Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,388
edits
(clean up) |
No edit summary |
||
(15 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Webcomics will often have a separate series of strips featuring characters and/or situations outside of the main storyline. These may be used as [[Filler Strips]], a form of [[Breather Episode]], or just [[Something Completely Different]].
Back in the [[Golden Age]] of [[Newspaper Comics]], when Sunday comic strips each took up a whole page of the newspaper, they were often accompanied by "toppers", which served much the same purpose, making this [[Older Than Television]].
The "topper" best remembered today is ''[[Krazy Kat]]'', which originated as a set of strips under the main action in a 1910 strip known variously as ''The Dingbat Family'' and ''The Family Upstairs'' (making it a "bottomer", I suppose, though [[Let Us Never Speak of This Again|let's all agree never to use that term again]]). [http://www.toonopedia.com/krazy.htm According to Don Markstein], Krazy spun off into his (or her) own strip in 1913, while the Dingbats passed from the comics page in 1916.
Line 9:
See also [[Omake]].
{{examples
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' has had such B-Side Comics as "Bikini Suicide Frisbee Days" (aka, back in the good old days before plot locked up the characters in specific situations) and "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain", drawn by guest artists. The latter actually ended up affecting the main story. It has also has an ongoing side story called "Stick Figures in Space", which is used as filler. ▼
*
* The Chef Brian, Players and Gamer's Glossary strips in ''[[Ctrl Alt Del]]''.▼
** In fact, ''[[Ctrl Alt Del]]'' often has a few gag comics between [[Story Arc|Story Arcs]].▼
== Web Comics ==
▲* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' has had such B-Side Comics as "Bikini Suicide Frisbee Days" (aka, back in the good old days before plot locked up the characters in specific situations) and "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain", drawn by guest artists. The latter actually ended up affecting the main story. It has also has an ongoing side story called "Stick Figures in Space", which is used as filler.
*** And now the "sillies" that are in a separate part of the site.
* "[[Penny Arcade]]" has a few B-Side comics: "Twisp and Catsby" and "The Cardboard Tube Samurai" evolved from strips in the main continuity to their own identity. There was a series of three ([http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/6/10/ link]) treatments of B-Side comics with a poll to determine which gets developed more: "Lookouts", "Automata", and "Jim Darkmagic". It was popular enough that both "Lookouts" and "Automata" got additional strips.
* ''[[
* ''[[Stickman and Cube]]'' has "The Adventures Of Captain Invisible" and "Cube's Past Jobs".
▲* Dead-tree example: ''[[Watchmen (Comic Book)|Watchmen]]'' had "Tales of the Black Freighter", which served to metaphorically comment on the main plot.
* ''[[User Friendly]]'' has frequent strips involving caricatures of technology magnates and politicians (and Apple-obsessed aliens), which don't affect the main storylines.
* ''[[Apple Geeks]]'' and its AG-lite.
* ''[[
* "Megagamerz 733t" from ''[[Goats]]'' is completely unrelated to the story, save that it is ostensibly [[Show Within a Show|drawn by one of the characters]], which may in fact lump it in with "Drawn by Billy" sets from ''The Family Circus''.
* The Genie World story from ''[[
** Not to mention the arcs where someone takes over the "Wotch HQ" and attempts to run the comic his way.
** Or "The Wotch: [[
* ''[[Something
* ''[[
* ''[[SSDD]]'' has two: ''Sticky the Stickman'' and ''Church of Poisoned Minds'', which eventually became their own strips.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has a series of radio plays done as podcasts, supposedly in the future but with no clear relation to the plot at present. One has been turned into actual comics.
** There was also the [[Mary Sue]] spoof titled "[[Fan Fiction]]".
* ''[[Scary Go Round|Scary-Go-Round]]'' had a brief story about two goblins setting up a detective agency, going to Ireland to recover a pot of gold from a goblin version of [[Terry Wogan]], and mixing it with devil bears. While the goblins do make occasional appearances in the main SGR comic, usually around Christmas, apparently this storyline provoked a great many e-mails to John Allison saying, "I don't get it," and he now thinks he could just have done it with Shelley and Amy instead. It didn't stop him doing another goblins-in-Ireland story-ette a few years later.
* ''[[VG Cats]]'' has two secondary comics, ''Adventure Log'' and ''[[Super Effective (
* After ''[http://www.drunkduck.com/Tana/index.php?p=638832 Taña, Island Princess]''{{Dead link}} concluded its first volume, its creator started an unrelated story at [[Comic Genesis]] called "Get Your Boyfriend Back" (not transferred to [[Drunk Duck]] yet).
* ''Sins Venials'' has ''[[DDG]]'', updated every time ''Sins Venials''' donation box reaches $50. ''DDG'' arguably has a stronger storyline than the main comic. View it [https://web.archive.org/web/20131106020929/http://www.sincomics.com/ddg.php here].
* ''[[Ultima
* ''[[
* ''Triquetra Cats'' has its spinoff, ''Polonian Tales''.
* Early ''[[Adventurers
* ''Questionable Content'' is occasionally interrupted by 'Yelling Bird', four identical panels of an angry dickcissel, when the author is too busy or unwell to draw a regular strip.
** ... which has since added characters and mutated into something resembling an actual storyline.
* Sunday editions of ''[[Narbonic]]'' are usually some form of these, such as "The Astonishing Excursions of Helen Narbon & Co."
* ''[[The Life of Nob T. Mouse]]'' used 'interlude' stories to break up the longer Pie Noon storyline into more manageable pieces. These included ''[http://www.nobmouse.net/2008/04/14/interlude-doctor-nob/ Doctor Nob]'', a parody of ''[[
* ''[[Acrobat]]'' will post pinups, origins of characters, or short stories in between issues.
* [[Dan and
* ''[[A Modest Destiny]]'' used to alternate seasons of ''The Starship Destiny'' with the main comic. Presumably because new characters and a new setting (scifi as opposed to medieval adventure) gave Sean "Squidi" Howard a break and a chance to shake things up a bit.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Webcomic Tropes]]
▲[[Category:B Side Comics]]
|