Web Comics/Tear Jerker

"Lie Bot, what is the saddest thing?"

- Philippe, setting himself, and the reader, up for a doozy.


 * A Softer World
 * Axe Cop
 * Bittersweet Candy Bowl
 * Brawl in The Family
 * Concerned
 * Cyanide and Happiness
 * Digger
 * El Goonish Shive
 * Exiern
 * Girl Genius
 * Gunnerkrigg Court
 * Housepets
 * Homestuck
 * Khaos Komix
 * Knite
 * Looking for Group
 * A Moment of Peace
 * Nanas Everyday Life
 * Nuzlocke Comics
 * The Order of the Stick
 * Platypus Comix
 * Electric Wonderland
 * PS 238
 * Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi
 * Secret of Mana Theater
 * Shortpacked
 * Sinfest
 * Walkyverse
 * Xkcd

""Reasons Hot Dogs Are Amazing: 1. You can eat them almost every day 2. They taste the way they smell 3. They can be fun! 4. Sometimes, it's hard to be alone in the world 5. ...""
 * This Dinosaur Comics strip (shucks mah!)
 * Buttercup Festival, Second Series.

"Davan: *plays A Boy and His Frog*"
 * The death of in Something Positive, and knowing this, the strip right before.
 * On the same topic,
 * Also, the revelation that . That it immediately followed an unexpected heartwarming moment with his adopted daughter did not help.
 * Much earlier, Davan at Scott's grave. The epitaph was just too much.
 * This comic.
 * Also, the ending of the Hell House arc.
 * An in-universe version of a musical tear-jerker is when Jason said that he doesn't get people who cry at songs, to which Davan succintly replied:

"I never knew my half-brother, but I'd like to think you were sort of sent to me in his stead."
 * There was blowblack.
 * This comic, where the beleaguered single male callboy at Nerdrotica who finds out that one of his regular callers is an old man who uses the service as a method of recalling memories of his deceased male lover.
 * The whole flashback of, especially this comic, in which over the phone, coupled with , when you know how it's going to end. And at the end, just... Ow, my heartstrings.

"Big Boss: You understand now? I had to kill the greatest hero of the modern era because the factions of Philosophers were fighting over money. Liquid Snake: But you burned those sons of bitches right? Tell me you went home and SKULLFUCKED every last one of them!"
 * This Erfworld comic. It's because Grey and Grey Morality of the setting that makes you root for the both sides. And then you realise it's the Pacifist of "Bad" side doing the deed. And all the main protagonist knows about it all is this message from said pacificst: "Im In Ur Dirtz: We broke the leadership.". Baaaw!
 * Nana's Everyday Life. You don't even need to know the series to end up a snivelling wreck by the end of it. Compared to Nana's Everyday Life, Elfen Lied is straight-up comedy. Let that sink in for a while.
 * In Inhuman,.
 * The ending of the bonus comic, The Cemetery. * sniff*
 * Breakfast of the Gods. Just, Breakfast of the Gods. Great writing, but man is it sad.
 * When 1/0 ended. Considering how the comic went, the ending was just perfect.
 * 8-Bit Theater had one, where after died Fighter desperately pleads with him to wake up before going into an Unstoppable Rage.
 * Plus,.
 * The note Black Mage wrote to White Mage. Being out of character for him somehow intensified its touching nature.
 * This strip. Black Mage finally achieves his dreams of becoming the most powerful evil force in the universe...
 * There's another one in a comic hosted at his site, Warbot in Accounting.
 * Another one? Warbot is made to kick you in the gut at least once every comic.
 * The penultimate strip of The Last Days of Foxhound. After 500 strips of watching and getting to know and love them, the final, silent images of the team's  is heartbreaking (though it does have warning. Being a Foregone Conclusion doesn't make it easier.
 * Sniper Wolf and Berthold
 * Big Boss's explanation of  death, and Liquid's highly emotional reaction to it.

"Daddy? Please wake up. (beat) Daddy?"
 * Sabrina Online's 1999 Christmas strip. Being someone who has never had someone for any holiday season...* sniff*
 * This short comic series about the rescue efforts of the May 2008 Sichuan Province Earthquake. (Note: Last two strips are humorous as a change of pace)
 * Link has now been updated to one that works. In case you weren't bawling already, the ones focusing on named people were all true stories - the artist took news stories and put them in comic form. Eyes are moist on the first one, wet on the second, and the waterworks break by the 4th or 5th.
 * Laika: The First Dog in Space will NEVER make the experiment of shooting animals into the space funny ever again.
 * Wrong section, but go on, just try playing this song at the same time.
 * This Animal Crossing comic.
 * This Insecticomics episode. "REPAIR. HER."
 * And this interchange between Vector Prime and the author.
 * Jack: ; and then later ... the whole arc is one big cryfest.
 * "I can't read dis book ..."
 * Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures:.
 * Even more painful:
 * Also:
 * The tragic story of
 * When Abel was especially potent for readers who have been in similar situations with their relatives.
 * The ending of Concerned: The Half Life and Death of Gordon Frohman
 * And that comic is a COMEDY...
 * No reason you can't laugh and cry at the same time, folks.
 * Frohmans death was sad? Excuse me? What about Frank, you insensitive jerks!

""I need you to be thus armed because I fear your mother and I have played a trick on you; we have brought you to a place where hidden weaponry is sometimes necessary. In our defense, and I recognize that it may be insufficient, this was the only world available to us.""
 * Mew Cai's last words
 * In Goblins when
 * Also when
 * And in this and this strip. Anything with those two is a tearjerker. This will make you cry
 * Dies.
 * Kid Radd.
 * The death of
 * Bogey ** Sheena
 * Back to Bogey, the second one is made even worse by
 * The ending, too. Possibly the best webcomic ending out there.
 * The fact that Bogey nearly
 * User Friendly reminds us that Remembrance Day's not just for World Wars any more.
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Galatea finally learns what kindness is, here and here.
 * The first hint of Voluptua's private feelings, and later her admission of them.
 * This Darths and Droids strip. Which is strange, considering a) we knew it was coming, b) the character himself is still alive, because c) it's a comedic rpg. Talented webcomic artists.
 * this strip also. This is the most sympathetic Yoda ever.
 * A Softer World is true art. This is just one reason why. And then there's this...
 * The moment in Megatokyo where
 * This non-story comic. "A Failure Of Conscience", indeed.
 * The omake chapter "Circuity" . "I said I'd push back the wind for you!"...
 * Made even better by "Circuity: Rewound", a rewrite and update of the omake Fred did for the 4th volume.
 * The Worst Thing I Ever Did; A True Story, from Ricky Garduno's 1930 Nightmare Theatre. Merry Christmas...?
 * Questionable Content does this starting with strip number 500.
 * These two strips. Say what you will about, but seeing it come to an end after so long was pretty heartbreaking.
 * That last line before Marten closed the door was just such an awful way to put it, it conveyed how hurt he was and was actually horribly true at the same time. That one line matched the angst of this strip right after it.
 * The death of in Brat-halla. Admittedly, it's in a story set in the future so the character isn't actually dead "yet," and it's really a case of Foregone Conclusion, but the sheer unstoppable inevitability of it.
 * Welcome to Norse Mythology! We're all just killing time until the end of the world!
 * Several in YU+ME: dream, such as
 * Penny Arcade:
 * The last panel of the conclusion to Armadeaddon.
 * To explain: The guy standing with Gabe and Tycho in the photo is Jim, an old friend of theirs. Jim came back as a zombie in the story arc, so Tycho is remembering all the good times they had with him back when he was alive.
 * The end of the "Seventh Spring" arc.
 * When you realize what happens to the two of them, this strip turns on the waterworks.
 * Some of Tycho's words after the birth of his daughter are tearjerking and heartwarming at the same time.
 * When you realize what happens to the two of them, this strip turns on the waterworks.
 * Some of Tycho's words after the birth of his daughter are tearjerking and heartwarming at the same time.

"Tycho: Oh my god. Oh my god. Please don't leave me."
 * Part 1 of the story arc Ripped From Today's Headlines, the last panel is pretty heartwrenching. Tycho holding his dead wife in his arms, realizing that he just killed her, and feeling really bad for it.

"I'm not going to call, e-mail or correspond with you in any way. I'm not going to see you again. (pause) But I will miss you."
 * The ending of Fleep.
 * death in Erfworld, that is all. It's only after his Heroic Sacrifice (shouting "For Lord Hamster!!", no less) that you realize how much you rooted for him. And it gets worse, when Parson shows his Not So Stoic side at the news...
 * And Vinny crying at  kinda stabbed me in the heart.
 * There's just something about this Minus strip...
 * And also this one.
 * And this one.
 * For a lot of people this is the first Minus. strip they saw. Without context, the last panel is an absolutely heartrending statement of defiance and serenity. The whole world is falling apart and she's just standing there, waiting to take a swing at that asteroid.
 * The "The Luckiest" three-page sequence from Vinci and Arty -- it's already a bona fide tear jerker song.
 * The situation Vinci is in this strip. Poor little guy.
 * This page in Kevin and Kell. (Kell's father has Alzhiemers for those who don't know).
 * And the next strip... just... * sniff*
 * In Ozy and Millie, after hearing about his biological mother Shelley, Ozy almost looked like he'd break his normally stoic state and start crying.
 * Again in Ozy and Millie, when Millie is mercilessly bullied she gets uncharacteristically angry. When she starts to think that the world is out to get her, she reflects on cruelty.
 * Arthur, King of Time and Space: If you get the reference, you know what's coming...but not that last panel. ><<<
 * The ending of Better Days.
 * Grim Tales from Down Below fits one in too, after Grim Jr. lashes out at Mini Mandy for saving his life, you can see how crushed Mini Mandy is, one page later, she is RIPPED INTO PIECES BY THE PUMPKINATOR, and another page later, Lock, Shock, and Barrel are horrified, unlike Oogie, who is laughing in pure glee, and after Junior Took a Level In Badass, the Redeemer comes and takes Mini Mandy to heaven, she gives Junior one last kiss, in my opinion, merging Tear Jerker AND Nightmare Fuel together PERFECTLY.
 * Even the Dead Baby Comedy VG Cats has one: "But...But I waited for you, Mr. Potatomoto. We all waited. We've always waited."
 * In the other spectrum, Perfect Gift. Scott can touch your hearts if he wants.
 * The Adventures of Dr. McNinja manages to pull one off with Dark Smoke Puncher and his major daddy issues. You just want see the poor kid get a real hug.
 * And
 * "Sad asplode." Well said, Mr. Alt Text. Well said.
 * Least I Could Do in memorial of the author's cat, Baby Sohmer
 * Unca?
 * Girly started off as a care free dada comic, the most recent arc ended with this
 * Lint, in this strip, confirms Bactine's death after several agonizing panels of uncertainty.
 * Sluggy Freelance:
 * Torg saying "goodbye forever" to Zoe because it's the only way he can see to keep her safe from Oasis:
 * Sluggy Freelance:
 * Torg saying "goodbye forever" to Zoe because it's the only way he can see to keep her safe from Oasis:

"Lota: King Lota thinks it is a little too big. Schlock: Brad's best friend thinks it's almost big enough."
 * The death of  in That Which Redeems, as well as   sacrifice and Torg's state upon returning.
 * Everything involving after her death:
 * "No! I can't lose her again! I can't lose her again!"
 * On finding what condition she was in in the mirror dimension, Riff's spirit was shattered. The look on his face is gut-wrenching.
 * Riff finally comes face-to-face with her empty shell of a body, his alternate self trying to convince him she's brain-dead.
 * He goes back in time to save her, betraying his new friends, only to be told by his alternate self it's impossible; meanwhile, she wakes up briefly and goes back to sleep, blissfully unaware that she'll be dead in a matter of hours.
 * A beer every year bro... bring her back to me
 * Heh...
 * in Cuanta Vida.
 * And RED Scout's reaction to it.
 * And on top of that,  Oh, my heart hurts.
 * And then
 * Request Comics, by the authors/photographers of Terror Island, makes a surprisingly sad strip.
 * Cyanide and Happiness does this deliberately as part of their "Depressing Comics Weeks". Also, "Waiting for the Bus".
 * Subnormality: A Coward's Tale. Even if you don't read the Walls of Text, it's still sad.
 * This comic...
 * Life's Calendar
 * "It's when you go to the store to get some fucking tea and English muffins and you end up feeling guiltier than you have in your life because you happened to be in the right line and it was only the right line because there were more people in it."
 * Fetch...
 * Fans has a few, notably from the God-Machine arc;
 * "Save Draft. That paragraph stays." Context; Shanna is writing about this adventure four years after the fact, and up to this moment, we don't know whether Will survived the final battle.
 * Rikk and Ally's reconciliation...
 * ...and subsequent invitation for Rumy to join their family.
 * Brawl in the Family's Ode To Minions. As if the first time it invoked What Measure Is a Mook? was bad enough...
 * Also, the ending to Waluigi's second reign of terror. Ouch.
 * If it takes a lifetime...
 * This comic. Sure, yukkuris are supposed to be either funny or annoying, but this...AbusiveParents, Family-Unfriendly Death, and the scene where Alice goes out into the rain to stay with her Mommie... Although, the parts where
 * The ending of Exploitation Now.
 * Nature of Natures Art. Ending of the first arc, as Quintet repeatedly Then we have the end of the second arc which is going on now, what is it with nofna and   anyway?
 * The second arc is worse than that.
 * These two Captain SNES comics. The first makes me cry Manly Tears at Frog's speech telling the Eater of Dreams to choke on it, the second....
 * A Running Gag in Achewood is Philippe asking Lie Bot "What is the saddest thing?" and getting an uncharacteristically -- and brutally -- honest answer. They have generally been intentionally over-the-top, but the first one is legendarily depressing.
 * "Life ees cruel... but at least eet is life, at least for a while." Goddamn.
 * Nedroid's Comics are no stranger to dark humor, but the Alt Text in this comic is pretty depressing.
 * From Las Lindas: Goodbye, Mora. Seriously, if you don't cry at this you are made of stone.
 * , and that's a Tear Jerker all in itself- but of a different kind.
 * The end of "Little Ria."
 * "The First Week", from Jenny the Military Spouse. Jenny goes through the first week of her husband's first overseas deployment. All in the form of a happy cheerful helpful guide on how to deal with deployments. It's the implications of Jenny lying wide-awake in bed clenching her blanket it her hands.
 * The  in The Meek was bad enough when we saw   subsequent reactions, but then we had to see the reactions of  ...
 * Goodbye Chains: The death of
 * "This" from Three Panel Soul gets me
 * The rather...bizarre Sugar Babiez has an unexpected one near the end. This comes in the form of Despair, parts one and two. Your Millage May Vary, but the fact that this is that last we see of Jess before the comic ends makes it hit a little harder than it should.
 * From Schlock Mercenary:
 * "All hands! We just got paid! Party on the rec deck, everybody!"
 * "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
 * From the end of the Credomar story:


 * "Are we done crying?" ... "Nope. Not done crying."
 * From Cheer Up Emo Kid: "Dog" (10 pages)
 * Drowtales: Kiel's reaction  And as if that weren't gut-wrenching enough,
 * When Kiel's usually comedic habit of Breaking the Fourth Wall is invoked to let her yell at the readers
 * This.
 * That series seems tailor made to be as saddening as possible. Quite a feat with only a handful of comics to its name.
 * This entry for an OC tournament left many a person only able to say "...wow" in their comments. The gist of it is  The part that will really make the tears flow?
 * Although Errant Story has more of the other moments, the page after this one certainly qualifies as a Tear Jerker.
 * Ace Dick's game of life is an in-story example (with Shout Outs to Batman and Oregon Trail). The reason that
 * The Super Fogeys has one of the most elegantly sorrowful strips ever, all about getting old.
 * And again. Dear lord, this much bittersweet should be illegal.
 * This collection of minicomics of Pokemon, based on the question of where is Ash's father.
 * Venus Envy, anyone? Despite being a major exporter of Wangst, there are a good deal of legitimately sad bits.
 * Richie's rant about how Alex/Zoe is a freak, after she's
 * The author's personal experience with transphobic violence is easily the worst bit.
 * And  YMMV as to whether this is Wangst, a Tear Jerker, or even Nightmare Fuel.
 * Teddy Bear Anti-Christ is usually darkly and morbidly humorous, but this one is sad. Poor Byron.
 * Joy's miscarriage and Issac's reaction in Namir Deiter are bad enough, but then she begins to obsess over a custom-made doll with her hair and Isaac's fur and ears... that breathes. Blue's Played for Laughs reaction softens it, but it's still paints a very disturbing picture of her psyche.
 * , and Julie's breakdown afterword in Our Little Adventure. It was especially jarring considering how much of a Blithe Spirit Julie normally is.
 * In Dubious Company, after the Sues and Stus capture the pirates, Sal calculates their chance of escape at 0%. Further cemented when she is the first to be hauled off for execution.
 * No Black Plume, with its heavy reliance on black comedy, sometimes skirts with this.
 * Chapter 28 and 29 (the comic has very short chapters) of Orange Marmalade has Ma-ri, a vampire, have to deal and cope with all the racism around her, coming from all the friends she had been trying so hard to make. It's so heart-breaking when she.
 * This might be a small one, but in Tales of the Questor Quen breaks down the night after the first time he kills someone. He's a boy who can barely be considered a man, and gets comforted by his mama.
 * Also here when poor Ember is given a Mercy Kill.
 * From Plush and Blood, this.
 * This Little Dog Lost Mother's Day comic May 13, 2012.
 * This "Little League" strip. "My parents are dead" indeed...
 * Any Pokemon Nuzlocke comic will have them But this one really sells it