I was talking to Zach Weiner (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal) at this year’s San Diego Comic Con and he mentioned that he and artist Chris Jones (the guys behind Captain Excelsior) had a webcomic called Snowflakes that they do with James Ashby. Weiner scripts, Jones arts and Ashby plots.

Zach said the problem with doing a kid-friendly webcomic is that parents tend not to seek them out for their kids - they go right to the “safe” sites like Disney or Nickelodeon and that’s it. And that’s too bad, because they’re missing out on a real treat. Snowflakes began in 2009 and it updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Because it’s the internet, all of the previous episodes are posted so you can always start back at the beginning and catch up.

Here are the basics, cribbed from the site: “On a mountain top somewhere in the Andes mountains, a small group of very, very, very old nuns maintains a cozy orphanage. The kids have lost their families, and it may never stop snowing, but there’s always a fire in the fireplace and a never-ending supply of snowballs just outside the front door.

“Every Christmas, families used to come from all around to adopt. Now, sometimes only a single family arrives. Or none at all. With such tight competition, only a few kids get picked every year. The older they get, the worse their chances.”

The stories are clever, the characters are sharply-drawn - and act more like real kids than traditional sitcom kids. It’s closer in spirit to the 1960s Peanuts strips. Friendships come and go, relationships are fluid, characters have doubts and fears and wild imaginations, snark flies around like snowballs and no one takes their eyes off the real prize: getting picked by a new family.

I think kids 8-and-up, and this includes adults who will find bits of their own childhood relationships here, will really enjoy this, and I can’t wait for the what-I-hope-is-inevitable-book collection.

In case I’m not being clear: check this one out and then show it to your kids.

[Artwork: The Snowflakes promotional postcard making the rounds at Comic Con International]