Winter comics are funny because almost everyone who lives somewhere cold shares the same small battles: leaving a warm bed, dressing in eight layers, watching the sun set before the working day ends, and pretending a puffy coat looks good. The thirty-five comics below come from well-known webcomic artists, including Sarah Andersen, Nathan W. Pyle, Brian Gordon of Fowl Language, Nick Seluk of The Awkward Yeti and Cassandra Calin, and each is credited and linked to the artist's own page.
The cover comes from one of Cassandra Calin's strips, shown in full below: a woman peels off her winter layers and is revealed as a contented, furry winter creature.
Why winter is such good material for comics
Winter combines real hardship with silly inconvenience, which is ideal for a three- or four-panel joke. The short days are real: at high latitudes the sun may rise after eight in the morning and set before four in the afternoon. Cold, dry air really does crack lips and sting faces. And most of us really do spend the first cold morning of the year negotiating with the alarm clock.
Some of the comics also touch on something more serious. Seasonal affective disorder is a recognised pattern of depression that returns at the same time each year, most often in winter, and it is more common the further people live from the equator. Studies in the United States have found rates ranging from about 1.4% in Florida to 9.9% in Alaska. If winter low mood lasts for weeks or gets in the way of daily life, it is worth talking to a doctor.
The sun goes on holiday
The sun announces it is going to bed, a horrified figure points out that it is only 4:30, and the sun sinks below the sea with a rude gesture. It is the shortest possible summary of a northern winter afternoon. By Nothing Suspicious.
In "Winter in the North", the sun pops up to say hello, a crowd of excited people rush to greet it, and it leaves before they can finish a sentence. The strip captures how brief and precious winter daylight feels in places like Scandinavia or Canada. By Owlturd.
A woman looks out at a pitch-black sky, panics that it must be midnight, and is told it is 5:27 p.m. Early sunsets are one reason winter evenings feel so long, especially after the clocks go back in autumn. By Adrienne Hedger.
Nathan W. Pyle's "Winter Sun" oversleeps, shrugs "Oh well" and slides back down after barely rising. Pyle drew comics for BuzzFeed before creating the hugely popular Strange Planet series in 2019. By Nathan W. Pyle.
A cheerful character waves goodbye to a mild winter and settles in to wait for spring, only for a blue figure to drag spring away and let the snow pile up again. Owlturd, the comic behind it, is known for blunt little stories about disappointment. By Owlturd.
Another Owlturd strip: a character hunts through the calendar for the end of winter, shouting "Damn it, winter, where are you?", and finds February waiting with a frozen club. It is a good joke about how the season always seems to come back for one last round. By Owlturd.
Getting out of bed and out of the house
A single book cover sums up a winter morning: "I need to pee but I don't want to get out of bed: An Autobiography". The BuzzFeed UK mark appears in the corner, and the post credited it to illustrator Natalya Lobanova. By Natalya Lobanova.
A woman in bed tells work she can't come in, is asked why, and simply answers that her bed is warm. Loryn Brantz, the artist, is also a children's book author and has drawn many comics for BuzzFeed. By Loryn Brantz.
"Why I'm always late in winter" lists four reasons: don't want to leave the warm bed, the warm pajamas, the warm shower or the warm house. Sarah Andersen's comic Sarah's Scribbles began on Tumblr and has since become a series of best-selling books. By Sarah Andersen.
In another Sarah Andersen strip, the thought of leaving bed for "cold freezing misery hell" is weighed against "warmth and joy and everything good in my life" under the covers with the cats. Her collection Adulthood Is a Myth won a Goodreads Choice Award in 2016. By Sarah Andersen.
A girl wakes up, opens the curtains to a snowy morning, quietly closes them again and disappears back under the duvet. Cassandra Calin's soft pencil style makes the retreat look both funny and completely reasonable. By Cassandra Calin.
A bundled-up figure stamps in from the snow, strips off coat, hat and jeans, and is revealed as a hairy, blissfully relaxed creature on the sofa, with a censor bar for comic modesty. This is the full strip behind the cover image. By Cassandra Calin.
Coats, layers and winter fashion
Two diagrams compare where a woman's crotch actually is with where her tights think it is, several inches lower. Anyone who has wrestled with tights under a winter skirt knows the feeling. The comic is by Becky Barnicoat and Cassie Smyth for BuzzFeed UK. By Becky Barnicoat.
Cassandra Calin's "Seasons" shows a stylish woman in autumn, winter, spring and summer, followed by "Canadian Seasons": almost winter, definitely winter, still winter and whatever is left of summer. Anyone who has spent a winter in Canada will recognise the scarf count. By Cassandra Calin.
"December 1st: Expectation vs Reality" contrasts a rosy-cheeked girl with a hot drink offering to build a snowman with a figure swallowed by a dark coat in the rain. Many winters, especially in cities, look far more like the second panel. By artbymoga.
"New coat: Expectation" is a fitted leopard-print jacket; "Reality" is a huge white puffer with only the eyes visible. It is a fair joke, because the warmest coats rely on thick insulating layers that trap air. By planetprudence.
"Then" shows a child in a T-shirt in the snow saying "I'm not even cold"; "Now" shows an adult in eight layers who still cannot feel their arms. The joke is that many of us really did stop running around in the snow at some point. By artbymoga.
"Wearing long hair in winter" shows the expectation, neat golden hair tucked under a hat, and the reality: static, frizz and hair stuck to the scarf. Cold, dry air makes static electricity much more likely, which is why flyaway hair is a real winter problem. By xdashadashax.
In "Describe your style", Sarah Andersen's character is casual in spring, light in summer and cosy in autumn, and in winter becomes a "ball of hatred trying to stay warm" in an enormous hooded coat. It is one of her most shared seasonal comics. By Sarah Andersen.
A girl crosses her legs in winter and discovers how much leg hair has grown since she stopped shaving for the season. It comes from Loryn Brantz's Jellybean Comics, drawn for BuzzFeed. By Loryn Brantz.
Cold bodies, dry lips and freezing faces
A small figure in a bobble hat asks a simple question: why am I living where the air hurts my face? Very cold air, especially with wind, cools exposed skin quickly, which is why cheeks and noses sting first. By Depressed Alien.
A woman decides to pull off "this dry bit" so her lips will be nice again, and the result is clearly worse. Cold, dry weather does make lips crack, but picking and licking them make the damage worse, while a simple lip balm or petroleum jelly usually helps. Drawn by Becky Barnicoat. By Becky Barnicoat.
A couple lie in bed: she is smiling and wrapped in the duvet, while he jumps in shock as her freezing feet touch him. The drawing is titled "Cold Feet", a pun on the phrase for wedding nerves. By ktshy.
Two police officers look down at a man who has frozen to death and agree that his coat still looks great. It is the darkest joke in the collection, aimed at choosing style over warmth, and a reminder that hypothermia is a real risk in severe cold. By Jake Likes Onions.
A long strip from The Pigeon Gazette shows a battle over the thermostat: one housemate is told not to touch the dial and to put on a sweater, until the other appears in full Darth Vader fashion. Thermostat wars are a familiar winter household argument. By The Pigeon Gazette.
Lars, the blue yeti of The Awkward Yeti, sees snow and decides to drive "the same way I always do", which ends with his car upside down. Nick Seluk has drawn the comic since 2012, and the joke carries a sensible message about slowing down on icy roads. By The Awkward Yeti.
Holidays, snow and winter feelings
"When your birthday is in December" shows a tiny figure lost under a giant Christmas tree and its pile of gifts. People with December birthdays often joke that their celebration gets swallowed by the holidays. By Nathan W. Pyle.
A Secret Santa draw ends with a pink blob reading the name of "that weirdo you never talk to" and saying only "oh no". Webcomic Name, by the Welsh cartoonist Alex Norris, ends almost every strip with that same punchline. By Webcomic Name.
A man smells cookies, is told it is "just a scented candle", and is left imagining the cookies he will never eat. It comes from Nathan W. Pyle's BuzzFeed comics, which often find sadness in tiny everyday letdowns. By Nathan W. Pyle.
Sarah Andersen's "Holidays" goes from Halloween and Thanksgiving to Christmas excitement, then to the character watching a pile of money burn. It is a neat joke about how expensive the gift-giving season can be. By Sarah Andersen.
Brian Gordon's "The Two Stages of Winter" pairs a magical December wonderland of lights with a grey January-to-spring "bucket of suck" and a broken snowman. Fowl Language uses ducks to tell jokes about parenting and adult life. By Fowl Language Comics.
In Fowl Language's "Winter Break", a duck parent starts out happy to spend more time with the kids and ends up deciding that teachers are not paid nearly enough. Many parents agree by the second week of the school holidays. By Fowl Language Comics.
A couple say goodbye as if one were leaving for months, then the last panel reveals they are simply disappearing under blankets on the sofa until spring. Lunarbaboon is a family comic known for its warm, quiet humour. By Lunarbaboon.
Two friends complain that "snow sucks", a little snowflake overhears and cries, then calls its friends, and soon a blizzard arrives. This gentle revenge story comes from The Pigeon Gazette. By The Pigeon Gazette.
Gemma Correll's "January: The Paint Collection" is a chart of grey and black swatches with names like Foreboding, Impending Gloom, Possible Vitamin D Deficiency and Abject Despair. It turns the post-holiday mood into a paint catalogue and is dated 2014 in her Four Eyes series. By Gemma Correll.
Making winter a little easier
The comics exaggerate, but the habits behind them are real. A few practical ideas that match the jokes above:
- Get outside in daylight when you can, even briefly; morning light helps many people feel more awake.
- Dress in layers that you can remove indoors, and protect your face, hands and feet first.
- Use lip balm instead of picking or licking dry lips.
- Drive slowly and leave extra distance on snowy or icy roads.
- If low mood returns every winter and lasts, talk to a doctor; seasonal depression is common and treatable.
If one of these comics made you laugh, the best thanks is to follow the artist through the links in each caption and share their work with credit.
Sources: artists' pages linked in each caption; Wikipedia: Seasonal affective disorder; Wikipedia: Chapped lips; Wikipedia: Sarah's Scribbles; Wikipedia: Nathan W. Pyle; Wikipedia: The Awkward Yeti; Wikipedia: Webcomic Name.
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