Sluggy Freelance

I may have spoken of this strip before, but the current storyline is worthy of some promotion.

If you have never read Sluggy before (http://www.sluggy.com), then hopping in on the current storyline will lose you quick. Fortunately, Pete (Abrams, creator of Sluggy) has the entire strip archived on the website. You can go all the way back to the humble beginnings of one of the characters summoning Satan on his computer and the only way to get him off was windows. The strips quickly progress from Joke a days to ongoing story arcs that satire everything from x-files to Harry Potter. Oh, and the art gets better.

The current storyline is weaving together a lot of things that have been left hanging and building for several years. The strip is 11 years old, and some of these threads go back pretty far. Pete is nice enough to use reference links that take you back to older strips when he is referencing one of these loose threads.

The characters are what this comic is about. Torg and Riff are awesome and play off of each other perfectly. Zoë is wonderful and I have a crush on her even though she isn't real. Gwynn is a character that you love to hate and the characters do to, but deep down everyone really likes her. Bun-Bun is a switchblade wielding, anthropomorphic mini-lop bunny with an attitude and the skills to back it up. Kiki the ferret can lighten up the most intense situation. The cast is well written and play off of each other perfectly. Oh, and gasp, they grow. Yes, the characters develop and grow. They learn lessons and sometimes do bad things. They make sacrifices and sometimes act selfishly.

This strip is worth the two days it will take you to get through the archives and the minute a day it will take to follow it. Pete just keeps doing it better year after year, and I usually can't wait to get my next Sluggy fix. I check it first thing when I get to work and it starts the day off right. What are you waiting for? Get over there and check it out.