Every Friday, I’m posting links to my favorite webcomics, and since I’m going alphabetically, that means the first comic to get a recommendation from me is Bear Nuts, by Alison Acton.

These bears live at the Discount Zoo and get gawked at, have stuff thrown at them by kids, and all around have no privacy. Well, they have their cave with their stolen plasma TV, couch, private bath and all the amenities, but it’s still humiliating. This character-driven story follows the lives of (in order of picture) Death Bear, Crack Bear, Gimpy Bear, Evil Bear, Prozac Bear(let’s hope there aren’t any trademark suits in Alison’s future), Nerd Bear, Tanked Bear, Gay Bear, and Lech Bear. It’s cute, very professionally-drawn(great expressions!), and has entertaining storylines. As you can tell from the picture, it’s not a kids comic(PG, maybe PG-13), and the first comic makes it clear what age-appropriateness to expect(okay, PG-13). I had the same tactic with my first Kenny Chronicles comic. It’s clear what Gimpy’s hobbies are between comics, and Tanked is always drunk. The character dynamics work well against each other. Evil Bear has horns! Death Bear can kill with a touch. Prozac Bear… well, just make sure his meds don’t run out.

Bear Nuts is the reason I’ve started offering vote incentives, too. They have a new vote incentive with each comic, and it’s gotten them VERY high up on the TopWebComics ranking(having a great comic helps too). I’ve gotten some traffic via TopWebComics, and I’ve started having some behind-the-scenes stuff to share(pics of the full 3D models used in recent comics), so I’m on board with the vote incentive idea. I already have a buffer building for them, too! WOW, A BUFFER!!!

Bear Nuts can be seen at www.bearnutscomic.com