Sluggy Freelance

Overall score:

by: Pete Abrams
www.sluggy.com

One Sentence Synopsis: A couple of guys and their pals deal with strangeness and fight off demons/monsters/aliens. (Yeah, I know, that could describe a good half of the webcomics out there. Just think of this as the best ‘two guys fight oddity’ comic out there.)


Art Section:
Category: Traditional Comic Strip
Sluggy Freelance has impressive art, especially for a small-panel, daily, newspaper-style strip. It makes good use of its space, and has original artistic design. Recently, the comic has become a lot more art-driven, and some of its strips approach more of the ‘original sketches’ art category than the ‘comic strip’ art category.

Story Section
Category: Episodes
As impressive as Sluggy’s art is, its storyline is better. One of the oldest comics on the web, Sluggy has also experienced more change and maturation than most others. It began as a simple gag comic, though even then it had some connected storylines. As it continued, it grew more and more story-intensive, becoming something of a satire-comic, involving large, multi-strip parodies of various SF genres.

This, however, was still Sluggy’s youth. Over the recent year, the story has become even more involved. While Sluggy is still episodic (meaning it doesn’t have a single overarching conflict that spans the entire comic) it has begun to contain truly involved stories, with character progression, foreshadowing, and complex plotting.

Pete Abrams has a genius for connecting seemingly independent elements. Characters you thought were just bit parts reappear in later comics to fulfill a vital role. Irrelevant, passing comments are later dredged up to make a climactic point or, in many cases, a great joke.

While many of the characters are a bit stereotypical, Pete makes very good use of the archetypes to create originality.


Humor Section
Category: Joke-a-day
Sluggy generally has great punchlines--a real oddity in a comic with such an intensive storyline. However, there are a lot of strips with good punchlines; Sluggy’s '6' in this category comes because of its entire feel. There is a cohesive wackiness to the strip--a controlled weirdness that lends it an undertone of irony that is unmatched in the webcomic world. The meanest, scariest character in the strip is someone’s pet rabbit--and not a rabbit drawn anthropomorphicly like Bugs. It’s just a little ball of fur with a switchblade and floppy ears.

Recently, Sluggy humor has become a sort of hybrid between ‘situational’ and ‘Joke-a-day’ comedy. Many of the laughs are character driven, and in the longer Sunday strips there will often be several ‘punchlines.’ The continuous air of humor lends a farcical nature to the plot, keeping it light despite often involved drama.


Frequency:
Sluggy is updated daily, with rarely missed days (though they do exist.) The archive is incredible--5 years of solid comics with a variety of topics and humor. It is probably one of the best reads on the internet.

Website/extras:
There is a lot of support for the Sluggy comic--it’s one of the biggest and most popular. Pete lets most of that say on a separate, but official, fansite. You can find everything and anything Sluggy related there.

Overall:
I have yet to find a comic better than Sluggy Freelance.

Content: PG-13
Most of it is very PG, but there are some extremely violent storylines. (One, a parody of slasher flics, is particularly gory.)

3 reasons to read Sluggy Freelance
1) Great story, great humor, great art--all in one comic.
2) A good blend of weirdness and stability.
3) You want a comic that is constanly evolving, rather than one with static content

3 reasons not to read Sluggy Freelance
1) You want your comics to be either serious or funny, but not both at the same time.
2) You’re too indy to agree that its a good comic.
3) Bunnies with switchblades scare you.
(Yeah, I know. Those aren't very good reasons. What can I say? It's a great comic. Actually, the only real reason I can think of not to read it is that it is somewhat story-intensive. It takes time to get to know the characters, and until you do, much of the plot and comedy isn't as potent. If you simply want a gag-strip to give you random laughs, Sluggy is probably not the best place to look.)

I’ve never quite understood the title of ‘Sluggy Freelance.’ One of the main characters, Torg, runs his own freelance IT business, but that doesn’t really have much to do with the story. My guess is that the title, like much of the strips content, is there simply because it sounds ‘nifty.’

The comic generally follows the exploits of two friends--Torg and Riff, a pair of college-age guys with a penchant for video games, goofing off, and (in Riff’s case) inventing futuristic weaponry. However, unlike many other webcomics, Sluggy generally stays away from ‘easy’ jokes. It doesn’t spend much time making fun of video games or geek life; it creates its own situations to provide humor. The story is what drives the comedy, which is part of the synergy that makes Sluggy work.

The world of Sluggy Freelance is a satireistic look at our own. In many cases, oddity is considered natural. Torg's pet rabbit, Bun Bun, makes most Mafia hit-men look kind-hearted. Torg and Riff randomly get zapped to weird dimensions where they fight demons, aliens, or anime characters. In one recent storyline, Santa gets mutated by alien DNA, and can only be stopped by Nerf weaponry.

This air of strangeness could be very problematic. Many stories try to be weird, but just end up confusing. Sluggy’s brilliance is its ability to work within itself and make these odd elements seem natural.

Many other comics grow stale and repetitive through constant rehashing of content. Sluggy avoids this by using its story to great effectiveness, allowing for fresh looks at itself. Whenever the plot is beginning to drag, Pete throws in a few twists to revitalize it. One way he does this is through parodies. Everything from X-Files, to the Aliens movies, to epic fantasy, to slasher flicks, to the evening newscast finds itself lampooned in this strip. And, once again, Pete often manages to incorporate these parodies into the continuing storyline.

As you can probably tell, Sluggy is generally a genre strip. It draws heavily on science fiction themes, though a background in fandom isn’t necessary to understand the story. However, the truth is that if you aren’t intrigued by the idea of a switch-blade-wielding bunny duking it out with an alien-mutated Santa, then you probably won’t like Sluggy very much. Despite the fact that the characters tend to take the weirdness in stride, many readers probably won’t react the same way. If you like things a bit more normal, you’ll probably prefer a more traditional comic.

If I have one other criticism of the comic, it’s that Sluggy does seem a bit. . .callous at times. While it’s not as bad as comics like ‘Chopping Block,’ Sluggy still does display a slightly-disturbing lack of regard for human life. This is a minor issue, but it’s worth mentioning because of the strip’s light-hearted nature. When one reads a strip like Chopping Block, one expects it to be dark--the entire strip is drawn with a macabre feel.

Sluggy isn’t like that--it’s generally happy, even silly. However, amongst this silliness, people occasionally get eaten by one of the main characters (Torg’s alien secretary) or shredded by a hoard of demon-kitties. While this is all done in the name of satire, it can still be grating. I can’t help wondering how I’m supposed to sympathize with a character who accidentally eats one of Torg’s clients.

Still, Sluggy remains a wonderful, ironic strip complete with jokes, interesting characters, and a progressive storyline. It’s a paradigm among webcomics; if you’re new to them, then this is certainly one of the first places you should stop.

Sample Strips:


One of my personal favorites

The early beginnings of the Oasis storyline

Aforementioned gory, but extremely funny, storyline

A showcase of some of the Sluggy art, from a recent storyline.

Written by EUOL on September 10th, 2002