Shen Comix is known for its funny, absurd, and painfully relatable takes on everyday life. Created by Massachusetts-based artist Shen, the comic began during his college years, when he started sharing strips online and came up with the name during a late-night moment of inspiration – partly because it was simple and affordable.
Scroll down to dive into Shen Comix’s hilarious and absurd world – each comic perfectly captures the ups, downs, and awkward moments of everyday life. From laugh-out-loud observations to relatable little truths, these 39 comics have been loved by readers for their humor, honesty, and unmistakable style. Keep scrolling – you won’t want to miss a single moment!
Sometimes we all need to escape reality, whether you’re sitting in the office trying to pass the time, or you come home after a long day doing adult duties, or you’re simply tired of everyday struggles and keeping everything together. And what’s a better way to escape reality for a minute than to read a few funny comics? Today, we present to you these dark humor-filled comics by a webcomic artist best known as toothy.bj on his Instagram account. Scroll down for Bored Panda’s interview with the artist behind these comics!
“Dark with good intentions. Although it is not rare to find some wholesome or introspective comics, you have to keep people guessing,” ToothyBj describes his comics. These well-drawn comics depict modern life struggles such as paying bills, doing homework, dealing with negative comments on social media, caring too much only about looks, or even seeing pineapples on pizza (we all know the never-ending discussion about that). All of these struggles are interpreted in a darkly humorous manner, making us see them from a different perspective and ask ourselves whether, maybe, they’re not that bad?
Even though ToothyBj had some thoughts about creating comics in 2017, his artistic career started only in 2018 following a breakup. He says that his comics have changed over time and become more complex, which got a positive reaction from his 81.7k followers on his Instagram account. “The style might be rough, but it takes a good two hours if everything goes OK. It’s a struggle to find time. Drawing is drawing. Sketching might be quick, but inking demands attention, then coloring, then (the worst) adapting it to different formats. At the beginning, everything was loose and quick, but it got more complex with time and people really responded to that. It amazes me to this day how much people liked this style and that gave me the courage to show my drawing account, which has more illustrative pursuits.”
When asked how the artist comes up with ideas for his new comics, he says: “Whenever I see a funny recurrent daily situation, I think ‘uhmm, that would make a relatable comic,’ so I discard it because relatable humor is done to death and does not really carry a joke (in my opinion). I like absurdism, it’s amazing and comes out of nowhere. There’s no recipe for it, but maybe I can offer a piece of advice: always take notes, you won’t remember it later. I’m genuinely concerned that my memory is this bad. If I don’t write something down, it’s gone.”
“I’ve said this in the past, but I will repeat myself: English is a weird language. Someone draws or paints and people call him an artist instead of calling him a painter or a ‘drawer’ (is that even a thing?). An artist is a person who makes art. I’m not an artist, I’m a cartoonist at best. I think that the word gets thrown around so much it loses its value. That being said, my philosophy would be to make people laugh as often as possible, nothing deep,” he explains his philosophy as an artist.
“The community—I don’t wanna get all cheesy and stuff, but they are amazing. It has reached the point that it’s actually like telling jokes among friends. And remaining anonymous makes it all the better. Finding people from your home city in the comments (I found a lost friend commenting how much a comic had affected her)—you can’t buy that stuff. Love those guys.” So if you’re not afraid of dark humor and some dark twists, these comics will surely help you to pass some time and escape reality for a minute!
My name is Kim, and for the past two years, I have led a double life. During the day, I am an office manager to a home service company, but by night I am the rogue (or should I say rouge?) comic artist.
I make webcomics called The RedDot. My dark humor comics span anywhere between innuendos to the pain that is known as “Spanx”. I think it’s fun to dabble with the idea of what’s an inappropriate joke… we’re all thinking about it but just can’t quite say it in public. Personally? I’m over it and more than happy to do a cartoon drawing out of it. Nothing is off the table when it comes to my next drawing idea… Just as long as it’s funny.
Hence I draw a wide variety of humorous impropriety in funny comics form. As always, click the links below to check out more of my dark comics. Enjoy!
Elizabeth Pich and Jonathan Kunz, also known as the artistic duo War and Peas, continue to create dark and twisted but hilarious comics about weird situations, a wicked witch, and many more fascinating characters. They have gained huge popularity and are known by many people. The artists have over 800k followers on Instagram.
The comics are fantasy-inspired, but some touch upon subjects relevant today, like fat-shaming or ecological issues. The illustrations give a new, fresh perspective on these problems, while also making you laugh. Most of them can be quite inappropriate and have unexpected endings, but that’s what makes them fun. You never know what you’re going to get!
War and Peas release comics every Sunday. They started posting comics on Instagram in 2016 and reached popularity quite quickly. They even signed an international book deal with the publisher Andrews McMeel: the same publisher as Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, and many other webcomics known all over the world.
War and Peas have a book called “Funny Comics for Dirty Lovers.” So you can have their stories in your home. They also have a store where they sell all sorts of merchandise. So if you want a pin, a shirt, or your favorite comics framed on your wall, click here.
This is how they describe themselves on their website: “War and Peas is an ongoing webcomic made by two individuals, Elizabeth Pich and Jonathan Kunz. Bounded by fate and an obsession for carrot cake and alien movies, they roam the streets of their notorious hometown Saarbrücken, Germany.”
We managed to get an interview with the creators of War and Peas. We asked them what other comics inspire them: “We rarely read webcomics since we’re not good at relaxing. When we do, we enjoy Extra Fabulous Comics and the works of Aminder Dhaliwal. Sometimes we stumble over our own comics and find them hilarious, too.”
The creators described the characters featured in their comics, which they mentioned are like children to them: “We love them all dearly, although they misbehave often and keep us from getting a good night’s sleep. All in all, they are good creatures of the dark realm.”
“We started making these comics in 2011. We’re happy to say we’ve changed quite a bit since then. We’ve had the privilege to be able to grow individually, but also become more professional as a team. It’s still hard sometimes, because we don’t always agree, but it’s good, honest work and we try our best,” shared War and Peas about their development throughout the years.
We asked them to tell us what makes their comics different from others out there: “Well, for one, we are a duo. In this sense, there are always two brains pushing ideas back and forth. It helps take jokes to the next level and allows for a reflective process which is not possible for individual artists. For years, we’ve been witnessing webcomic artists emerging and leaving the game. As a duo, we are extremely stubborn and might just never stop making comics.”
War and Peas share what the “amazing” year of 2020 has been like for them: “To be honest, dark humor weirdly feeds off of adversity, so when things are in turmoil, it’s sometimes easier for us to make jokes. But at the same time, we’re worried and sad and angry about the things that have happened, just like everyone else. So it sometimes takes a lot of energy to stay focused. At the end of the day, it is our job to make comics, and we try to get paid for it. Sure, the creative industry is really struggling and we’ve felt that too financially. But at the end of the day, we’re hopeful that people will always need to laugh.”
They described people’s reactions to their comics and some of the hate they receive: “Every time we get even slightly political, people seem to be upset. If people don’t agree with our values, they don’t have to follow us. We’re fine with fascist followers leaving our realm of laughter.”
“It will surely change as we are changing, but we don’t have any abrupt changes planned. Life flows and War and Peas flows with it,” said the creators when asked how they see War and Peas in the future.
“We’d like to share this quote from Monty Python’s Flying Circus: ‘There are a great many people in the country today, who, through no fault of their own, are sane.'”
There are many other posts from War and Peas here on Bored Panda—if you want to check them out, click here, here, and here. If your favorite character is The Slutty Witch, we have a post all about her! What do you think of War and Peas’ comics? Tell us in the comments and vote for your favorite ones!
Work in the office can be stressful and often unnecessarily complicated, but by the laws of capitalism, you are left with no choice but to deal with it. And the best way of dealing with certain crazy things about your job is by laughing it out.
This artist creates lighthearted comics called “Work Chronicles” full of funny situations from the modern-day office most of us will painfully relate to. The humorous comics illustrate everything that can go wrong in the workplace—from unrealistic expectations and questionable decisions from management to annoying coworkers and overwhelming workload, to personal battles of procrastination and poor planning. Since we are all in this together, some of them hit really close to home and you’d be surprised how similar the scenarios can be regardless of your job title or place.
“My love for comics started at a young age with me doodling on the back of my exam question sheets. I continued making comics in college, but stopped once I started working. After a few years of working, I saw and heard so many funny incidents at work which I thought would make great comics, and hence restarted with work as the central theme for my comics,” the artist behind these comics told Bored Panda.
“Work Chronicles” are funny and entertaining to chew because if you have ever worked in an office, you can relate to at least a few of the portrayed situations. Then, you realize that most of these jokes are not made up—these are all true and the reality strikes. Coping with stress at work, avoiding burnout, and dealing with people of various backgrounds and mindsets are our shared challenges. The artist of this comic series has found a perfect way to lay out frustrations in the form of humorous comics so that we can also keep our minds off long hours at the office, reappraise our negative thoughts, or collectively rant (whatever helps). Since August, Work Chronicles’ Instagram account has attracted 15.2k like-minded people who can appreciate a little self-irony.
The artist started drawing Work Chronicles during the global pandemic and although all characters are fictional, they are inspired by real-life and personal experiences.
“I have many years of work experience. I have experienced, seen, and heard many different incidents. Some incidents have occurred to me. Some I have seen happening to colleagues. Some I have heard from others about what happens in their workplace.”
Drawing comics is a creative outlet for the artist to pursue at night and on weekends. The artist doesn’t consider this as a career option so far, but if things take off, they would be open to the idea. For now, the artist enjoys the creative process and the positive feedback these funny office stories accumulate.
“The most rewarding is when a comic expresses the thought you wanted to convey. It’s a bonus when readers tell you that they connected to it.”
For more office humor, check out Sova the Boss comics by Alexandr Dyakov about an aggregated image of modern managers and bosses portrayed as an owl who rules the forest. Here are part 1 and part 2 of these comics. And on a more serious note, in light of the current global pandemic, here’s an insight and tribute to the daily life of healthcare workers—today’s heroes—who fight at the frontlines and it has gone beyond work.
