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Stephan Pastis is the cartoonist who creates Pearls Before Swine. Pearls Before Swine is an anthropomorphic (animals who take on human-like qualities), daily serial strip that follows the lives of two best friends: a rat named Rat and a pig named Pig. Rat is very enterprising, being ever on the look out for ways to get rich, meet women, and acquire fame. He feels himself as sort of an intellectual, but also feels that his plans and ideas are wasted on his friend Pig. Pig is pretty naïve, and a little slow witted, but he is quite happy with his current lot in life. Rat will get infuriated with Pig's little questions and his games with various people and objects, like his fruit club. So Rat tends to spend more and more time showing he is above those games and showing that he is better than Pig.
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Scott Kurtz is the cartoonist who creates PvP: Player vs Player. PvP is a daily serial comic strip that follows the lives of the staff of PvP magazine. The PvP staff is as follows: Cole Richards, the owner and administrative head of PvP; Brent Sienna PvP's creative director; Jade Fontaine, a staff writer who writes about women's point of view toward the video game industry; Francis Ottoman, a staff writer who knows all there is to know about gaming; Robbie and Jase, two “sports writers” who critique sports games, but end up doing more playing than working; and finally, a large blue troll named Skull who has become PvP's unofficial mascot. PvP deals with topics from the gaming industry to relationships by using intellectual humor mixed in with slapstick.
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Jeph Jacques is the cartoonist who creates Questionable
Content. Questionable Content is a serial strip that follows the life
of a music aficionado named Marten Reed. Martin is very educated when
it comes to music, but he has difficulty opening up to strong women unless
he is able to relax around them. Martin's timidity towards women and attraction
to strong females is partially due to the fact that his mother is Veronica
Vance, a famous S&M dominatrix who stared in many erotic videos. That's
not to say that he is interested in his mother that way, but it did have
a formative impression on him since he knew what she did for a living
ever since he was a child, and thought it was a normal thing. He works
in an office complex, as a office assistant (of course his business cards
call him "office bitch", but his boss is just being playful),
but it's a job he really doesn't like. Fortunately, he met a girl named
Faye Whitaker, who he falls for. Originally from the southern United States,
Faye moved north to escape from some problems in her past, which keep
her on the defensive most of the time. Due to a fire at her apartment
complex, she moved in with Martin and quickly established a strong friendship
with Martin, but because of her past, she doesn't take the friendship
any further. Faye works at a coffee shop where her boss, Dora Bianchi,
allows her to vent any anger or frustration she might have on the customers,
in order to keep up the ideal of aloof coffeehouse baristas. Dora immediately
showed an interest in Martin (much to the secret annoyance of Faye), but
has to wait for Martin to sort out his feelings for Faye, which leaves
her waiting until Faye can sort through her past troubles in order to
see if she has real feelings for Martin.
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Greg Dean is the cartoonist who creates Real Life. Real life is set in modern times in the United States. Real Life is a weekday serial strip that follows the lives of seven friends in their psuedo-real life situations. Real Life usually deals with game playing, fighting evil computer versions of them, or just having fun. The cast is as follows: Greg, the cartoonist, creator of the world, he doles out rewards or punishments to the characters that he has made. Usually he is only seen as a disembodied voice; Greg (the character) a fantasy gamer and sword ends up being the one the cartoonist favors (we all wonder why right? :) ) yet, ends up being the one who gets into the most trouble; Dave is a quake-loving gamer who spends most of his time honing his skills in first person shooters, and working to create the best computer system around; Crystal is Greg's (the cartoon version) girlfriend, but is not to be dismissed lightly, since she is as big of a gamer as the rest of them; Tony is a gamer like the rest, but unlike the rest, he takes old systems and makes fantastic things out of them.
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A cartoonist nicknamed Eight created Road Waffles. Road Waffles was a serial strip that followed the life of a trigger-happy young woman named Haley. After stealing her ex-boyfriend's car and leaving town, she would drift from town to town seeking something to make her life more exciting. One thing that she found to make her life more exciting was to hold up gas stations. One day she held up a gas station that Bruno worked at. When she held him up, he ended up going with her, leaving his gas-pumping life behind. They had many adventures on the road, ranging from fighting a psychopathic gun-toting squirrel, to running into a serial killer with a fetish for pigs, to even a kid-turned-zombie and his horde of zombie road kill.
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John Allison is the cartoonist who creates Scary-Go-Round.
Scary-Go-Round is a spin-off serial strip from the comic, Bobbins, that
follows the lives of several former employees of the now defunct magazine,
City Limit. Tim Jones is the current mayor of Tackleford who is an inventor
of many strange, but occasionally useful inventions. A lot of Tim's work
crosses over to mad science, but he tends to be kept in check from crossing
over to evil mad science by his friends and lovers. Fallon Young is a
former secret agent, who was not very good at completing all aspects of
her job in a quiet manner, but generally got the job done. Her life tends
to be far more action-packed than those of her friends, and she ends up
spending a lot of her time off in other countries. Ryan Beckwith enjoys
life as a professional slacker, a trait that rubbed off on him some from
his father, who was grooming him to become "the king of the tramps"
and live a hobo's life. Having turned his back on his father's wishes,
Ryan spends a lot of time with his friends, as he struggles to find meaning
in his life. Shelly Winters was the former mayor's secretary, and due
to his peculiar nature and various neurosis, Shelly was able to run the
whole city with an iron fist. This posed a problem if and when she got
drunk, as a lot of her pent up aggression would come streaming forth,
and cause embarrassments in public. In recent years, Shelly has had a
number of brushes with death, and successfully faced her greatest fear
in order to be able to return to the land of the living. Amy Chilton is
the daughter of Len Pickering, the former editor and owner of City Limit.
Amy was not spared any expense as she was growing up, as her father could
never really say no to his little girl, and as such, she grew up a little
spoiled. She was the former assistant to Tim in his workshop, but due
to an attempted theft of his time-traveling teapot, she was dismissed
of that position.
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Tatsuya Ishida is the cartoonist who creates Sinfest.
Sinfest is a comic in the gag-a-day format (having no overall storyline,
but maintains the cast of characters) that follows the lives of two friends,
Slick and Monique. Slick is a self-proclaimed pimp, but finds that he
has difficulty convincing all of the women he meets of that fact. Of course,
this doesn't mean that he is after all of the women he meets, but only
the attractive ones. Slick constantly sings his own praises and usually
ends up driving the object of his affection away. Monique, on the other
hand, does not have a problem finding guys, but rather her problem is
finding someone that she likes, who will dote on her every whim, is financially
secure, and is a genuinely nice guy. Unfortunately for her, most of the
guys she likes are either taken or are full of themselves, so she spends
a lot of her time hanging out with Slick. Monique has no interest in Slick
as he is, but usually finds that she has nothing better to do. Slick also
hangs out with his assistant Criminy and his comrade-in-arms, an anthropomorphic
(animals that are attributed human-like qualities) pig named Squigley.
Criminy helps Slick keep track of his appointments, the tracking patterns
of hot women, the list of women who turn him down, and various other menial
tasks. Criminy doesn't seem to mind, as he sees Slick as sort of an ideal
version of what he would like to be. Squigley, on the other hand, shares
a lot of Slick's attitude towards women, but without any of the charm.
He prefers to believe that a man should act as a man, and not have to
primp or preen in order to impress a woman. Of course, since Slick and
Squigley's methods haven't worked yet, Slick is open to other ideas and
options.
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Pete Abrams is the cartoonist who creates Sluggy Freelance.
Sluggy Freelance is a serial strip that follows the lives of two friends,
Riff (Riffington) and Torg. Riff is an inventor and mechanical genius
that is able to create new technologies sometimes utilizing mundane equipment.
While Riff can create a lot of wonderful inventions, they often lack a
lot of practical planning or are not followed through upon, which sometimes
results in trouble. He has difficulties with his mother, a famous talk
show host who goes by the name of Dr. Lora, who takes out a lot of her
personal anger over her divorce on her callers, often breaking them down
to tears. Torg loves to sit back and take life as it comes, treating every
day like he used to as a child, fully enjoying life. He prefers to not
work, but does have the necessary skills required to be a web designer,
and sometimes offers his services over the Internet. Torg really is the
last person who someone can call as being responsible, but lately the
rest of the housemates have noticed a distinct change in Torg's demeanor,
due to his experiences in an alternate reality. The source of a lot of
Torg's change is one of the other housemates and his good friend, Zoë.
Zoë is practically the sole source of reason in the household, as
she finds that Torg and Riff's schemes are often silly or ill conceived,
and she often has to bear the brunt of the financial responsibilities
for maintaining the house. Torg and Zoë have developed a close friendship
that could blossom into romance if they could have a sane moment together,
and provided that Torg didn't do something to ruin the moment. Gwynn,
the other human roommate, is a practicing witch, through the book of E-Ville,
a terrible book that she promised not to work with, but hasn't strictly
enforced. Since a lot of accidents end up coming her way, she takes out
a lot of her anger on Torg and Riff, but can usually be mollified through
bribes of video games. Kiki (a hyperactive anthropomorphic ferret with
a problem keeping her mind on something for a long enough period of time)
and Bun Bun (an often psychotic, switchblade-wielding, anthropomorphic
mini-lop) usually also reside in the house, often causing their own brands
of trouble.
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Bob Roberds is the cartoonist behind Soap on a Rope. Soap on a Rope is a serial comic strip that follows the life of Max Slacker and his friends. Max's friends are: Stu Moore a naive optimist who works with Max at MCX Computer Corporation; Annie Vrska a psychotic who keeps herself in check with lots of medication and another coworker at MCX; Circe Byrd a pessimist who nevertheless ends up being the luckiest person around and a coworker at MCX. Max and his friends have problems ranging from three-headed aliens invading to traveling to parallel worlds.
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Alan Foreman is the cartoonist behind S.S.D.D.. S.S.D.D. is a anthropomorphic (animals that are attributed human-like qualities), serial comic strip that follows the lives of four roommates, living in a flat in Britain. The roommates are as follows: Norman, a psychotic rabbit who enjoys tormenting others; Richard, a fox who is just trying to stay sane while living with Norman; Anne, a fox who happens to be Richard's girlfriend; and Kingston, a brown rabbit who's only desire is to watch TV and get high. S.S.D.D. regularly deals with topics such as Guy Fawke's Day, to things that Norman does to people, to relationships, to even time travel.
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Kristofer Straub is the cartoonist who creates Starslip
Crisis. Starslip Crisis is a serial strip set in 3441 that follows the
lives of the crew of the Interculture Directorate Ship Fuseli (the galaxy's
only starship museum). Memnon Vanderbeam is the captain and curator of
the Fuseli. Memmon can be pretentious, lording over others that he runs
the only starship museum, and is quick to point out the relative significance
of any object aboard the Fuseli, taking pride in his formidable knowledge
of ancient and obscure art culture. He can be demanding at times, expecting
no less than perfection from his crew, particularly of the Cirbozoid (an
asexual insect-like species) Operations Assistant, called Mr. Jinx (his
actual name being unpronounceable in English or even in his native language).
Despite this, Mr. Jinx works efficiently at his duties as the first-officer
(see Operations Assistant) of the Fuseli, and if needed, Mr. Jinx can
always reproduce another of his race quickly (within minutes), in order
to double his effective output. Cutter Edgewise is a reformed space pirate,
setting aside his criminal ways to pilot the Fuseli. Sometimes it seems
like he didn't quite leave the space pirate life of his own accord, as
old habits die hard, but he is still considered the best pilot around.
He interacts with A2-Z, the ship's onboard artificial intelligence and
one of the museum's pieces.
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Chris Crosby is the cartoonist who creates Superosity.
Superosity is a serial strip that follows the life of a guy named Chris
and his sentient board-like creature he aptly named Boardy. Chris lives
with his brother Bobby and Boardy in Super City Apartments. Chris is almost
childlike in his naiveté, and at times has irrational dislikes
or hatred for things. He has the ability to find the good in most people
and focus on that aspect, assuming that everyone likes him, and that they
are all good friends. He relies on Boardy for the majority of his needs,
and spends his time seeking things that he enjoyed in his childhood or
having Boardy cater to his every whim or fancy. Boardy has no memories
of his past and is constantly trying to find out who and what he is. Unfortunately,
his search is often interrupted by the constant demands that Chris has
of him, but doesn't mind helping his friend, since Chris did find and
help him when he needed it. Chris's brother, Bobby, is about the exact
opposite of Chris. Bobby is constantly irritated with his cheerful brother
and despite any threats of violence or verbal abuse; Chris still sticks
with Bobby, much to his annoyance. Bobby hates about everyone and everything,
but constantly attempts to concoct plans that will enable him to take
over the world, so he could run things his way. Chris's fiancé,
Arcadia, is a kindred spirit and shares his childlike innocence, but loves
being a lawyer. Arcadia caters to her brother and grandmother's wishes,
but rebelled against their decision and decided to marry Chris. She enjoys
going on Chris's wacky adventures as typically they are exciting, and
usually nothing bad happens (thanks to Boardy's constant vigilance).
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Patrick Shaughnessy is the cartoonist who creates Triangle and Robert. Triangle and Robert is a serial strip that follows the lives of two geometric shapes, a triangle named triangle, and a rhombus named Robert. Triangle and Robert exist on a world that was similar to ours, but the human race itself was considered the “fourth race”. Currently the dominant life forms on the planet are geometric shapes and clip art. A mysterious being named “The Cartoonist” came and started exerting his influence on their world, now their world went from a graphically rendered geometric world to a bleak white world, with basic colors and lines to compose themselves. Triangle and Robert get involved in many wacky adventures ranging from getting rid of cursed artifacts, to getting all the united states senators to sign a fish, to even a battle with the pudding watcher, Orpuddex. In fact, they get involved in so many wacky adventures that they opened up a business that specializes in wacky and zany adventures.
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J. D. "Illiad" Frazer is the cartoonist who
creates User Friendly. User Friendly is a serial strip that follows the
lives of the employees of Columbia Internet, a medium sized Internet service
provider. Columbia Internet is run by a man known to his employees as
simply The Chief. The Chief, like some managers, is sometimes out of the
loop of what his employees do, and this is due to either trusting him
employees too much or not paying enough attention to their activities.
Assisting him in financial decisions is the employee known simply as The
Smiling Man. The Smiling Man is known as such due to his constant gleeful
smile, even when he is delivering bad news to the employees. Pitr Dubovich
is the administrator who is slowly trying to take over the world and become
a true evil dictator. Mike Floyd is the system administrator and the person
who everyone first comes to when something goes wrong with the network.
The stress causes Mike to have a fierce caffeine addiction due to the
fact that has to not only put up with the customers crashing the network,
but also the blunders of Stef Murky, the Corporate Sales Manager. Stef
doesn't really work well with computers, but feels that his position is
far superior to the computer technician's position, so if anything goes
wrong, he is more than happy to let them know. Stef's constant crashing
of the network causes problems for Greg Flemming, the help desk technician
a lot of problems as well, as he is the front-line support with the customers.
To help handle all of the downtime, The Chief hired an additional technician,
Miranda Cornielle, to keep the servers up and running. Finally, the last
employee, A.J. Garrett, is the web technician who is in charge of maintaining
the website and graphical content of Columbia Internet.
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Paul Taylor is the cartoonist who creates Wapsi Square.
Wapsi Square is a serial strip that follows the life of Monica Villarreal.
Originally raised in Mexico, Monica was taught a special language by her
grandmother, but found out later that her grandmother had been dead for
many years. After a brief period of hospitalization, Monica moved to Wapsi
Square in Minneapolis, MN, where she achieved her dual degrees in Art
and History. During her time at the University, she met her friends, Shelly
Wahnee, Amanda Ehrlich, Owen Albrect, and Jacquline Bontemps. Amanda and
Monica immediately hit it off, and the two quickly formed a sort of sibling
relationship, where Amanda looks out for Monica. As a photographer, Amanda
is usually forced to work with people she deems as stupid, and longs for
the ability to select a better level of clientele. Shelly grew up in a
house with seven older brothers, and due to this, she learned how to roughhouse
with the best of them. She takes her aggressive behavior and applies it
to her life, but has trouble expressing her feelings towards her childhood
friend, Owen. Own is calm and easygoing, allowing life to come to him,
but this causes him to have difficulty asserting himself. He developed
his musical ability and formed a punk band with Shelly and Jacquline called
Fermented Banana. Jacquline is a late-blooming social butterfly, and usually
goes around with her typical cheery demeanor. Because of her perpetual
cheeriness, people tend to underestimate her abilities, but in reality
she is a very smart individual. After college, Monica took a job at the
local university where she inadvertently released Tepoztecal, the Aztec
god of alcohol, where she first learned of her destiny and why she was
the only one who could see her departed grandmother.
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Isabel and Terrence Marks are the cartoonists who create
You Say it First. You Say it First is an anthropomorphic (animals that
are attributed human-like qualities), serial strip that builds on the
story of a budding couple, a hedgehog named Brisbane Adams and a rabbit
named Kimberly Taylor from Unlike Minerva. Brisbane is very shy and has
trouble expressing his feelings, and ends up spending a lot of time worrying
about how is perceived by others. Kimberly is almost the complete opposite
of Brisbane, as she always needs to be moving, occupying her time, and
always looks at the bottom line of things. Both are taking their relationship
slowly as they have both had difficulty in previous relationships, and
they don't want to ruin this relationship. They moved in together through
a twist of fate when the Minerva Theater closed, and their relationship
has slowly started to blossom. Of course, like many couples, they do have
difficulties. They have underlying trust issues due to previous experiences,
and Kimberly's former High School friend, a squirrel named Emily Pritchard.
Emily and Kimberly drifted apart after High School, until Emily decided
to renew their contact five years later. She and Kimberly have always
had a little friendly rivalry going, and Emily dislikes the idea of sharing
Kimberly with Brisbane and ends up trying to find ways to break them apart.
This causes friction between Kimberly and Emily, as Kimberly doesn't really
feel that Emily is her friend when they didn't stay in contact the entire
time Emily went off to college. The stress from this situation ends up
causing friction between Brisbane and Kimberly, but so far they have managed
to weather through the rough spots.
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Blue Dragon Online Comic Resource and
website are Copyright 2000-2006, David Zelasco. All comics are copyrighted by
their respective authors.
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