Online comics

First of all, these are the web comics I try to keep updated with:

• Calvin and Hobbes
• Dilbert
• GU Comics
• Little Gamers
• Penny Arcade
• PvPonline
• VG Cats
• WTF Comics
• Wulffmorgenthaler

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…