First of all, these are the web comics I try to keep updated with:
Some of them update daily, some weekly, some whenever they feel like it, which are all fine. However, as far as I can tell, only 3 of them provide a way to notify their readers about an update, and they only do so by email.
Online comics is such an obvious area to apply the push-mimicing technique of RSS feeds. I know a select few comics are available at Tapestry, but a third party solution like that is somewhat sketchy (as evident by the recent removal of Calvin and Hobbes from the Tapestry feeds).
I wonder why not more comics supply feeds, it would be a great way to keep readers coming back whenever a new strip is released. They don’t even have to include the strip in the feed if they want to expose their readers to advertising - a simple link to the updated strip would keep me happy. Perhaps a Tapestry-like service that comic authors could sign up for so they wouldn’t have to go through the technical hassles, hmm…
Since you don't mention specificly what comics provide notifications, some of this might be redundant, but....
Penny Arcade provides a feed at http://www.penny-arcade.com/RSS.xml.
Both Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes offer a daily link by email. Third party RSS feeds of both comics were available until quite recently, but they were shut down due to copyright issues.
Wulffmorgenthaler also has an email notification feature.
VGCats is updated every monday, meaning that it's usually available tuesday morning due to time zone differences and whatnot. No notification features are available, but then again, with updates coming at regular intervals, you don't really need one. http://www.vgcats.com/vgc_comics/ will take you to the latest comic.
Oh, a PA feed, I had not seen that. Thanks, that makes 4 with notifications.
new cartoons appears each day on homepage here. Changes at midnight and will supply you with image url if you need it.
Best,
Dn
Well, we plan to introduce the RSS feed ...
Oh, that is excellent news :)
life would be way much happier with that wullfmorgenthaller feed. anxiously standing by