Remember what I said yesterday about getting to know new webcomics? Got that in spades today. First up, a missive from Elan’ Rodger Trinidad who wrote:

I’m an Eisner Nominee for Best Digital Comic

Quick pause here — Trinidad’s nomination is for Speak No Evil (subtitled Melancholy of a Space Mexican) and it’s some really great work. The story is imaginative and compelling, and the art reminds me of reading third-hand, months-old issues of 2000 A.D. back in the late ’80s. It’s less than 40 pages long, and you should go read it now. I’ll wait.

Back? Okay, good. On with the email:

and I just wanted to share with you my newest project: God™- (the abridged title).

Me again. The full title is God™-^©2xx8 [blurred] Incorporated. All rights reserved. God and all related characters, titles, names and documents are trademarks of [blurred] Incorporated. No similarity between any of the names, characters, persons and/or institutions in this deity with those of any living or dead person or institutions is intended and any such similarity which may exist is purely coincidental. Keep an eye on where it says [blurred] and be prepared to read between the lines:

Some day the intellectual property of God will be owned by a media, entertainment, and theme park corporation that rhymes with “Malt Crispy”. The Apocalypse is looming and it’s up to Reverend Joeb Kim, an ordained minister in the Sacred Order of Accounting, to stop it.

Trinidad says he’s going for a Hitchhiker’s Guide vibe, and he pretty much succeeds in conveying the absurdism you’d find in the Nerd Bible, but his corporate satire is sharper than what Douglas Adams wrote. I’m picking up overtone vibes of Snow Crash and Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!; just check out the sequence where our hero has to decide whether to order the Very Large Coffee Franchise‘s new offering, Dirt in Hot Waterâ„¢ … or decaf. Click forward for the next few pages and revel in the adspeak. This is the sort of satire that is designed on a genetic level to appeal to me.

By the way, webcomic creators are eligible to vote for the Eisners. I know your money is on Carla Speed McNeil, but if this news about webcomic creators voting is new to you and you want to let everyone know it on your blog, at least do me a favor and do a fair review on one of my comics.

Done, and done! Trinidad’s right that my non-existant vote is for Carla Speed McNeil, but if you’re eligible to vote give Speak No Evil all due consideration because it’s damn good (and slightly nightmarish) work. And God™? Going to be keeping a very close eye on this one — I get the feeling that when Trinidad sets his sights on a target ripe for ridicule, his Wacom stylus transforms into something like a surgical scalpel grafted onto a blunt weapon. A+++++ WOULD TAUNT LARGE CORPORATE ENTITIES AGAIN.

Speaking of new strips, may I point you to Much the Miller’s Son? Think Groo the Wanderer starring one of the minor characters of the Robin Hood legend, with an art style that crosses Aragones with ’70s-era Peyo; right now it seems that the links to the first chapter (The Good, The Bad, and Much), but the second chapter (The Archery Contest) is a real treat, so please enjoy. The site’s been a little wonky for me, but that may be a side effect of the massive re-tweeting it got yesterday.

Okay, so that’s three webcomics you have to get caught up on or we can’t be friends. You didn’t have anything important to do at work today, did you? Awesome.