Sluggy Freelance is one of the longest running, best-known and most popular webcomics, with a new comic released daily since August 25, 1997. It is written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The main characters are:
  • Torg, hapless freelance web designer and the butt of much of the humor
  • Riff, genius inventor whose creations almost always bring mayhem and destruction in their wake
  • Zoë, friend, housemate and occasional camel; probably the sanest one of the bunch
  • Gwynn, another friend and housemate; blind as a bat without her glasses
  • Sam, aka "Sam da man", a ladies' man with a deadly secret
  • Bun-Bun, nominally Torg's lop-eared rabbit; has a switchblade, a Glock, and a really bad attitude, especially toward telemarketers
  • Kiki, Riff's ferret; she is hyperkinetic and has a microscopic attention span and a dark past
  • Aylee, an alien refugee from another dimension who changes form about as often as Dr. Who, but more drastically; one incarnation was a dragon who created electromagnetic pulses after eating potato-based products

They constantly find themselves in strange and usually dangerous circumstances and surroundings. There is plenty of sexual innuendo and cartoon violence (the fansite listed below keeps track of how many kills each character has accumulated) but no strong profanity or explicit nudity.

Traditions

In an early plotline, one of Riff's inventions sent Torg to the "Dimension of Pain". Every Halloween, a different demon is sent to Earth to try to bring him back, failing in amusing and unexpected ways.

Bun-Bun and Santa Claus try to kill each other every Christmas, with continuously escalating violence.

Since January 18, 2003, Saturday's comic has been devoted to events "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain".

Abrams invites other well-known webcomic artists to do the strip for a week once or twice a year, while he goes on vacation. A frequent result is a hilarious parody of the strip itself, other webcomics, other creative works and/or artists, including Scooby Doo and Ayn Rand.

External links