lot of autists find offensive. I told people why I chose it and they accepted it. I admit, recency bias might be a reason why this is so high on the list; the post isn’t even a month old.
I know what some of you might say, “You’re autistic, how can you be a bigot against autistic people?” There’s plenty of people who hate a group of people they belong to: self-hating men, self-hating women, self-hating black people, self-hating white people, etc. I’m not saying I’m a self-hating autist, I’m just saying it’s not impossible for me to be one.
Number 1: Motivational Poem (December 13th, 2023) - created by Una
Yes, I got two poems sent to me; one that’s about me and one that’s about one of my comics. I figured, the right thing to do is to put the latter above the former. The same things I said about number four also apply here; I appreciate all the effor that this took. You could tell people that this was written by a famous poet and they’d believe you; that’s how good it is.
We’re left with one question, though; is it a good idea to unironically promote spite? There is a famous saying that goes, “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” On the other hand, this poem never says it’s a good idea to hate other people. It tells people to perservere and get through the hardships life throws at them. The poem gives people a lot to think about.
And that’s the end of the list. Number fifteen and one were created by the same person; we went full circle. It wasn’t intentional, i just got lucky. I figured, since I’m not doing a “least favorite” list, I could stretch the number to fifteen. I hope this wasn’t too long for you to read. I’m thinking, when I get to 600 comics, I could ask the fans what their favorite and least favorite comics are and make new lists. Let’s see things from a different point of view.