Journal Comic
A lot of webcomic authors tend to embellish their own lives or take inspiration from real people or even insert themselves into their story. However, there's another sort of comic that prefers to stay within the believable bounds of Real Life: the Journal Comic
A Journal Comic is different from a normal autobiography, as it's usually done day to day or week to week instead of being written in retrospect; really, it's more or less the comics equivalent of a blog. Each comic chronicles a day in the life of the creator, either reflecting on events or retelling them as a story. Unlike Life Embellished comics, they usually stay fairly true to life—occasional exaggerations and simplifications are about as far from reality as they get.
The comics themselves tend to be drawn quickly, so that the artist can manage to crank them out something close to daily, but this isn't always the case. Some journal comics have a sort of indie vibe to them, due to being less story-focused and more focused on "being real" and being genuine... which may be a good or bad thing, depending on who you ask.
A possible occurrence is a Crossover between Journal Comics if two writers meet each other, such as the one between The Devils Panties (in this strip and this strip) and Today Nothing Happened (on this page).
Print Comics
- American Splendor, from the pre-internet days, may be the Trope Maker.
- Jim's Journal is another print example.
- Dirty Laundry, a print comic made by Robert Crumb and his wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb.
Web Comics
- The Devil's Panties is probably one of the most famous journal comics on the internet.
- Destiny Fails Us Based on embellishments on the artist's life through her experience in highschool, friendship, and love.
- American Elf
- Fart Party, an "autobiographical comic (with frequent but obvious exaggerations)."
- Mostly True Comics, an interesting example in that it frequently departs real life, but always identifies this departure in the "truthometer" that accompanies every comic, rating it on a scale of "Pants on Fire" to "Stick a Needle in my Eye."
- Planet Karen
- Les Petits Riens/Little Nothers (originally written in French, but there's a translation of the first volume into English called Little Nothings: the Curse of the Umbrella.)
- Horribleville
- Wasted Talent: The everyday life of Angela Melick (aka Jam), first as an engineering student and now as a full-fledged engineer.
- Today Nothing Happened
- Overcompensating is an undisguised subversion of the journal comic; it claims to be the "100% True Journal Comic about Real Things that happen everyday," despite featuring the webcomic artist's journey to Hell, encounters with Chupacabra, adventures with CERN's Large Hadron Collider and loads of other hilarious and unabashedly false "real-life" exploits. In fact, it's new tagline is "The journal comic with a seething disdain for reality."
- Pretty Jeff Like Overcompensating, abnormal events happen to the author, like turning into a snail or sleeping for five years. But most of the characters are real people, and the events expose real-life dilemmas the author has.
- DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic (Unfrequently SFW.)
- As Seen In VT
- Bad Rabbit
- Sex, Drugs, and June Cleaver
- Allan
- Something Original, done by Allan's girlfriend Amanda.
- Johnny Wander
- Inkdick
- Kevin's Journal Comic is in a 2x2 format but it outlines the highlights of Kevin's day from his senior year all the way to the present... over a 4 year period.
- Theater Hopper
- Permanently Seated
- Hyperbole and a Half
- Doodle Diaries
- Alex's Guide to a Life Well-Lived
- Terrifying Monsters follows the author's daily life with the only difference being that he and his friends are represented as monsters.
- Let's Speak English, in which the cartoonist teaches English in Japan for two years. Completed.