* Everyday inanimate objects which can speak, particularly high-tech gadgets such as PCs, MP3 Players and gaming consoles. Often they'll be radically modded to be indepentantly mobile, sometimes even resembling humans.
* Domestic animals which are secretly planning for world-domination, unbeknown to their naive owners.
* Random violence as a punchline because the writer couldn't think of anything genuinely funny to write.
* Jokes about how unrealistic certain elements of popular games are (especially RPGs and MMOs). The most common jokes are large, muscular players being beaten up by small furry animals, or wildlife dropping weaponry as loot.
* Implications that Mario is gay.

Fourth wall breaking.

Silly names.

"Hey Dragon..."

'What is it Sunshine?'

"I need to tell you something."

'What is it Sunshine?'

"Even though I met you only two days ago as we were destined by our noble masters who died for some reason by a friend of ours who was good, then evil, then good, then back to evil again, to gain the stupidly named item of an equally stupidly named person in the area of another stupid land (like the Thundarom sword of Shizerobo in the land of Ni) and I have comical arguments with you regulary to break up the tension, and the fact I barely know anything about you...I love you."

'Me too.'

*Three pages of hugging embrace*

*Then some filler, maybe a monologue or two*

Sort of like the name comment.

Characters whose name are completely unbelievable, and often tell the part of the backstory of the character.
"My name means 'Brothers Revenge' in Japanese, and I'm on a quest to get revenge on my brother for being better than me at everything! Of course, it is completely awkward that my parents would name me this since it's actually rather depressing and predicts the future, but who cares!"

...Yeah, Japanese adjectives as names is also a pet hate of mine, as some of you may already be aware.

Well, I did some cliches of other forms of manga, so how about some shounen cliches? Ah, yes, shounen manga...

Unlike most printed shounen manga from Japan, where the main protagonist may well be a total dork or come across as a total idiot with occasional intervals of being incredibly awesome, online shounen manga will inevitably have the character ALWAYS being cool, badassed and unbeatable.
These comics rarely last long, they tend to be badly planned and drawn by a boy of 14-18 years with a short attention span, much like your average bad spriter, but with slightly better drawing skills.
There are two different types:
Fantasy- It starts on a bright day in a small village...WHICH IS UNDER ATTACK! Uh oh! The entire village is, for no reason that's ever explained, being attacked by a monster! A plucky young woman with some fighting skill and no overabundance of clothing is holding out okay against it, but she's doomed to lose.
At the very moment she's about to get her arse handed to her, the hero turns up dramatically. He is tall, he has spiky dark hair and youthful features. Dressed in dark colours, probably involving black shirt and trousers, leather boots and gloves and armoured bracers and about three belts. He will be armed with either: 2 swords, 2 knives, a katana or a pair of wrist-mounted blades.
He fights the monster, gets beaten a bit, but then reveals 'ha! I was only testing your stength, I'm really IMMUNE to monsters!' And reveals his suuuuuper secret dark power!
The onlooking girl gasps! "That power! That can't be possible!"
The girl insists she goes with him, since she's probably the only survivor of the attack (yeah, NICE TIMING HERO!) or because she's sooo intregued by the guy! He will let her come along in a cold, reluctant way. Then, if the comic hasn't ended yet, it will, because the kid got bored after the first fight scene. It will have been implied though, that the main character's power comes from some kind of a curse, or him being a hybrid of human and some extinct race or hated type of monsters.

Modern/Sci-Fi:
Obviously, in this setting, the hero will defintely originate from some kind of genetic tampering. Probably an escaped test subject.
Unlike the fantasy version, this will begin at night, in a city, with a young woman being mugged, with implied intended rape by "bad guys".
Luckily for the girl, who though plucky, puts up considerable less fight than her fantasy counterpart, the hero arrives on a rooftop at this moment! He's wearing black clothes, probably a long black coat, a black shirt, black trousers and boots, and maybe shades this time. He is armed with either: 2 knives, a katana, a pair of wrist-mounted blades or a pistol, possibly two. He may well also have throwing knives, kunai, shuriken, knuckle dusters and...bombs stored on him somewhere.
He kicks the living crap out of the 'bad guys' and takes the girl with him without a word. At this point, the comic ends, assuming it hasn't already, because the kid got bored.

...And just to round off, the biggest cliche of superhero webcomics:
'Alternative Superheroes'
Ever noticed how nobody online EVER writes a straight superhero comic? Well, except the 'Green Avenger' (and the feminist edge still makes that one a borderline). They all write parody superheroes, and not only that, they ALL seem to think they're the only ones doing it!
"Bored of regular superhero comics full of muscular, square-jawed men with lazer eyes? Try my webcomic "Un-super Heroes!" It's about a misfit bunch of heroes with powers like 'being able to turn into a blueberry pie' and 'rocket boost farts!' who work in a supermarket!"
You know, it's hard to get bored of regular superhero comics online when there are next to none of them to begin with...seriously. I'd kind of LIKE to see a well written superhero comic online, complete with lazer eyes and stuff, just because it'd make a change from all these parody or alternative superhero comics. I mean, most of them aren't even good parodies. They parody stuff that may have been superhero cliches in the sixties, but doesn't really stand today.
...okay, now I'm ranting. I should shut up.

Big swords. English but read right to left. Broken Japanese. Broken English. A mixture of both. Unecessary shipping.

two guys trying to make things seem funny, usually with a lot of senseless violence and dumb antics

'Piggybacking" on a franchise. Basically this means creating a comic using characters from an existing franchise (not limited to sprite comics) but that doesn't try to be a story "within" that franchise. For example: Alien loves Predator (which I very much enjoy). It is essentially a roommate comic set in New York, and the fact that the main characters are a Predator and an Alien is rarely brought up (aside from the fact that women are repulsed by the Alien character).

Wow, ok. Alien Loves Predator is hilarious.

yaoi... nuff said

They're on the internet.

how is yaoi a cliche? It's such a broad genre... it's like saying action comics are cliche.
hm... I'd have to say- (and this is more for manga-styled comics) High-school romance in which one of the characters is magical in some way (and nerdy, too, usually), and trying to hide it from the person they love and survive school.
That's one that I feel I may have read a few times.
Also, having the author be a character is a bit cliche. Although I must admit I'm guilty of this- but only in my "author's note" blurbs!!! really!!! hehe..!

I wouldn't even consider Yaoi a genre. It's a theme that is added to other genres. Just because yaoi gets applied to comics in a wide variety of genres from low fantasy to science fiction to slice of life, it doesn't make yaoi itself that diverse.

Here's one that isn't limited to webcomics:

Aliens all have magic powers.

Usually some form of telekinesis or other mind powers, the idea that aliens would just be "normal" creatures that just happen to come from another planet seems beyond people. In addition, the alien usually looks very human (and in many cases, an idealized version of a human), so I suppose the magic powers are a way of differentiating them from the human characters. I'm not including aliens who use technology to gain powers in this, since that's more believable.

I agree with the person who mentioned whenever an artist draws himself he either has a trenchcoat, sun glasses, scruffy goatee or all three. I like to call this look "nerdy cool". Throw in a pony tail and bored expression for extra points.

I would have named some, but Darth Mongoose named the best ones and explained them so entertainlingly!

So, anyone else feel a little guilty because you realize you've used a few of these cliches?

I don't particulary feel bad about using cliches, but my comics tend to be parodies, so the use of cliches is often intentional.

Hawk
I would have named some, but Darth Mongoose named the best ones and explained them so entertainlingly!

So, anyone else feel a little guilty because you realize you've used a few of these cliches?

I never regret it, although when I find out about it, it's a bit like "Oh..yikes." and I carry on with the cliches.

Hawk
So, anyone else feel a little guilty because you realize you've used a few of these cliches?

Yeah, way too many. I guess that's why I stopped my comic. All of the characters were cliches.

The list of components of stories that can be classified as cliche is so long - if I do find one in my stories, I don't feel bad about it. I just see it as an opportunity to put a twist on it.

Whirlwynd
The list of components of stories that can be classified as cliche is so long - if I do find one in my stories, I don't feel bad about it. I just see it as an opportunity to put a twist on it.

I think the Bible sums it up nicely: "There is nothing new under the sun".

First off, Darth Mongoose needs like an award.

Second, why is it that Megaman sprites are the only ones used in edits? I rarely ever see sprite comics with edit sprites that weren't edited from Megaman sprites.

theleast
* Everyday inanimate objects which can speak, particularly high-tech gadgets such as PCs, MP3 Players and gaming consoles. Often they'll be radically modded to be indepentantly mobile, sometimes even resembling humans.

DAMMIT! And I thought our man-eating couch was fresh and original! Fie and damnation to it all. D:<

Ian Jay
*stuff*

Also, I think it goes without saying that we need less webcomics centered around people playing video games. It's very boring, watching other people play video games, you see?

Heh, guilty as charged, that's why instead of making Acquired Taste just a gamers comic, were adding in the element of absurdity, and high adventure. Not just the gaming. ;D

-W

"Here the mongoose, have a trophy!"

Wow...Everybody seems to like my snarky commentary on webcomics...
Okay, I've been writing this in my free time for a while now, without any idea where I'll put it. So I think I'll post it here. It's...THE GRAND LIST OF WEBCOMIC ARTIST CLICHES! *WARNING-QUITE LONG!*


Cultist-
The Cultist is not interested in making anything that is entirely original. Everything they make is a tribute to something else. In other words, they only ever produce fan comics. Cultists vary in many ways, some produce something that's practically an original work which happens to be set in the world of a popular cartoon series, making you feel kind of bad for them, because with just an original setting, they could sell their comic. Others stick rigidly to the canon and yet don't really understand that copyright law means they will never be able to sell their comic...

Random Crap-
Random Crap is under the sad delusion that if suddenly one day a TALKING BANANA! were to appear and SUDDENLY EXPLODE! in front of a MONKEY IN A HAT! That it would be hillariously funny in comic form. They think Monty Python is pure, undiluted genius, but have no idea why, and think that so long as something is unexpected and makes no sense whatsoever, it's funny. Most of the time, it isn't. Some of them continue to do comics for a long time, regardless. Others fizzle out after a while from lack of attention.

Illegible-
Illegibles come in all shapes and sizes and comic types. But they all share one trait; illegible writing. There are two main types. Some have such awful spelling and grammar that the meaning of their dialogue becomes very difficult to discern, while others insist on hand writing their text, despite the fact that they have terrible handwriting. Actual artistic talent varies hugely between illegibles, from low-grade ms paint comics right up to beautiful manga art that just happens to have been drawn by somebody who could do with a good English speaking friend or a trip to dafont.com.

Fuzzball-
You look at the misshapen panels and wonder what's going on. There seems to be some kind of comic going on, but it's hard to tell...
Many Fuzzballs are simply people who want to draw a comic, 'cause other people do, but have no talent and no idea how to use a ruler...or apparently a pencil, pen or a computer properly. But let's not forget that scanner malfuction, really low-grade pencils, bad choice of page size can all turn even a competant artist into a fuzzball. Unfortunately many Fuzzballs are also Illegibles, leading to serious eyestrain for their readers.

Intellectual-
All Intellectuals are pretty sure they're one of a kind. In fact, the less intelligent they really are, and the more painfully pretentious the subject of their comic is, and the more likely they are to think they're the smartest artist on the web and that nobody else compares to them.
Their comic will often be something like 'Jokes about physics!' or 'A dark Superhero tale with Freudian psychology.' They often try to attract people by warding them off because their comic could only possibly be understood and enjoyed by the intellectual elite. Interestingly though, most of the time, these comics don't go past stuff you learned in High School, simply because the true intellectual elite either don't have time or interest for comics, or don't want to write a comic about their job, instead preferring to make something silly.

Spritekid-
Don't be mislead by the name. Though many Spritekids are between eleven and sixteen years of age, they pop up all over the place. Not to be confused with serious pixel artists, Spritekids use sprites to make comics because they have no imagination, can't draw and are too lazy to learn to draw. This doesn't stop many of them from saying how hard and laborious the task of arranging their comic is, much to the horror of both the people who make half decent sprite comics with custom graphics and the people who spend hours with pencil and paper, 3d models or a tablet slaving over their latest page. There's no point in flaming them, or even giving constructive advice most of the time, since they rarely continue to make their comic beyond ten pages.

Rantmaster 2000-
To the Rantmaster 2000, the comic is only a minor part of the work. The thing below or beside the comic takes much longer. They frequently accompany a page with an essay on their daily life. Nothing to do with the page at all. You could tell them to get a Blog, but chances are they already have one..."So then Tim came over and it was really great because I was so depressed about that guy last week who was mean because I draw comics..."

Gallery-
Every time Gallery makes a new chapter for their comic, every five pages, there are three covers. Every time there is a public holiday, no matter how minor, there's a picture there instead of a page. Every time they are so much as a day late with the latest page, there's a filler image. If anybody has a birthday, there's a birthday image for them, if anybody gives fanart, its right up there... You're almost certain there's a comic going on in between all this...if only you could find it between all the pictures. Frequently the filler images are of characters who haven't appeared in the comic yet, or contain spoilers for things that you're promised will happen later. You can't see it happening any time soon though, since the artist is too busy putting up pictures instead of pages!

Private Joke-
"Jake from work should find this page really funny because he's always saying this!" The rest of the readers are simply left completely out of the picture, because this is clearly a private joke that's been uploaded just so the artist can show off that they really do have friends and a social life...honest!

Can't Draw, Won't Draw-
Is convinced that it is the law that everybody is entitled to make a successful and popular comic. Not being funny, not being able to draw, not having any writing talent are viewed by this character to be like issues of Disability, Gender or Race, anybody who doesn't think their comic is good is an evil Nazi. "It isn't fair! MY comic should be popular, even though I use really badly ripped sprites with ms paint and write terribly! I can't draw at all! I can't AFFORD photoshop and it isn't my fault I can't spell! I don't have time anyways!" To shut them up, tell them how long it took you to learn to draw, point them in the direction of GIMP and find them a site on improving spelling and punctuation. I can assure you that rather than put in effort, they'll vanish and go whine to somebody else.

Issues-
Issues is out to get atten- I mean, uh, make a STATEMENT! An important and CONTROVERSIAL statement about something totally profound you've NEVER heard before! Oh my goodness! Did you know that George Bush is not very smart!? That sometimes non-white people and women are treated unequally!? That sometimes men love men!? That war is BAD!? ...Don't worry, they grow out of it eventually when they realise not only is their comic kind of preaching to the choir, since we all KNOW already, but it's really dumb and boring anyway.


Fringey-
'An Alternative comic'. Yep, bet you've seen AT LEAST one of these. Problem is that 'Alternative' translates as, "I'm a male, white, middle class teenager who smokes weed, has a skateboard and wears baggy pants. I study art and politics and work at the local supermarket at weekends and I am under the delusion that I'm cool, rebellious and unique. My comic puts a totally predictable pseudo-punk spin on a genre of comic that was fine to begin with, leading to boring sarcastic characters who wear baggy black pants and shirts with a hemp leaf printed on them being 'alternative' superheroes or some similarly boring crap." In other words, they're not 'alternative' in the slightest.

For Yaoi Eyes Only-
A contradiction if ever one existed, female artists of this kind crave attention for their comic, but refuse to produce a comic that will actually appeal to a wide audience. They are insistant that the ONLY comics for them involve effeminate gay men in love. They put huge warnings on the front of their manga "This comic has homosexual relationships, incest, nudity, anti-christian sentiments, violence and beastiality, so those who are sensetive or intolerant should be warned. PLZ READ MY MANGA OR I'LL NAKU LOL!!!!" Unfortunately for them, the warning does it's job, scaring away everybody who isn't another clone of the artist herself.

sdrawkcaB-
Most manga on the web is written in English. English, unlike Japanese, reads from left-to-right. Panels in English comics, for ease of reading, and a nice flow, read from left-to-right. Japanese reads right-to-left, and so the panels read that way because it's logical. Sadly, the logic is lost on some people...

Mr. Robotto-
Being able to speak another language is cool, it makes you seem really clever and cultured. Being able to speak Japanese (like yours truly) counts for extra kudos. Mr. Robotto doesn't speak Japanese, but he-or she DOES own an English-Japanese dictionary, or 'is going on a course', or 'is teaching themself', or 'learned a few words off a friend'. They know approximately five words of the language, but insist on not only using it, usually very badly and nonsensically, but on setting their comic in a country they've never been to and only know about from...other comics. It's not just Japanese either. French, German, Spanish and British English are frequently abused in a similar manner, just not generally so badly as Japanese.

Plug-
Some artists never ask other people for attention and dutifully produce pages like an amazing drawing hermit. Many come to a balance, doing a few banner swaps, a forum plug once in a while...Then there's Plug. Plug spends more time plugging than making pages. The comic in question probably only has five-to-ten pages, but the artist is already plugging on EVERY comic site on the internet. Completely ignorant of the rules of wherever he or she is posting, and convinced they are an overlooked genius, they irritate hardworking comic artists everywhere. Extra points if you spot a plug who hasn't even STARTED doing their comic yet who is just plugging a concept!

Novella-
Particularly prevalent among fantasy comic artists. Warning signs are when the first page is just a picture of a castle or some mountains, or a few images, accompanied by several paragraphs of boring history, full of made up words..."Long ago, the Elves ruled the kingdom of Drakk'maaar, with the Dragons. Everything was nice, until there was a terrible war blah blah blah blah..." Even when you're in the comic, the characters often spend several pages talking about history and politics in an incredibly long-winded way. Don't know about the rest of you, but I got pretty good at skim-reading these...

Manga Montage-
You find a manga comic, it's screentoned, it starts with a young, attractive protagonist waking up only to be late for class on the first day at their new school! Oh no! Sweatdrop! ...Wait a minute, haven't I read this one before...fifty times? Manga Montage produces manga so utterly generic in storyline, character archetypes and drawing style, that only inexperienced or very solid manga fans could possibly want to read it. How so many of these comics co-exist is amazing, don't they notice each other? Worse is how many of them are a total waste of a good artist who just needs a good writer.

Grittymouth-
Makes a dark, gritty comic full of 'realistic violence'. Probably a dull dystopian sci-fi, and probably the 'realistic' violence is actually just an overblown gorefest. There are guns everywhere, but none of them look or work in a realistic way, and stilted, angry dialogue...In simple terms, this is some kid who's watched a bit of Tarantino and seen 'Battle Royale' twenty billion times, but has no actual experience of violence or...well, anything much really.

GIANTSIZE-
Less is more, darling! Giantsize doesn't understand the concept of making pages fit on the screen. Or alternatively, has their desktop at a very high resolution, unaware that not everybody else does, or possibly doesn't know that Photoshop zooms out on an image to make it easy to view and that isn't the actual size... The result is the dreaded DOUBLE SCROLL BAR ACTION! Please be nice to these guys and tell them when you see them!

Darth Mongoose
Spritekid-
Don't be mislead by the name. Though many Spritekids are between eleven and sixteen years of age, they pop up all over the place. Not to be confused with serious pixel artists, Spritekids use sprites to make comics because they have no imagination, can't draw and are too lazy to learn to draw. This doesn't stop many of them from saying how hard and laborious the task of arranging their comic is, much to the horror of both the people who make half decent sprite comics with custom graphics and the people who spend hours with pencil and paper, 3d models or a tablet slaving over their latest page. There's no point in flaming them, or even giving constructive advice most of the time, since they rarely continue to make their comic beyond ten pages.

Don't forget to add most of them have about 5 friends exactly like them, often plug each other, and if you do criticize one of them they all have a smart ass comment to put in your comic's comments.

Geezus, Darth Mongoose. That thing needs to be saved for posterity there.

However I do detect SOME bias here, considering you draw a comic about a semi-effeminate looking guy with a GIANT sword (a la Final Fantasy, Berserk, Kenshin, etc.) The truth is cliches, while generally overused to the point of detracting from a story, can be used sparingly to good use. Besides, considering most webcomic authors are quite young, it's not surprising that they latch on to these cliches. Generally to create a good comic, one needs to know how to write and how to draw. These kids possess neither, and have no drive to learn either separately.

Truth is good writers are better comic writers, and good artists are better comic artists. But it's so difficult to master both and therefore those who can are very rare. When a Watchmen comes along it's amazing. And even that is created by 2 people will incredible skill in their respective areas.

That was one of the most entertaining cliche lists I have ever read. BRILLIANT!

Darth Mongoose
Gallery-
Every time Gallery makes a new chapter for their comic, every five pages, there are three covers. Every time there is a public holiday, no matter how minor, there's a picture there instead of a page. Every time they are so much as a day late with the latest page, there's a filler image. If anybody has a birthday, there's a birthday image for them, if anybody gives fanart, its right up there... You're almost certain there's a comic going on in between all this...if only you could find it between all the pictures. Frequently the filler images are of characters who haven't appeared in the comic yet, or contain spoilers for things that you're promised will happen later. You can't see it happening any time soon though, since the artist is too busy putting up pictures instead of pages!

Ahahaha! Oops- this is a catagory I sit quite shamefully in. ^_^

ccs1989
However I do detect SOME bias here, considering you draw a comic about a semi-effeminate looking guy with a GIANT sword (a la Final Fantasy, Berserk, Kenshin, etc.)

Ummm, dude....REKKI'S A GIRL! A masculine looking GIRL, not an effeminate looking guy! The whole point of her being a twist on the cliched 'bishounen with giant sword' or 'attractive busty heroine' archetypes.

She reminds me of Aikawa Maki of Air Master (anime). Princess of anti-moe.

I must defend The Cultist, since I am one...
There are many of us who hold zero illusions of trying to make money off comics, or who make quite enough money with their day job, and so are drawing purely for self-fulfillment and for sharing it with a like-minded audience (namely, those who share the fan obsession of world/character(s)).
I derive more enjoyment drawing copyrighted characters than drawing original characters, because the copyrighted characters already have a place in my heart. Originality in character design is not a universal source of enjoyment... some like to create, while others like to tinker.

I'm sort of like a cultist. A bunch of my stories start out as fanfics but evolve to the point where only the names are similiar to the original work. So I just change the names and backstory and proceed from there. (example: Deus was originally an idea for an FF fangame)