My personal top 20 from #501 to #999 – Places 11 to 20

In July 2013, I posted my 20 favorite strips from the first 499 published Sandra and Woo strips: places 11 to 20, places 1 to 10.

In this post, I present you the places 11 to 20 from my 20 favorite strips from the strips numbered #501 to #999. The 500th strip The Book Of Woo is not included in the list since I will discuss it separately next week. It's clearly the best Sandra and Woo strip ever published if you ask me. I will post my top 10 next week.

Such a list does not always give the full picture, though. I'm quite fond of the current swimming center story arc, for example, but in my opinion it doesn't feature a specific strip that really stands out.

20. [0973] Sandra and Woo Speedrun Panel% New WR 8 Panels by darbian

People not familiar with the concept of speedrunning were understandably confused by this strip. Even then, you basically had to read the title to understand what was going on. Nonetheless, I really like the cool visual effects and the imaginative arrangement of the word bubbles. I also like how Powree was able to replicate the style of Woo to match the rest of the artwork traced from the first published Sandra and Woo strip, [0001] A Sly Raccoon. As some readers have correctly guessed, Larisa's word bubble in panel 6 contains the line "Sexy lingerie" encrypted with the same method that was used for the Book of Woo.

19. [0509] The Artist

So true it hurts. But after almost 10 years in the "business", you've learned to cope with it" most of the time. In my opinion, the most infuriating criticism is criticism that is objectively wrong. It's mind-boggling how some criticism is in direct contradiction to the actual content of the comic.

18. [0976] #FFA500 Hell

The first draft of this strip didn't contain a reference to the super hard PC game Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. Instead, "Hell is more like" a pale mauve" was the punchline in the last panel. Of course, the strip works even better with the added reference, at least for people familiar with the game. The whole second row features different locations from the game: the snowy rocks near the anvil in panel 5, the church on top of "Orange Hell" in panel 6, the pillars at the bottom of "Orange Hell" in panel 7, and the dreaded orange itself in panel 8.

17. [0671] The Last Panel

As already noted in the strip's description text, this strip is an homage to Luigi Serafini's groundbreaking art book Codex Seraphinianus, first published in 1981. The Codex is is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world that is written in a cipher alphabet in an imaginary language, thus resembling the Voynich manuscript. I particularly like how natural the table is connected to the flower.

16. [0836] The Divine Comedy, Page 33 (Manga Studio Adventures)

This strip generated almost 300 comments from readers who made suggestions how the story should advance in the next strips. I originally wanted to use the suggestion made by one specific user. But while I received many original suggestions, most of them would have resulted in just a few panels of action. I wanted to do something longer and thus combined the best suggestions with some of my own ideas. As a result, the next section, which was drawn in an art style reminiscent of MS Paint Adventures: Problem Sleuth, became 17 panels long.

15. [0524] Oooooooooh!

Larisa's facial expression in the last panel may be my most favorite in the whole comic. I'm glad that I had the idea to place her "Oooooooooh!" line in a circle around her head. This worked surprisingly well. I secretly hoped that Larisa's expression would become a popular "reaction image" on the web, but that didn't really pan out.

14. [0866] Dating Tips For Girls, Part 1 Of 4

I think all strips of the Dating Tips For Girls story arc turned out very well, so it was hard to pick my favorite from it. This one was probably the most popular of them, though, and I really like the boy's pose and the text effect in the last panel. Since I early saw the potential of the theme, I wanted to write four strips for it. But I had quite some trouble to come up with all the details for the last strip [0869] Dating Tips For Girls, Part 4 Of 4.

13. [0905] Cicada Decrypt0r 3.3.0.1

This may be the most loved and hated Sandra and Woo strip, beating even the strips of the controversial feminism story arc. While there was a good number of harshly negative comments in the comment section of the strip, I also got an overwhelming positive reply with over 300 drawn Woocoins. The 30 best Woocoins were later presented in a blog post. The first hidden strip was eventually published one month later: [0905] Cicada Decrypt0r 3.3.0.1 - Strip 2. But I can count on one hand how many people managed to discover the second hidden strip!

12. [0634] Grounded

Powree described this strip as "the weirdest thing I've ever drawn." I wonder if this is still true considering the content of some Sandra and Woo strips published since then. Larisa's demonic (?) lips and mouth have since become a regular topic and all of the strips featuring them are among my favorites. This strip was originally inspired by the funny kissing comics of the newspaper comic strip Zits, but Larisa's powers have become a thing of their own since then.

11. [0679] There's Something About Melody

When writing this strip, I was thinking about what would make (a little) more sense than sexually identifying as an attack helicopter and fit into the setting of a date. While Melody is clearly the star of this strip, I also like Richard's fitting facial expressions. I guess Melody's purse must be quite large for having enough room for hedge clippers.