Over the years, I've developed a growing appreciation for online comics. I think part of the charm is that they can do a lot more than the comics you'll see in a newspaper. For one thing, they're not censored. Which means they can use language, situations, and imagery that you just can't market to the general public.

One of my early favorites, Sluggy Freelance (www.sluggy.com) has a bevy of cute femal characters, including one lethal redhead named Oasis who I would totally melt over if she was real. The fact that she's not doesn't keep me from appreciating the art all that much less. Between adventure, humor, sci-fi parodies, and some occasional romance, it makes for excellent reading.

Another favorite is Onion Head Monster (www.onionheadmonster.com), which is more fun than anything else. It doesn't have much in the way of sex or romance, but it makes me laugh.

More pertinent to this site, I've recently run across a couple of comics which handle masturbation and sex toys as a topic of humor on the strip. The first, Butternut Squash (www.butternutsquash.net), is funny and well drawn and doesn't have nearly enough episodes on the site. More to the point, though, one of the characters works at a porn shop. Even better, another of the characters tries to give up masturbation and is then tempted by a toy given to him by his friend. Personally, I recommend that you just go to the site and start at the beginning, but if you really want to jump into the action, you can start here: www.butternutsquash.net/assets/pages/bns-comic29.html. Note that the story line skips a couple of episodes, so you'll want to read at least six or eight to get through the best of the masturbation humor.

I'll dig up a couple more for you tomorrow.