I still remember the Challenger disaster fairly vividly: I was in second period, American History, junior year of highschool. The tragedy of the Columbia space shuttle breaking up this weekend is an all too real reminder of the frontier outer space still is, the grasp and risk of humanity and its dreams, and the heroism of every astronaut that typically goes unnoticed because we have grown to take their bravery for granted.

I've read Kochalka's snapshot of the day and I'll try to post other webcomics on point to this thread. Please add others not listed yet.

WIGU by Jeffrey Rowland focuses on Wigu Tinkle and the rest of his family. Wigu's favorite television show is Magical Adventures in Space with Topato and Sheriff Pony. A great part of the immediacy of webcomics is the general acceptance by creators and fans of fan art based on the webcomic. Not all fan art, however, makes such extensive use of fine art as this group of pieces dropping Topato into works by artists such as Hopper, Warhol and Van Gogh.

Ace McDonald of the Pulse interviews Lea Hernandez about Rumblegirls.com and Girlamatic.com, her two big webcomic projects. Rumblegirls.com is live but Girlamatic is still "coming soon."

Keenspot has long offered a free hosting service for webcomics, but one that has sometimes been too true to the phrase, "you get what you pay for."

Now Keen is getting into the paid hosting business, promising to offer packages with the full set of "autokeen" scripts used to support the comics on KeenSpot itself.

Hosting plans range from $10 to $50 a month and the terms and conditions (space, transfer limits, extras) seem roughly comparable to other options in the market, although it's hard to put a price on the autokeen script (which may still be the "crown jewel" of comic archiving systems).

Those infamous herders of Goats, Jon and Phillip, along with legal beagle Jeff are raising money to moon the White House. Or not. I might not agree with the specifics of the plan, but it's nice to see webtoonists taking it to the streets.