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The Root of All Evil
Unless you've been living behind a 2400 baud modem for the past few years, you've probably heard of the tales of Columbia Internet as described in the online comic strip User Friendly. You've probably even looked at a few strips from time to time. You may even have bought the two previous books "User Friendly" and "Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell". Whatever experience you've had with User Friendly, you'll really enjoy the third printed installment "The Root of All Evil".
What's good?
"The Root of All Evil" picks up right where "Evil Geniuses in a Nutshell" left off, with the first comic being the result of a "Y2K" error. Normality returns to Columbia Internet in short order, however, with the invention of an office assistant for VI called "VIGOR" (which spawned it's own real-life equivalent). There's plenty of good story lines in this collection: Pitr challenging Crud Puppy, the introduction of Cat Five, the Coffee Ring incident, Dark Side Dave, the X-Friends, the camping trip, and many many more. But the real reason many UFies should get this book is the introduction of the character that's quickly become a fan favorite: Sid Dabster. The battles between Pitr and Sid are absolutely hysterical. If you need proof, just think what might happen to Sid who has all of his old code on punched cards neatly stacked in a room, only to have his rival Pitr waiting outside the door with a leaf blower. There's plenty of moments like this in "The Root of All Evil" to keep you smiling.
The comics are transferred to the page rather well, with only a few contrast issues. Unlike the previous books, all of the Sunday comics are in their proper height.
What's bad?
There's only two nitpicks I can level at this collection, and they're both extremely picky. The first is the Sunday comics are all in black and white. Unfortunately, to print 1/7th of this book in color would probably increase the printing costs way beyond what User Friendly's audience would pay. Fortunately if you really want to see them in their original glory, you can view them online. The second nitpick can be levelled at any collection of topical comic strips. Sometimes the jokes are too topical. A few of the Sunday sight gags (which tend to be more topical than the weekday gags) left me scratching my head. Some of the jokes are starting to show their age (this is internet time, of course :) ), but there's also a certain nostalgia in comic collections like this. It's like going back and reading Bloom County books with their references to 1980's popular culture. Sure the "I Love You" virus is remembered about as well as a Sean Penn joke, but there's a certain charm in remembering a time when "I Love You" was zipping effortlessly across the net, and X-Men was the movie everyone camped out to see. Do I think User Friendly should be less topical? Of course not. That's some of the beauty of User Friendly (and Bloom County, for that matter). The strips in this book perfectly capture the humor of the situations we all were facing at the time. Just remember you might have to bring some of those old memories back to fully enjoy this book.
What's in it for me?If you have the previous User Friendly books, this is a no-brainer purchase. If you don't have them, you might want to get the other two books before purchasing this one. If you've never viewed User Friendly, view a few strips online or leaf through the other books first. If you're like most geeks, you'll find you'll want as much User Friendly as you can get!
You can purchase this book from FatBrain.
On the other hand, the author, illiad, has been known to be partial to llamas.
but you'd have to visit the IRC channel to find this out. And Llamas have achieved the status of an old IRC joke that is slowly fading into the background.
not that it is important or anything.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Funnily enough I was the one who started the irc channel, and was also part of Keth's conspiricy to get Illiad a llama (stuffed) for his very own :)