Subnormality–The Webcomic that demands your reading.

Subnormality–The Webcomic that demands your reading.

Its feels like aeons since I have written anything at Prohack. Actually, I got busy with my side projects, job & some pretty shitty sticky situations (I am looking at your CitiBank) .

Life was crawling ahead & first time in my life I truly felt helpless against the greater powers acting, but that’s an another story for some other time. Life at Orange has been good, has technology , scenarios & responsibilities that actually empower you. So far so good, lets see how it goes ahead. 

Nevertheless, its not my life I have come to discuss today here, its something about a webcomic I read too much. I have always been a fan of webcomics, be it the all time classic "User Friendly" or the new ones (well they are fairly old by internet standards but still..) xkcd,The Oatmeal , Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal , Penny Arcade , Cyanide & Happiness , Awkward Zombie , Brawl in the Family ,Hijinks Ensue , Dualing Analogs , Dinosaur Comics , JL8 & some pretty cool others (read:too tired to type); they have been a part & parcel of my life since the time I became a netizen.

Be it sublime humour, philosophy , video games or just anything, I believe web comics as a medium ace anything contemporary. Then in & around ~2008 I came across Subnormality, A comic within the umbrella of Viruscomix which are described as "Comix with too many words since 2007" by author Winston Rowntree, & I was blown away by its content. I was instantly hooked & 5 years later, I am a fan.

It has been satirical, practical , intricately detailed , heart-warming , absurd, carefully drawn, full of easter eggs & pop culture references & caters to a very specific audience who have the patience to handle ~1500 - 2000 word texts inside speech bubbles just for the sake of reading a webcomic. But once you see through the veil, trust me, its one hell of a gem that demands a reading.

Just in case its not your cup of tea, you can go through Abnormality which I believe is a fork of Subnormality created to cater Cracked.com & is equally good.

Also, Winston's other comix at Viruscomix are “Sector 41” (a nod to Akademgorodok/Zheleznogorsk), "Things they Dont tell you (but should)" which are a must read.

Just in case you want to test the waters before getting addicted to awesome webcomics by Winston Rowntree, you can read

  1. Monstrous Discrepancies
  2. Understanding Nuclear Weapons
  3. Seven Reasons
  4. The Closer you get
  5. Video Game Design
  6. Logo Design primer
  7. The Stupid Planet

for a start. Meanwhile, I am reading Zanadu again.. :)