While some may criticize the art of Schlock Mercenary, I dearly love the writing, and Howard Tayler's bubble-cartoon style fits his insightful and serious-but-not writing nicely, I think.
And we have recently completed La Muse, which is really a superhero story but takes out the spandex and brutality (mostly) and borrows some tropes from both manga and Western romance genres. Plus some political satire. Alan Moore calls it "Wonderful" and you bet your ass we're playing up this endorsement. Print version available in December 2008.
Mike Baron wrote and Gabe Eltaeb drew a sci-fi story for us, The Hook, which is currently available on-line only.
I've probably got as much experience developing long-form stories for the web (and made as many mistakes) as anyone else in this forum that I'm aware of.
Thanks, Brent. I also didn't mention Mike Baron and Andie Tong's The Architect because like Steven's and my Odysseus, it is not science-fiction which is what williamzombie was asking about.
one of the first webcomics i ever read was www.megatokyo.com, and it's quasi-dramatic, quasi-sci-fi.... there are long drawn-out storylines like that, that i wish i could commit to reading more, but don't. but it's definitely a more ambitious project than your average one-off diesel sweeties stuff.
I'm working on a comic called Ex Nihilo. It may seem like a comic with more fantastic/magical elements, but I intend to write a sort of scientific grounding into it with time. Promise.
Sin Titulo is indeed great, though a certain amount of patient persistence is required in waiting for the somewhat sporadic updates. Worth the effort though.
A couple that haven't so far been mentioned: The Intrepid Girlbot, which i personally like a lot, though it may be a little cute for some peoples tastes, and Ectopiary, which is strange, slow and utterly brilliant.
I really like Ectopiary. It's a strange, slightly Charles Burnsy graphic novel which is being serialised on the web. I haven't read anything else by Hans Rickheit but I really love the art style.