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With apologies to Sluggy Freelance

Sluggy, like most web comics, if you jump into it at a late date, makes no sense...you have to go to the beginning.
Even then, well, it grows on you. And who does not like "Bun-bun"...a switchblade toting mini-lop...heh.

Link whoring biatch that I can be: PVP, GPF, Sherman's Lagoon a long time favorite of mine, Dilbert of course, and one that was pointed out to me recently: Non-Sequitur and, of course, Userfriendly.

What is the common thread amongst all those sites I'd recommend? Intelligence, humor, referrences to other events (this usually escapes some of the younger crowd/moderators/slashdroids, no offense) and some funny characters, situations and all.

If you look at the comics on the links /. gave, well...I random sampled and was not impressed.

That's my opinion,

Cheers,

Moose.

I suppose I was just spoiled because I really, really enjoyed the long, involved story arcs, and this seems like it's lowering itself from `Non Sequitur' to `Garfield'.

And not all long arc are good... GPF had some inklings of that floating around ("... the GAMESTER!"), but the creator just does much better with short, punchline-y strips.

And, of course, THL/SexyLosers has *no* plot, unless you count running gags as plot.

-grendel drago

Oh, and how explain that people pay for pr0n? That is "content", isn't it? Well, okay, perhaps not "content" in the usual form, but nevertheless.

Now as a final, I think your example of ringing tones for your cellphone is really ridiculous. I don't really care that my cellphone rings some Britney Spears song or the nice classic "Dring Dring" that was anyway built into my phone. Up until 6 months ago, I had a 5 year old cellphone (may it rest in peace) that "only" had 10 ringing tones. I can hardly count ring-tones as "content", I'm really sorry. A phone is for calling and not for listening to rings.

So in summary:

• People will pay for content
• The content must be worthwhile
• Some international easy way of paying small amounts must be set into place by major banks. (So don't start egold and the likes, because they are at the fringe of legality...yes I work at a bank)

The Trib picked a few strips as a survey of the field. No such list would get everything good. The links I added were meta-sites and mega-sites, not individual strips.

Having said that, here are some more that might appeal to fellow Slashers:

o Goats: nominally a couple of Web developers, mostly about ... oh, never mind, just read it. PG-13; your mom might not like it.

o Freefall: A captain of a starship (that's only flown once in the history of the strip), his robot sidekick, and his furry engineer. SF meets Dilbert in a kindler, gentler way.

o GPF: life at a software development company with an unfortunate name.

o Help Desk: life at the tech support desk of a software megacompany named Ubersoft (with products such as Nifty Doorways and Tactile Basic).

(The last two recently had a crossover, a pretty common occurence in online strips.)

o Acid Reflux (previously here): vaguely-D&D-ish strip about a young god trying to restore the universe her sister abandoned.

o Mega Tokyo: a couple of American gamers stranded in Japan.

o Real Life: a couple of American gamers who know they're comic strip characters.

o Schlock Mercenary: light SF strip.

All have complete archives back to the first strip, so you can catch up at your leisure. Enjoy!

The Trib picked a few strips as a survey of the field. No such list would get everything good. The links I added were meta-sites and mega-sites, not individual strips.

Having said that, here are some more that might appeal to fellow Slashers:

o Goats: nominally a couple of Web developers, mostly about ... oh, never mind, just read it. PG-13; your mom might not like it.

o Freefall: A captain of a starship (that's only flown once in the history of the strip), his robot sidekick, and his furry engineer. SF meets Dilbert in a kindler, gentler way.

o GPF: life at a software development company with an unfortunate name.

o Help Desk: life at the tech support desk of a software megacompany named Ubersoft (with products such as Nifty Doorways and Tactile Basic).

(The last two recently had a crossover, a pretty common occurence in online strips.)

o Acid Reflux (previously here): vaguely-D&D-ish strip about a young god trying to restore the universe her sister abandoned.

o Mega Tokyo: a couple of American gamers stranded in Japan.

o Real Life: a couple of American gamers who know they're comic strip characters.

o Schlock Mercenary: light SF strip.

All have complete archives back to the first strip, so you can catch up at your leisure. Enjoy!

I found gpf-comics which is about a group of geeks at a small software company. With regular snide remarks against Microsoft and other references and the usual geekiness makes it quite interesting.

Soon it will be like Fred from GPF - a good read - better than UF lately, that's for sure.

My three cents (you get an extra cent at 25 Karma):

While we've all read statistics about the "glass ceiling" until we could barely stand it (women fill less technical, executive, skilled jobs than men), few people have ever heard of the "glass floor".

But as it turns out, 9 of the 10 ranked "worst jobs" (and, no, I'm not sure who ranks them, but they include garbage collector, etc.) are held almost exclusively by men.

And while I read all sorts of articles like "Why aren't more women in high-power programming jobs??", I've never seen an article entitled "Why aren't more women taking out the trash??".

It's my opinion--well, it seems obvious to me--that women go to jobs that they feel suited for, and that the reason is a combination of biology and society. Many women, for one reason or another, feel more comfortable in middle-management than in programming. I don't think this is discriminatory. If a girl who could program Linux walked through our door, we'd pounce on her. Man, we're desperate for those. Some of us are trying to invoke ancient witchcraft to bring Ki to life.

Some other posters have made mention of the girl who demands acceptance because she knows a little HTML. Whether this is as common as it seems or not, there is a burden on women in IT and other technical fields (physics, math) to be better than average just to justify their presence that does not fall upon the geeky male.
Like Miranda from UF and Ki from GPF,we not only have to fit in , we have to be really damn good just to be acceptable. Or, as Pitr demonstrates, our abilities are ignored.

This is not about "making everything 50%/50%", it is about not losing the potential contributions people have to offer fields because they feel pressured to go into something else. If, given equality to begin with, men and women really did choose to go in different directions, there would be no problem. But to assume that the field is level just because you or your friend Mathilda had no problems, and then chasitize women for not getting off their duffs and interested in technical fields, is extremely pompous and ignores the sexism and misogyny still common in American (Western?) society.

I've actually heard from guys who have pinups of Miranda (User Friendly) and Ki (GPF Comics) on their walls. In fact, many of us would like nothing more than a girlfriend who could actually code. Sadly, I know of only two females who can write anything more impressive than basic HTML. (Before I get angry responses, I openly acknowledge that I do not know everyone in the world.)

I wonder why it is that girls don't go for guys in IT. Sure, the occasional one of us is a fat slob or turbo-nerd, but I don't think those subsets are in the majority. And, we tend to have more money than the average Joe Six Pack, which is supposed to be attractive (according to the Discovery Channel, because it signals the women that we're more apt to provide for their young).

So, what's up? Why do the women keep flocking to the high-power lawyers (which is just as non-physical, academic a job as programmer), while neglecting us? What the hell is going on?

Too many people say the art in User friendly sux. Big whooping deal. Half the art in the comics section of your local newspaper probably sucks too. It's the writing. (which i admit seems to have gone downhill a bit lately) I've always enjoyed UF, been reading it for about a year and half now (also gpf-comics,and elf life). Hey why not check out my comics?

While I don't really care for UF as much as I used to, it's still nice to see an online comic getting some mainstream publishing so that non-onliners can even pick it up. I think the biggest problem today with online comics that are published in bookform is that they are not mainstream, but self-published or published by small houses like Plan Nine. I'd love to be able to walk into my local Barnes&Noble and pick up a copy of Goats, PVP, PLIF, or GPF.

Anyone else noticed how closely this parallels recent events in GPF?

(If you don't read GPF, you should)

Then again, maybe I'm just on crack.

Hmmm... Lets see:

http://www.userfriendly.org/static
http://www.gpf-comics.com
http://www.herdthinners.com
http://www.purrsia.com/freefall
http://www.brunothebandit.com
http://www.geekcult ure.com/geekycomics/aftery2k/aftery2kmain.html

And of course /. and linuxtoday

Thats my breakfast :)


Sorry for the double-posting and for not using tags before :(