That old 'Tales from abroad' journal has been up for too long, so I'm replacing it with another unreasonably long journal that I'm going to leave up for too long. Hypothetical people keep asking me what webcomics I read, so I'm going to talk about that for awhile You all know I love FreeFall, but I've got a pretty solid list of webcomics that I actively follow. Most of them are best described as being for/about: "Furries," "Nerds," Or "Cynics" so I guess I'll categorize them based on that, perhaps a comparative intensity rating of some sort... Many of them are combinations of two. I'm always looking for that magical comic that seamlessly combines all three. I'll throw down with a summary and a quote or two, since a long list of links doesn't tell you much. It's not much of a directory if there's no information now is it? Yes, it seems like a long list to read, but you can put it in perspective by comparing it to the amount of time you'd spend looking at all these comics yourself. Trust me, it's a lot.

Furthia High (FFFF, N)
A comic by Quetza Drake about a world where genetic engineering has made everyone in the world into furries. Everyone except the main character of course. Getting a bit into Cerberus syndrome territory insofar as explaining why he's still human, hints at a dark past and the like. It's sort of sci-fi, but the author frequently admits to forgetting that it's set in the future, so it doesn't enter into the plot much. It's not sci-fi the way FreeFall is where it's frequently a focus. It's more technically sort of sci-fi the way that 'the West Wing' is technically sci-fi in that it describes a hypothetical future.
Bruce Renard: Oh hamburgers, I missed you so! My mouth will never let you out of its sight again!

XKCD (Cx10, Nx10)
A stick-figure comic with a couple recurring themes and characters, but no real plot to speak of. Many strips are one-offs that are almost invariably enough to make you think AND smile. Mousing over to read the title text is a must. A lot of the jokes about coding and programming go over my head, but the writer has such a wild, fanatical sense of humor that it's always worth reading.
The Hat Guy: If you're quick with a knife, you'll find that the invisible hand of the market is made of delectable invisible meat.
Title text: "Of course there's a character limit to how much this window can display in Firefox so if you're using that browser to view this titletext then..." After looking up the source code for the page to find the rest of the titletext, I found that it concluded: "You have to look up the source code in order to read it."

Order of the Stick (Nx9000)
A more sophisticated stick-figure webcomic. This one is about Dungeons and Dragons. You've probably ran into it a few times if you stumble blindly about the TVTropes wiki on occasion as I often do. Tropers are often madly in love with OOTS, even though I discovered the latter first. Maybe it was destiny... Anyway, it's pretty troperiffic because of the way it loves to poke fun at game mechanics, fantasy elements, and storytelling devices in general. The characters have mentioned a number of tropes by name. I won't link any of the tropes in case you have stuff to do with the rest of this week and can't afford to be distracted.
Durkon Thundershield: I stay 'ere because it's me duty. And bein' a dwarf is all about doin' yer duty, even if'n it makes ye miserable. In fact, ESPECIALLY if it makes ye miserable!

Dominic Deegan (NNN, FF, Cx1/2)
A classic, hand drawn B+W. For a long time it was the closest I had ever gotten to the mythical "all three" as far as content and focus. It's a fantasy epic of sorts, with a world that sprawls ever more by the day. It tells the story of a rather disillusioned seer that uses his powers of foresight to Batman Gambit his way past a whole slew of villains and challenges. Mookie has a really playful personality and a flair for puns, alliteration and other forms of irritating but endearing wordplay. The lore and magic is very well developed. Doesn’t have a manual as far as I know, but there's much detail in the story itself.
Nimmel Feenix: Katya... your country has made me immune to boobies.
Oracle customer inquiry log: #208: Is this going to cost a lot of money? #209: Your scarf is pretty. Can I have it? Please? #210: Hey, where you goin’? You never answered my question! How much wood would a woodchuck... Um, What are you doing with that steak knife?

8 Bit Theatre (NNNN, Cx10)
Now concluded after a successful run of approximately 176 Million strips. As the title suggests, it’s a sprite comic, using mostly graphics from old Final Fantasy games. It lampoons the faults and tropes of the game it's based on, DnD, and fantasy role-playing in general. The four-man team has a wonderful contrast of personalities, each more ludicrous than the last.
Black Mage: Apparently it is not considered socially acceptable to force a blind man to walk over a flaming spike pit on a stringy rope bridge, particularly if you give him a little push at a critical point. HA! Who's mom's favorite now!
Red Mage: You murdered your own blind brother?
Black Mage: Well it would've been cruel to let him live after what I did to his eyes.

theOatmeal.com (N, Cx10)
It's not a webcomic, but it's on the web, and has comics, and I like it, so it goes here. It's a diverse blend ranging from practical advice "How to use a semicolon" to trivia "15 Things Worth Knowing about Coffee" to... uh... some adjective that properly describes a comic titled "THE MOTHAF*CKING PTERODACTYL!" It's a great way to burn up a few minutes and get a good laugh. Unlike most of the other comics I read, there's not tremendous archive shock that will smash the life out of you as soon as you look at it.
"If you mention war, politics, or global poverty you'll find a barren vacuum of opinions. If you bring up what kind of smartphone you have you'll spend the next hour enduring an obnoxious holy war. What you use an ANDROID AH MAH GAHD I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU!"

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (NNNN, CCCCC)
A one-panel comic, well it started that way. The newer ones are either one-panel or large enough to make a poster out of, or possibly wallpaper a battleship. Either way, some very interesting subject matter. It's rare to find a place with jokes in equal proportion about sex, relationships, and also philosophy and astrophysics. Sometimes both at the same time. It has a mouseover extra too. Usually graphical. Back in the day, you had to pay for it. All you have to do now is mouse-over the red button. Presumably while feeling guilty about not paying.
Gynecologist: You know, I don't know why this just popped into my head, but do you want to see the pictures of my trip to the Grand Canyon?
T-Rex: *Heroically throws itself in front of a meteor to protect a chinchilla* Save yourself mammal!

TwoKinds (Fx9000, C)
I'm sure you're familiar with this one already. I got into it because I couldn't stop hearing about how it was tha Greetast webcomic EBEHR! And that I was angering Zalgos by not reading it. I will admit that it's by far the prettiest comic I read, bearing in mind that my list contains THREE stick-figure comics and an NES sprite comic. I got suckered into reading the whole thing by a crush I developed on Natani early on. Excitement was likely not the reaction that the author intended when they made the big reveal of Natani's gender... Is that a spoiler? Nah, you should know that by now.
King Adelaide: Many physicians informed me that my wounds were lethal. I chose to ignore them and continue living.

Subnormality (NN, CCCC)
Cracked.com kept linking me here. And it's pretty much what you'd expect to find on a site like that. Observational sarcasm kind of humor. One of my favorite kinds really, you'll note it's a recurring theme in the less-upbeat comics on this list. I never got into this one too much though. It was actually a little depressing after awhile.
"The theory of Democracy is that the people put those who have the greatest aptitude for the position into office. However, election campaigns are so difficult and expensive that it really puts the people who desire power the most in positions of leadership. Sounds okay on the surface until you realize that complete sociopaths desire power the most."

Surviving the World (NNN, CCC)
I've picked this one up recently and I'm still figuring it out. It's probably the only comic whose art style would be within my abilities to do. Has a daily schedule and actually sticks to it for the most part, making it a tremendous rarity. It's a one panel "Make a point" kind of affair. It's done by a college student, so college is a common subject. Having never been to university, I can't speak to the accuracy of some of the things said on the subject, but I still find them pretty funny. Dante has an interesting perspective that I like. His comics are in competition with XKCD and SMBC for best graph jokes. Occasional political soapboxes, but he's very calm and rational with his opinions. I usually agree with or at the very least respect the points he's making.
Political Halloween costume idea: Zombie revolutionary.
"What do we want?"
"BRAAAAAAIIINS!"
"When do we want them?"
"BRAAAAAAIIINS!"

The Cross-Time Café (FFF, N)
A collective collaboration by a number of artists, it's really just a fun sandbox for the artists to play in. It's easy to tell that the contributors are all good friends and I think the comic is much better due to that trust and camaraderie. If you manage to become a fan of one or all of the contributing artists, this one is certainly worth a look. I like just about everything about it except for the fact that it's difficult to have someone catch you reading it, particularly during working hours. Have you ever tried to explain this thing without sounding completely insane? It's utterly impossible. "Oh, that giraffe just needed the spare parts from the giant coyote gundam robot to fix the automated steam engine that makes fried carnival food. It's that simple!" Of course, I frequently have difficulty not looking insane.
Tora Kiyoshi: I didn't go chasing after your tail. Your tail came looking for ME!
*Beat-panel*
Mizzkitti: Every time I play that back it sounds worse.
Tora Kiyoshi: I know. I'm rather proud of that.
***
Mizzkitti: Why did you name my tailpuff Endin?
Tora Kiyoshi: Because I'm romantic... and I believe that every tail should have a happy-
Mizzkitti: No, please. Stop there. Please.

Cyanide and Happiness (CCCCC)
Another stick-figure comic, plotless, the sort that might appear in a newspaper. If the world had very open-minded newspapers. Plays with situational irony a lot, and has a lot of simple slapstick and setup-punchline ones. This one's good for times when you DON'T want to think. I don't follow it as closely as I used to, but it's not a hard thing to catch up on.
"Dude, you can't feed your dog razor blades."
"What? Nawww, you're thinking of chocolate."

SSDD (FFFF,Cx10, NNN)
Interestingly, a friend recommended this strip to me when he heard that I was looking for that magical 'FCN' combination and I must say that it most certainly delivers. It's tough to draw a bead on this one at first. You'll pick it up a lot faster if you speak British better than I do. There's not much to distinguish it at first. At a certain point about 100-150 strips in it suddenly shot off into the sky and became completely unlike anything else I've ever read. There's time travel and sci-fi, which is history if you're from the future, and even several parallel storylines always in constant danger of running into each other. The cast also has some very interesting, compelling characters. Actually the cast is almost nothing but interesting, compelling characters. And, a rarity, the nature of the plot (An anarchist revolution) makes occasional political commentary actually fit! It's a miracle. This is a recent acquisition, but it quickly became a favorite.
"Are you ever going to give up that ‘consequences for my actions’ thing that you do?" –Norman gates

The Perry Bible Fellowship (Cx9000)
Don't let the title fool you. This is definitely not a kid's comic. It's definitely a black sheep of the group in that it favors very dark, surrealist humor as opposed to a lot of the more whimsical entries on the list. You know that one, really poignant strip that a good comic will have once in awhile? The one that can make a point, make you think or laugh or get an emotional reaction without so much as a single speech bubble? That's PBF about 20% of the time. In fact, I'm using a stellar example of that in place of a quote. It's a short archive, I made it through it in a day, and it was absolutely worth doing.

Carry On (Fx10, N)
I got suckered into this one recently by the Cross Time Cafe. Nothing really stands out about it, but I noticed that I would sit and read until some undelayable obligation like food or a fire came up. That counts for something. I read through the entire archive in two days. During some of that time I probably should've been studying or working... or sleeping... but such things are only apparent in hindsight. I tried to stand up a minute ago. I couldn't. Normally this would concern me, but I've got a few more things I need to do on the computer, and besides, my chair has wheels!
Mama Grrsn: CHILDREN! GET YER GRUBBY MEATHOOKS OFF MY LAMP!

Some of the ones that I no longer keep up with are "Looking for Group," a world of warcraft comic that has a forsaken warlock very similar to Black Mage. "Least I could do" by the same author; that one's much bigger on the N's and the C's, it's kind of like "I hope they Serve Beer in Hell" if you've ever read that. "Dungeons and Denizens" is another DnD one that had some promise. It's told from the monsters' POV, so it's interesting and has its moments.

There are others, but if they didn't come to mind readily they must not be that great. Also the list is depressingly long already. Though there's a very simple reason for that. I was stuck out there in a Godforsaken faceless desert for seven bloody months! If it has not yet become patently obvious to you, I became incredibly bored!