Well, alright. The tree of video game webcomic humor must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of ... new video game webcomics. Or something. This is the only democratically elected feature on Kotaku, and I'm calling new elections.
If you haven't noticed, we're down two strips from our normal 10. Brentalfloss folded shop a couple of weeks ago and Virtual Shackles handed the reins to two new creators, who have perpetrated all of one comic since, and just one since the end of July. So here is is your chance to tell us what should go on our comics page.
Everyone loves the funnies and everyone loves complaining about the funnies, so we will again stage a no-holds barred up-or-down vote on everything we have—existing strips, plus any new prospects. Before we do that, we need to hear suggestions from you for what should be on this page. If you read one elsewhere that you think should go here, now is your chance. We'd like to hear it in the comments. Going back to previous overhauls, I'm repeating the qualities, in order of importance, that we're looking for in good comic strips.
1) The strip must be gaming-focused even if every single strip is not about a gaming subject. Everyone is permitted to go off-topic once in a while. We need something that, again, is generally about video gaming and gamer culture. But a comic strip that mentions video games, even frequently, when its subject is something else or more broad (for example, if Foxtrot was a web comic) is not viable.
2) The strip is currently publishing and regularly updated. Regularly means at least one strip a week. This can't be stressed enough. Some artists may skip weeks here or there, and that's fine. But we need to see one with a demonstrably consistent publishing history, which is why Virtual Shackles (and Another Videogame Webcomic) is on notice. One published every other whenever-I-feel-like-it is not going to work.
3) It's gotta be drawn well. We can't have MS Paint-looking web comics. If it's done in a deliberately minimalist visual style (for example, the excellent XKCD) then it must be an exceptionally well written comic (for example, the excellent XKCD. Which is a comic about a thousand things, one of them occasionally games.)
With these in mind, when you post a suggestion, please post the URL where the web comic lives. Suggestions with links are going to get looked at first. Suggestions that need a Google search stand less of a chance of success. Suggestions that are "Oh man, you should totally get that strip that had the joke about the game and the guy in it," are also worthless.
Of course, publication in Sunday Comics depends upon the permission of the artist, which we'll be working to get. We're also going to evaluate things editorially before putting up the final candidate pool next week. But I'm certain we'll get more than enough worthwhile nominations here, enough that we can have a robust comic strip deathmatch voteoff and give you the Sunday Comics you want.
With that in mind, let's hear what you have in mind.
To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.