Comicon’s Best Digital/Webcomics Of 2023

Welcome to Comicon.com’s Best of the Year Awards, gathering the best comics and comics talent of the strange year that was 2021. This year we will be awarding in the following categories: Best Original Graphic Novels, Best Comic Series, Best Single Comic Issues, Best Writers, Best Artists, Best Cover Artists, Best Colorists, Best Letterers, Best Digital/Webcomics, and Most Progressive Comics.

Contributors to Comicon’s Best of the Year Awards this year include: Rachel Bellwoar, Richard Bruton, Scott Redmond, Tito James, Tom Smithyman, and Tony Thornley.

The following are Comicon’s Digital/Webcomics of 2023.

5. Nap Comix by Rachael Smith

Smith is just brilliant, it’s that simple. And that’s why two of her works, Glass Half Empty, her graphic novel, and her webcomic NapComix make my best of 2023 list.

Nap Comix continues her autobiographical tales previously seen in Wired Up Wrong, Stand In Your Power, and Quarantine Comix, this time unfolding Rachael’s life as a new mum to baby Henry. For comics that are essentially Rachael grabbing time between mum duties whilst on maternity leave, Nap Comix is, by turns, delightful, engaging, informative, and absolutely perfectly and bravely open and honest about new parent problems.

It’s the day-to-day life of Rachael, partner Rob, and Henry, and of course it’s absolutely adorable and perfect stuff. But it’s also a hell of a lot more of that, as anyone who’s read any of Rachael’s autobiog works would expect. She’s never been one to hide from telling painful truths in her work and Nap Comix is no exception, showing us just how she’s dealing with motherhood and its difficulties for anyone with mental health issues.

Nap Comix is something everyone should be reading for both wonderful feel good moments and insights into our human condition and definitely recommended for every new parent to get a realistic, warts and all view on both how wonderful and how difficult this whole new child thing can be.

4. Null Space by PJ Holden and various writers

In recent years, Holden hasn’t been content with just being a damn fine comic artist for 2000 AD and has been developing several other projects online, experimenting with and playing with the comics form just brilliantly.

Working with John Reppion, Fantastic Folklore was an exploration of folk tales, ancient and modern, an exercise in one page storytelling and his latest that’s now available in an expanded graphic novel form. Now, with Null Space, Holden takes things further into artistic experimentation, working with authors primarily outside of comics to produce single pages of comics on a multitude of subjects.

He’s really pushing at the boundaries of what you can really do in a confined space with the form, a single page each time, changing his artistic style with every new subject, every new author, and to fine effect, with each new Null Space comic completely different from the last in every way.

Whether it’s a fantasy barbarian grappling with giant spiders, a serial killer’s meticulous planning taken by surprise with a historical ghoulish twist, a poem on books interpreted as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, through to a comedic take on the legend of Excalibur, and plenty more besides, Holden and his writers are creating fascinating moments in comics.

3. All It Wants Is Blood by Nigel Auchterlounie

Auchtelounie (also known for his adult works as Spleenal) makes some magnificent comics. As Nigel, he’s a regular writer for the Beaon, as Spleenal his works are somewhat more adult in nature, such as the excellent and much recommended Spleenal graphic novel.

But he’s also something of a master of short-form webcomics. And in 2023, All It Wants Is Blood was a perfect example, a miniature horror tale to absolutely thrill and chill. In 15 tweets and 63 panels, Auchterlounie will give you horror comics perfection.

It goes from a woman in custody to an absolute nightmare, all without leaving the confines of the interview room. It’s a horror all about madness and imagination, with Auchterlounie giving you just a little tease of the madness and skillfully, masterfully, guiding your imagination in creating everything that he won’t show you. It’s controlled and it’s contained and it’s guaranteed to put a shiver down your spine.

2. How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube by Goodlouse

How to solve a Rubikís Cube is just 16 pages that author goodlouse describes as “a gay valentine’s / anniversary comic about trying to impress a boy.” But just because it’s short doesn’t mean there isn’t a hell of a lot to enjoy here.

It’s just beautiful, itís heartfelt, itís vulnerable, it’s funny, so sweet yet so effective. You simply won’t be able to read it and not be absolutely charmed by it.

It might start as a step-by-step guide to solving a Rubik’s Cube, but it soon shifts, quite wonderfully, into a grand love story, all thanks to the skills of goodlouse. While following the instructions, you’ll find all the excitement and emotion of seeing a new relationship begin, to grow, and to blossom. Everything is here in so few words, so familiar to anyone who’s been in the situation, all the tentative moments, the nerves, the tripping over the tongue, goodlouse absolutely gets it right in the phrasing, the styling, and the emotion of it all. It’s so cleverly done, an example of how something so short can say so much if it’s done this well.

1. Hopeless by Aria Villafranca

Hopeless is a beautiful little webcomic that Villafranca uploaded to her Twitter, a rom-com comic with a trans lead, inspired by josei romance and reflective of Villafranca’s own identity.

And what a gorgeous and ultimately — despite the title — hopeful romantic rom-com comic it is. In 20 pages we meet Penny Plath, horror fiction writer, and see that her pursuit of a writing dream has left her loveless and feeling hopeless. But, like all the best rom-coms, it only takes a chance meeting to set the wheels of love in motion. All it takes is a little twist, a bit of classic rom-com coincidence, some fabulous storytelling, and Hopeless turns into a wonderfully sweet, absolutely delightful thing, exploring love and romance, the very modern problems of dating as a trans woman, and how hope always wins, no matter what.

It is an absolute delight of a comic, with Villafranca’s talent so apparent in her ability to create something so perfectly full of joy and love and comedy in so few pages.