I was at my parents' house the other week scooping the proceeds of their oft-vaunted but more often procrastinated clear-up of the attic. Basically, my windfall contained some spare baubles I could maybe hang on my Christmas tree, some embarrassing singles from my youth (Shakin' Stevens' Green Door anyone?) and an absolute shed-load of old comics and annuals. The experts on the Antiques Roadshow will not exactly be rubbing their hands.

Naturally, leafing through old copies of The Beezer, The Dandy, Whizzer & Chips and The Beano (not to mention Oink which, did you know, Marc Riley once drew for), took me on a bit of a nostalgia trip that I won't bore you with, but it also got me to thinking that I probably haven't bought and read a proper comic in at least a decade. But no matter, like most things these days, you can now get your comic fix online.

***WARNING: The pages of TV Go Home, Unnovations and Get Your War On linked to below all contain strong language and adult themes***

For me, the fun started with the discovery of TV Go Home back in 1999 during the first job I had that provided internet access (the fools!). It's a bit more edgy than the Radio Times, granted, but it totally cracked me up and marked my first encounter with the genius of Charlie Brooker. It was also the original home to one of his more well-known creations, Nathan Barley. At that time I was working for an internet start-up in central London, so I could see how accurate the Shoreditch / fake wide-boy / media jerk caricature was, simply by turning round in my chair and taking in the 'charms' of some of my colleagues.

As is the genius of the web, a small and innocuous link on the navigation of TV Go Home led me to another Brooker creation (along with his Zeppotron pals) - Unnovations. Again, in true Brooker style, it's not exactly one for the easily offended, but it confirmed me as a follower of a writer who has latterly brought further amusement and insight with his Screenburn columns in the Guardian newspaper and the brilliant Screenwipe on BBC Four.

Probably the greatest comic discovery you can make on the web though, is David Rees' Get Your War On. Sometimes you are just fortunate enough to idly stumble upon greatness. It provides an acerbic and insightful commentary on American government in digestible chunks that surfaced around the time of the outbreak of the 'War On Terror'. It's one collection of cells that former president Bush probably wasn't counting on providing savvy opposition. Sadly, no new cells will be appearing as Rees brought the strip to a close in January 2009 but, like TV Go Home and Unnovations, it has by now 'graduated' to hard copy and is available in all good bookshops (and a few rubbish ones). Online is still the best place to digest it though, especially given that the vast archive does not appear together in one volume anywhere else.

Of course, these three comic masterpieces were all some time ago. These days there is a proliferation of new online comic strips (such as XKCD or Explosm, to name but two), as well as many of your old favourites brought to a new platform (hey, maybe I don't need to leaf through all those issues of Roy of the Rovers to find the one where the brothers out of Spandau Ballet signed for Melchester Rovers). It's like keeping it old skool, in a new skool way. I also found, when having a hoke about the Guardian website for the revival of You Are The Ref (a former staple of Roy of the Rovers), news of an alarming new publishing empire about to hit whatever the digital equivalent of the newsagents' shelves is. Happily, it's already being lampooned, even before it's started. The comic tradition lives on.