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This glossary defines everything relevant that someone not familiar with the subject at hand might not know. Be warned, there are lots and lots of spoilers.
Webcomics
- College Roomies from Hell!!!
- The strip follows two sets of people forced to room together who just plain rub each other the wrong way (thus "Roomies from Hell"). It contains humor, and is mainly an adventure strip, but also is often also heavily focused on the emotions of the main characters and their relationships with each other. It has continuing plot lines and developing characters. [Top]
Some of the characters include:
- April
- April was the "token normal one" before she fell in love with Mike and went bat-shit crazy because she thought he was toying with her affections. She becomes malicious and manipulative, among other things trying to make Marsha think that Mike cheated on her and trying to keep Marsha from going back to Mike when they temporarily broke up. She is only now showing signs of being sane again. [Top]
- Dave
- Dave is neurotic, self-defeating, depressive, and wishy-washy. These traits aren't helped by the fact that life seems to enjoy using Dave as its own personal punching bag. He's fallen out of a window, off a ledge, been accidentally shipped to Mexico, been almost killed by Mike (twice!), been forced to go out on a date with his sadistic calculus teacher, had sex with the woman he loves only to have her tell him it didn't mean anything, etc. He is in love with Margaret, and may or may not also be falling in love with Blue, Mike's sister. [Top]
- Margaret
- Margaret rooms with April and Marsha. She is a gun-nut/survivalist, and puts up a hard exterior to the outside world. Satan (yes, that Satan) has some kind of interest in her, and may or may not be responsible for killing everyone she's ever loved. She believes that the only way she can keep people safe is by not caring about them. She comes to love Dave as a friend (despite her best efforts), and may or may not love him romantically. [Top]
- Marsha
- Marsha is a bit obsessive, and a lot neurotic. She has lingering issues from when a previous boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend. Marsha's cooking is so toxic it could probably be considered a chemical weapon of mass destruction. She is currently dating Mike. [Top]
- Mike
- Mike is ruthless, pragmatic, and often malicious. He gets what he wants, usually when he wants it. He is very protective of those he cares about, which definitely includes Marsha and his sister Blue, and often (though he would never admit it) includes Dave and Roger. [Top]
- Roger
- If weirdness were gold, Roger would be Fort Knox. There is some indication that this is at least partly a defense mechanism. Roger is a werecoyote, as is his sister and mother. His mother up until recently lived in the forest near campus and snacked on unwary hikers; Roger is dealing with his fear that he will one day become like her. [Top]
- Steve and Waldo
- The campus satanists. Generally inept. Generally comic relief. Occasionally actually manage to do something effective (like the time they summoned Satan into their refrigerator). [Top]
Some of the important plotlines include (in order of their appearance in the comic):
- Sub-love-me-nal
- Dave makes a shirt with a subliminal message that says "Love Me" so that Margaret will fall for him. It seems to work on her...and everyone else Dave meets, such as big, burly football players. Before he can get rid of the shirt, Margaret finds out the trick and kicks him in the nads. [Top]
- Misery Journey
- After Dave is rejected by Margaret in Sub-love-me-nal, Mike decides to take him and Roger on a Misery Journey. This starts with them getting blind, stinking drunk. They end up in a forest with no idea how they got there. On the way back home they get permanently mutated, find a genie (Mike wishes for a convertible), get captured by the FBI, and so on. [Top]
- 5-2=0
- Roger lost his glasses in a previous storyline, and must try to get a new pair without being able to see. Instead, he meets Diane, a prostitute (though he doesn't know this at the time), and gets into a relationship with her. Through a moderately convoluted series of events, Diane gets hit by a car, and then tries to break ties with Roger when she gets better because he found out she's a working girl. Roger manages to find out where she lives and they get back together. [Top]
- The Adversary
- This is really the first storyline in CRFH!!! to focus more on drama than humor. It is the plotline that set the comic firmly in Cerebus syndrome territory. Lasting 22 weeks, this storyline details Dave and Margaret's first (and currently only) date and the events leading up to and immediately following it. It contains loads of character and plot development. [Top]
- The Devil's Avocado
- Immediately following The Adversary, The Devil's Avocado is a fairly silly storyline where Steve and Waldo, the campus satanists, think that Dave, Roger, and Mike are in possession of an avocado of great evil power due to a misunderstanding. They kidnap the guys' pets and hold them for ransom to get the avocado, and the guys have to get them back. [Top]
- The F Word
- The night before the big calculus final, the main cast decides to go dancing to relieve a bit of stress. However due to a bartender who's got a grudge against Mike, pretty much everyone ends up drunk and/or in jail. They all manage to get to the test in time, but just barely. [Top]
- General Protection Fault
- One of Keenspot's first strips, General Protection Fault (GPF for short) is about a tech company with the same name as the strip and those who work there. It is mainly focused on character relationships. There is some debate over whether or not GPF has undergone Cerebus Syndrome or not (see Surreptitious Machinations lower down, and also the note on GPF). It is written and drawn by Jeffery Darlington. [Top]
Some of the characters of GPF include:
- Dwayne
- Dwayne is the founder of the tech company in GPF, and while he is friends with the other members of the main cast he is also their boss. More stable and grounded than most of the other characters, he tends to serve as something of an anchor. [Top]
- Chuck
- Fooker's friend and neighbor, Chuck came under the control of Trudy through a device she implanted in his head. He worked against his former friends until during the climactic New York battle at the end of Surreptitious Machinations, Ki convinced him to throw off his shackles. He was subsequently killed by Trudy using the device she implanted in his head. [Top]
- Fooker
- GPF's system's administrator, Fooker is in some ways a stereotype of the unwashed shorts-wearing tech guru. He also it turns out is a secret agent for a covert government organization called the U.G.A. [Top]
- Ki
- One of the software programmers at GPF, Ki is a geek girl who values good code over appearance. She was suspicious of Trudy long before Surreptitious Machinations, and competed for Nick's affections, eventually winning out. [Top]
- Moldfinger
- Sean Connery is Moldfinger, a Bond-esque villain who is a part of the secret society that Trudy belongs to. [Top]
- Nick
- If GPF has a main character, Nick is it. The strip's everyman, Nick can sometimes act as a straight man and sometimes as the comedy. He attracted both Ki and Trudy early on, and eventually settled on Ki. His "inventor's gene" compels him to create improbable feats of science, including the device Trudy attempted to use as a power device in her bid for world domination. [Top]
- Trent
- Trudy's ex-boyfriend and fellow marketer, Trent is in many ways a slimier, more cowardly male version of Trudy. At one point he tried to drop a safe on Dwayne and was sent to prison. He attempts to aid the main cast in their bid to stop Trudy from taking over the world, and is thus partially forgiven his past transgressions and becomes GPF's new marketing director. [Top]
- Trudy
- GPF's former marketing director, Trudy initially appears innocuous if evil. However, it eventually becomes clear that she is more than she seems as she joins a secret society and attempts to take over the world. She is nearly successful, but is foiled by the combined forces of the U.G.A. (a covert government agency) and the strip's main cast. [Top]
Some of the relevant storylines of GPF include:
- Special Delivery
- This storyline involves a flood in the town in which GPF is located, Dwayne's wife having a child, and the characters' reactions to these events. According to Jeffery Darlington, this storyline is intended to show how the different characters react to a crisis. It was the first storyline in GPF to mostly not include humor. [Top]
- Surreptitious Machinations
- A year long epic storyline in which humor was mostly abandoned in favor of drama. When GPF is discussed in the context of Cerebus Syndrome, it is this storyline that comes up. It involves the main cast being split up by various events and Trudy's bid for world domination. It culminates in a battle in New York between Trudy and her conspirators on one side and the rest of the main cast and a covert government agency on the other, during which (among other things) a city block of New York is vaporized by an orbital weapon. [Top]
- It's Walky
- The sort-of sequel to Roomies, It's Walky contained many of the same characters as Roomies and focused more on the sci-fi parts of the strip. It was about SEMME, a secret organization dedicated to fighting the alien threat. Like Roomies, it has since ended. [Top]
- Nukees
- Written by Darren Bleuel, one of the founders of webcomic megasite Keenspot, this strip follows Nuclear Engineering PhD student Gav and his friends in their adventures and misadventures. It is generally a humorous strip with continuing plotlines and developing characters. [Top]
- Penny Arcade
- Penny Arcade is arguably the most famous and successful gaming-related webcomic on the internet. Drawn by Gabe (Mike Krahulik) and written by Tycho (Jerry Holkins), it tends to have gag-a-day based strips rather than continuous storylines, and leans towards jokes that require a somewhat in depth understanding of gaming current events. [Top]
- Roomies
- Roomies was David Willis's first strip. The beginning was silly college related humor. It gradually became a quagmire of angst and drama as people died in car accidents, became alcoholics, accidentally got pregnant, etc. It has since ended, as has its sort-of sequel, It's Walky. [Top]
Some of the characters include:
- Danny
- The stereotypical "nice guy", Danny respects women and works hard at school. He dated Sal through high school and into college until she broke up with him for mysterious and unexplained reasons. He briefly strayed into unhealthy and irresponsible behavior, but was shaken out of it by Ruth's death saving him while he was driving drunk. [Top]
- Howard
- Ruth's brother and a total nerd. Howard doesn't have a heck of a social life, and his obsessive love of Star Trek probably doesn't help. [Top]
- Joyce
- Joyce is an innocent church-girl who never grew up. Beaming with optimism and naivete, she's as innocent as a newborn and as stubborn as a mountain goat. Early on she decides that she's destined to be with Danny, and despite the fact that he is totally not interested in her romantically she pursues him constantly. [Top]
- Ruth
- Howard's sister. Her reaction to their parents' arguing and subsequent divorce was basically to give up on being happy. Her activities mostly included drinking and then feeling bad about how she never did anything but drink. She died saving Danny's life. [Top]
- Sal
- Danny's high school girlfriend. She broke up with him for mysterious reasons. It was later revealed that she was being chased by aliens who had killed her parents. [Top]
- The Aliens
- They started out as silly goofballs who would rather watch TV than perform experiments on humans they abducted. With the introduction of Head Alien, they took on a more sinister veneer, and actually tried to do evil things like kill people and take over the world. The are short, wear purple space suits with bulbous helmets, and have one hand and one claw. [Top]
- Sluggy Freelance
- Created by Pete Abrams, Sluggy Freelance is one of the best known strips on the internet. It focuses on a central cast of characters and their lives. It is often adventure based, and can be quite silly or quite serious at times. [Top]
Some of the characters include:
- Gwynn
- Easily angered, Gwynn has a love-hate relationship with Riff, one of the main characters. She is bound to the Book of E-Ville, an ancient tome of magic, and it to her. Even after she finally managed to get rid of all remnants of K'Z'K, the demon she summoned with the Book who took over her body and later her mind, she still couldn't get rid of the Book. [Top]
- K'Z'K
- "The Vowelless." K'Z'K is a demon Gwynn summoned using the Book of E-Ville and who was subsequently freed and accidentally set back in time. While most of K'Z'K was destroyed, a part lodged in Gwynn's mind, eventually taking over. Gwynn subsequently overpowered the part of K'Z'K in her mind and destroyed it. [Top]
- Oasis
- Who or what Oasis is is mostly a mystery. She has apparently died several times, only to return later without explanation. She has been trained as an assassin, and it is unclear whether she is an exceptional human, a cyborg, or a robot. If she is part human, she has a heavy case of brainwashing, which through an accident caused her to be permanently and psychotically in love with Torg. [Top]
- Torg
- Torg is the closest Sluggy comes to a main character. He is good-natured, optimistic, and friendly, but sometimes goofy to a fault. He cares deeply about his friends, and about the only time he's ever serious is when they're being threatened. He was forced to kill Valerie, a woman he was sort-of in love with, because she was a vampire. He later falls in love with Zoe, possibly due to a love potion that didn't wear off. [Top]
- Valerie
- Valerie is a vampire who poses as the wife of Torg and Riff's friend Sam, who she has also made a vampire. She falls for Torg, and chooses him as her next vampire. Torg is forced to kill her while he and Zoe are escaping from the vampires' mansion. [Top]
- Zoe
- Zoe is the down-to-earth, realistic one who gets caught up in the craziness surrounding the other characters. She's attending college, but being periodically sent into other dimensions has a way of affecting your grades. Even thought they sometimes exasperate her, she cares very much about her friends. [Top]
Some of the relevant storylines include:
- The Search for Sam
- The cast realizes that their friend Sam has been missing, only to find him in his apartment. Apparently he met a girl and went on a wild adventure, to come back married. [Top]
- The Affair
- This storyline details the attraction felt between Torg and his friend Sam's "wife," Valerie. As of the ending of this storyline, Torg decides not to act on his feelings. [Top]
- Vampires
- It turns out that all is not as it seems. Sam's new wife is really a vampire who has made Sam also one of the undead. They kidnap Torg and Zoe to make them a part of their circle of vampires. Riff and the others must break into the mansion and save them. [Top]
- Torg Goes to Hell
- Riff is building a "dimensional flux agitator" which accidentally sends Torg to the Dimension of Pain. Torg must hold out against the demons until he can be rescued. [Top]
- That Which Redeems
- The conclusion of the long-running Dimension of Pain thread. When Torg was rescued from the Dimension of Pain by versions of his friends from another dimension, a tiny hole was left into the Dimension of Pain. The demons have invaded, and this peace loving world folds like a house of cards. Torg gets sent there, and must save them from certain doom at the hands of ruthless demons. [Top]
- Eric Burns/Websnark
- Eric Burns started a webcomics blog in August of 2004. Over the next four months or so, it became very well known in the webcomics community due to Mr. Burns's consistent updates and insightful commentary. Mr. Burns is also the originator of the Cerebus Syndrome described in this paper. [Top]
- Ghastly
- Writer of Ghastly's Ghastly comic. So, so not safe for work/children/easily offended people. Seriously. I'm not kidding. Follow that link at your own risk. [Top]
- Keenspot
- A site that hosts a number of webcomics. Since they are invitation only, their quality tends to be a cut above the average webcomic. They host some of the more famous comics on the web. [Top]
- Meaghan Quinn
- A relatively well known comic writer and artist, Meaghan Quinn has her fingers in many webcomic pots, such as Eat the Roses and Vigilante Ho!. She is also a contributor to Comixpedia, a webcomics discussion site. [Top]
- T Campbell
- A comic strip writer primary known for his long-running strip Fans. He is a contributor to Comixpedia, a webcomics discussion site. [Top]
- Cerebus Syndrome
- A process whereby a formerly funny, light comic transitions to something combining both comic and dramatic elements.
A significant portion of this paper is spent defining this concept and refining it, so you might want to start here to get a more full description. [Top]
- Cerebus Transition
- Basically the same thing as the Cerebus Syndrome. [Top]
- First and Ten Syndrome
- Eric Burns's (see Websnark) term for a failed Cerebus Syndrome. Generally, it refers to something that was once funny, but abandoned humor in favor of melodrama and angst. It is named after an early HBO TV show. [Top]
- Infinite Canvas
- The concept that a comic on the web can be any size, as opposed to a physical strip whose size is limited by the paper it is printed on. For example, a strip might use a horizontally large strip to indicate a long amount of time spent walking, or a thin vertically long strip to indicate falling. An example of a use of infinite canvas is Scott McCloud's Choose Your Own Carl. Warning: the page is image intensive, and may take a while to load. [Top]
- Comixpedia forum thread
- When conducting research for this hypertext, I started a forum thread on Comixpedia, a webcomics discussion site, on the topic to try to get some other opinions. Some webcomics luminaries posted in response, and many of them are quoted in this paper. [Top]
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