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User Friendly 1.0
Greetings Cave Dwellers
Arguably one of the most successful and popular online comics is User Friendly. With three full-length books in print, a community of dedicated readers, and merchandise that has been featured on major computer celebrities globally, one would have a hard time disputing the popularity and the success of User Friendly. Over the past four years, User Friendly has grown from a small inter-office comic into an internet destination and a community of loyal readers. User Friendly 1.0 collects not only the comics that have not been published before (O'Reilly didn't include them in the previous books because of layout and other considerations), but also various essays, thoughts, illustrations, and other comics not necessarily related to User Friendly.
It All Began Here
The first section of the book contains the comics that didn't make it in the first User Friendly book (User Friendly, published by O'Reilly and Associates). These are the comics that introduce the crew of Columbia Internet (the friendliest, hardest-working and most neurotic little internet service provider), and births Dust Puppy (from a server that hasn't been upgraded in a year). The drawings are more primitive, with four frames of story rather than the three we enjoy today, but don't let that detract you from the humor and the sheer fun of the comics. Sure, they're not the same as what you're expecting from the current dailies, but they have a certain charm all their own.
Introduce Yourself / Essay Contest
The latter half of the book introduces the characters of User Friendly and their real-world analogues. Yes folks, the secret is out and revealed for the first time; User Friendly is based on real-people, although Illiad is quick to point out the people the characters are based on aren't QUITE as neurotic as their cartoon counterparts. Illiad also takes the latter part of the book to talk about his views on art, drawing women, community schisms, and the practical joke of 1999 and its aftermath. These essays show Illiad as a cartoonist who is not only humbled and flattered by the acceptance of his work, but also an artist who appreciates the community that has evolved from that work. Illiad appreciates his fans, and it's that appreciation of the fans that makes a book like User Friendly 1.0 not only possible, but also readable.
Bonus
As an added bonus, User Friendly 1.0 also features several SuSE Friendly comics (strips done for SuSE) and the crossover between User Friendly and Sluggy Freelance (in case you missed it). The strips are a nice treat for the fans and I have User Friendly to thank for my Sluggy Freelance addiction. :)
For the fans
If you don't like User Friendly, you've already skipped this review, and won't buy this book. That's quite all right, as this book isn't meant for you anyway. For the people who are fans of the comic, or who have a passing interest in the behind the scenes thoughts and ideas of User Friendly (or who want to see the early comics and the crossover appearances), this book is a no-brainer purchase. The writing is genuine, and having the rest of the comics in print is a bonus. User Friendly 1.0 is a labor of love for the community, and the community won't be disappointed.
You can purchase User Friendly 1.0 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
if you appreciate the "humor" of UF, you'll love this
It's the 'Dust Puppy,' born from the dust and bits of other things that were inside of a server. :)
Check this comic for his birth.
--Kylus
Idiot-proof something, and Life will build a better Idiot.
A Dust PUPPY.
And the dirty thing with feet is Crud Puppy.
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
Umm, Pitr's native language ISN'T Russian. He is a poser. Go back through the archives. He started out as just a normal English speaking Canadian. Then he got the Evil Geniuses for Dummies book and decided he wanted to be an evil genius and adopted a psuedo Russian accent. The comic actually referenced that when Pitr went up in space in a Russian rocket and annoyed the real Russian with his fake accent.
The deal with Pitr is hardly racist. He is a perfect fit among the cast, except for the fact that his native language is russian.
No it isn't - Pitr is a native english speaker who thinks that to become an evil overlord, one must speak with a russian accent. He doesn't understand russian at all. (oh gawd, not that strip...)
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Admittedly, Bob's more into giant robots and suchlike than computers and software, but hey - don't let that spoil your reading pleasure.
(Oh, and he can punctuate, too!)
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
No. Simply being reminded that it exists makes me cringe. I will not rest until every last trace of it has been eradicated. Even after that, I'm going to need some intensive therapy to get over my memories of the time before I freed the world from the tyranny of that vile comic strip.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
You could at least make the effort to get it right.
Repeat after me: Dust Puppy.
And the Dust Puppy is popular enough to be in Quake.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I'm the head mod over at the UF Community boards, so I figured I'd better respond to this (well, I could have ignored it, but that would be no fun at all).
Every once in a while someone comes in and says something akin to: "WTF? Why are you losers talking about shiat other than the strip?". The inevitable response is: The Comment Board is NOT for talking about the strip! Sure, you can talk about the strip if you want to, no one is going to tell you otherwise, but there is NO REQUIREMENT to do so. The Comment Board is just a place where people can interact with other members of the community in a place that is -for the community-.
This simple idea evades the people who arrive there and expect hundreds of responses saying, "Illiad, nice job!" or "Illiad, you suck!". Can you possibly imagine how boring and stupid that would be?
As for the 'support' posts...it's a community. There are people on there who've been talking for years, who've met in real life, and a few who have dated or even married after communicating on the UF board. If someone in this community wants to talk about something or get a little encouragement from other people who want to give that encouragement, then what the heck is wrong with that? It's not for you, and you don't have to respond. You don't even have to read it.
If you don't find something you want on the UF board...that's a shame, but it's not the end of the world. Certainly there are enough places among the terabytes of internet bulletin boards for you to find one that suits your temperament. I personally hope you find one. You can even go ahead and slag the UF board there if you want. The people who make the UF board what it is will continue to do what they enjoy - namely, what they've been doing all along.
Thanks for dropping by,
Kickstart
Thanks mostly to range of topics covered by the comic strip the base of UserFriendly regulars stretches across almost every profession (mostly white collar) to almost every skill level. This introduces quite a range of topics. Granted technology is usually right on top, but people from medical, political, legal, and about every other camp are present as well.
/. and the Register for all types of technology news, I browse the Cruel Site of the Day to feel synacal and feed my twisted side, and I hang out on UserFriendly because the wide range of people there bring me to interesting stories that I would have never found sticking to boards that were only focused on one subject. Some people aren't intersted in news outside of their area of focus, personally I'm curious about just about everything and UserFriendly feeds that curiousity. I like the way /. has pictures next to the headline to denote which part of the tech industry each TLP covers, that concept wont work on UserFriendly, we could never come up with enough pictures to cover all the subjects we cross, but yes if we tried personal mushy stuff and hugs would be amoung the first subjects with pictures.
/. since CNN wasn't going to happen. I'm glad I did, I found out what was going on a lot easier that way since I didn't have access to a radio or TV while I was at work and the bandwidth was killed by everyone else trying to get webcast.
This doesn't set well with some people, especially those looking for a specialized group. I personally like the diversity of the boards. Where else can someone ask an HTML question and get five friendly answers telling them five different ways to solve their problem without getting flamed for not having bought a book or knowing a particular basic in one thread, while a conversation about the Bill of Rights being ignored is going on in another? This "Lack of focus" is hard for some people but to me it builds a warmer atmosphere.
I'm not going to say my boards better than your board, it's not. I like my board better than I like your board but that doesn't mean it's better. Everyone has a different opinion of what they like. I like to browse
As others have said if you don't like it don't fscking read it. I'm not going to say that, I'm going to say drop in and check it out when you feel like it. If you've got a question about anything and don't know where to post it try us, if we can't help we can probably tell you who can. I read the comic for a couple of years before I ever posted, the only reason I started reading the boards was the extream slowdown news sites experienced during 9/11 and I wanted to try to stay up on the news. I knew enough about the boards to know it had a global community so I started watching UF and
Just my brain dump, not trying to change your opinion about the board, but please don't think of us as a bunch of uneducated clowns.
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