Webcomics. You know ’em, you love ’em, you read ’em when you should be working on some menial spreadsheet in your cubicle. Most out there are worth browsing through a few of the strips, maybe getting a chuckle or two, and moving on without bothering to bookmark. However, there are a few out there worth bookmarking, following, bugging your friends to read, and cursing the gods that the creators don’t publish on a daily rather than a weekly basis. One of these is a new comic that has been slowly growing since the beginning of this year, Boxcar Astronaut.

Boxcar Astronaut is a weekly, four-panel black and white strip that follows the backyard adventures of Ben, a young sprout who is never without his trusty space helmet. Along for the fun is his trusty dog Diogee, his best friend Devin, and recent acquisition Robot, a real robot from outer space that has become stranded on Earth.

Co-creators Jeff Carter and Marc Lapierre (who is the force behind Madfrog Graphics) have bravely set out to fill a void that has been left in the funnies since 12/31/1995, with adventures geared toward a male audience that fondly remember outdoor missions in cardboard spaceships, roasting ants with magnifying glasses, and playing king of the mountain well into the night. But the strip can still be enjoyed by girlfriends and wives whose significant others refuse to stop doing these things.

The short storylines, which usually take about five or six strips each to get through, are paced exactly like you would find in the newspaper funnies. Each character has their specific role to fill, and even coming into the middle of the strip, the characters’ simplicity (but by no means one dimensional) can be picked up after a story or two. There are currently under twenty strips on the site, so take a moment to start from the beginning to catch up to the current comic. And don’t worry about the Star Wars quote in the second strip. It is the only overt pop culture reference, and Carter and Lapierre have since let their characters stand strong on their own feet.

The artwork here is crisp and clean, with just a hint of disproportion to the two kids’ bodies, faces that bring to mind the smiling mugs of kids that were plastered on toy packaging, and great t-shirt designs that hint at a time before every shirt was just advertisement for the designer that made it. Robot is straight out of classic sci-fi and probably the best designed character so far. The site’s full-color drawing of Ben, holding a whiffleball bat “sword” and a hairdryer “raygun,” is quite simply an awe-inspiring childhood memory inducer.

Carter and Lapierre have dedicated Boxcar Astronaut “to anyone who recalls the simple joys of big wheels, ice cream trucks, tire swings, bubblegum cards, and turning an old appliance box into a starship.” They are off to a great start so far, and that void mentioned earlier seems to be getting a little smaller with each new Sunday published comic.