Nedroid Picture Diary (a Webcomic)

Nedroid Picture Diary (nedroid.com) may be my favorite webcomic. The series starts Reginald, a bird of some kind and Beartato, a vaguely bare themed circle who almost resembles a round potato. Reginald is silly in a sort of naïve, arrogant way – almost like Patrick from the first season of SpongeBob square pants. Beartato is more prone to reason and often plays the straight man in their gags, almost like Hobbes from Calvin and Hobbes, but like Hobbes, he has his silly moments as well. The comics writing is hilarious, and is a little reminiscent of the writing in Kate Beaton’s “Hark a Vagrant,” often funny because it is so restrained. The characters also have a very limited facial expressions – Reginald is always drawn in profile with one eye to camera. Each eye is one large dot on the side of his head. He has no eyebrows and his beak never smiles or frowns. His emotions are always clear though (unless they are intentionally confusing) and never feel cliché or unsophisticated. Beartato’s mouth his in the middle of his body, and it communicates a lot of what he is feeling. While he is the more expressive character visually, Reginald’s lack of expression often contextualizes his emotions and makes them funnier. Reginald and Beartato have, two friends Harrison, a shark in a space suit, and Weirdo, a weird looking guy. Occasionally Reginald goes on dates, who are always drawn as real women.