Back of the Envelope

Sluggy Freelance — So the plan fell through, but a mysterious package arrived for Riff, so the day is saved. Uh... hold on, new chapter with its own prologue and the chapter name appearing in-comic, strange people we've never met before, and this mysterious Apparatus which seems to connect them. Uh-oh, this short cloners story has segued into a major storyline. Who is this Kada person and why does she look so much like Sasha? Who is this Makz who only appears as a hologram and did he really betray Kada? (She thinks he did, but if he's only appeared as a hologram, how does she know it was really him?) And just as she gets transported someplace with a space moose and where both of them are surrounded by a weird glow, the prologue ends and we shift to this Calix fellow, who lives in a village surrounded by the same glow. What's the connection between these folks and the apparatus?

Day by Day — Iraq and the military are the main issues this week. It's almost time for elections, and does it bother people that a lot of liberals seem to want elections to fail?

Scary Go Round — Okay, now there's a new storyline, with this creepy little kid promising change. Shelley doesn't handle things too well, though, and she gets herself fired by making some stupid comments to the press.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave walks in on Mike and Marsha doing it, which of course freaks him out. Does Dave deserve the torment Mike hands out afterwards? I don't think so--it's Dave's bedroom too, and Mike should have made some indication he wanted privacy. Still, Mike's evil and Dave suffers--must mean everything's back to normal. Then Hazel visits Harry in the hospital, to mock him and reward Mike, apparently by making him spend spring break with his father.

General Protection Fault — So Fooker isn't ready for marriage. Not now, not ever. He isn't ready for imacs, either, but Sharon's working on him.

Schlock Mercenary — And time passes. Howard Tayler burns through weeks of comic time in a couple of days. Seems Tagon's Toughs stole something that a lot of people are going to want back, so they're avoiding civilization for a while.

Sluggy Freelance — This wasn't the best week of Sluggy. Pete's complained a bit about writer's block, and a lot of people have complained that the strip's been off. To be honest, I didn't think it was that bad, and the complaining's been getting on my nerves more than any missteps in the strip. Anyway, comic wise, Zoe is really upset that Torg won't tell his friends what happened to him. I agree that he should, as it's important for them to understand, but I understand why it's hard for him to talk about it. As for the cloners coming to take the house, it looks like Torg's come up with a pretty good idea, but unfortunately, the untimely portal messes with it. I sure hope Pete has a good pay-off in mind, as all the back and forth is getting a bit annoying.

Day by Day — Lots of interaction between Jan and Damon this week, mostly involving Jan spouting liberal dogma and Damon mocking it. It's fun!

Scary Go Round — More of the little green guys, claiming to be Starsky and Hutch to get on a radio show. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be very interested, but is that Natalie? She's supposed to be dead. I mean, it looked like she made it back, but it wasn't clear how she could be alive again, what with no body. It does look like she has a body, but it isn't quite human. And finally, it now looks like the little green guys have been eaten by bears. Hopefully, that's the end of this stoyline.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — So, Marsha and Mike are back together, and April isn't happy about it. Too bad, April, but at this point, you're getting annoying. Go find your imaginary floating wiser self, already, and come back to some morality. Now Dave wants his cat back, but he's still suffering from some of the feedback from the empathic connection and he lasers Paul. Good for Chester! I mean, Dave... er, whatever. Paul needed that.

General Protection Fault — Uncle Wisebottom has tested Fred and determined that he's sentient. Unfortunately, according to the IQ test, he's not as smart as he thinks he is. Personally, I'm kind of glad--he was a bit uppity.

Schlock Mercenary — Elf has her new body. It looks good, too. She and Schlock get caught up, which takes quite a bit of doing, as Schlock's lost most of his memory.

Sluggy Freelance — Hmm. So Leo's still alive, huh? I was certain he was dead. At least Zoe broke up with him, after they got together again after his second accident. Of course, she broke up with him while she and everyone else was under the influence of the senti-mental drug that amplifies emotions. I wonder if she realized something, or perhaps if somebody (like Torg) said something. And Riff tried to clone Torg and instead ended up with a $200,000 toothbrush. Will they lose the house trying to pay back the unethical cloners? I dunno, but I noticed that a lot of people are angry at the direction this storyline is going, more because it looks like Pete goofed by forgetting that the gang didn't have the deed and recovered clumsily. I'm not quite as bothered as everyone else.

Day by Day — This week: the UN, the Times, CBS news, Sandy Berger, and Armstrong Williams take the heat. There's also a plea to help raise money to fight cancer, connected to dgci's fundraising efforts.

Scary Go Round — So the little green guys are on the move, and they're about to help their uncle Seamus recover his crock of gold. So that makes them, what, leprechauns?

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Maritza's back! And this week was defined more by what didn't happen than what did. Roger and Margaret haven't returned, Dave didn't go running off to look for Margaret, Mike isn't repulsed by Marsha's wings, April hasn't repented of her evil ways, and that isn't Chester. I'm as surprised about the Chester thing as everyone else, but I suppose I shouldn't be. That cat did push Marsha off the roof, and Chester's usually more subtle when he knocks people off of ledges.

General Protection Fault — Well, now, Fred's decided it's time for him to come out in the open. Sentient slime molds aren't currently recognized as persons with the full rights and priveleges thereof, but when Fred becomes public, people are going to have to deal with the legal, political, and theological implications.

Schlock Mercenary — And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it does. Okay, who broke the universe? My guess is the Gatekeepers, but it could just be a side effect of teraporting, which wouldn't explain why it altered so suddenly after everyone's been using teraporting for years. Fortunately, Ennesby was able to figure out a correction, even if using terapedoes to determine it seems just a little bit risky.

Sluggy Freelance — So, the monster in the dining room was in fact yet another alternate Torg. There sure are a lot of them, aren't there? Fortunately, our Torg was able to handle it with no problem. What he doesn't handle so well is the fact that Riff tried to replance him, especially once he's under the influence of the drug that led Riff to do it.

Day by Day — Who's in for mockery this week? Try John Carroll, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, President Bush, media watchdogs everywhere, Troy, management everywhere, and Sam. Sam gets mocked a lot this week, but that's okay, she knows how to keep her cool.

Scary Go Round — Who are those little green guys, and why are they trying to find a new career? Ah, who cares? It's funny, but I'd like to see some of the regulars again.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — It's still vacation week, but College Roomies will be back on Monday. Meanwhile, I read through the entire archives, starting with The Devil's Avocado. It was a fun read, especially since CRFH!!! moves at such a slow pace that you tend to forget a lot of the details of past developments.

General Protection Fault — Fred wants to talk to his lawyer, but Nicole is not feeling very confident lately. Will she really convince Fred to settle, or will he convince her that she can do it?

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon's Toughs capture the mercenaries who were trying to kill them and then try to make a clean get away. In the prisoner interrogations, Kevyn manages to learn that there was a sizeable bounty on the mercenary commander Tagon killed in the botched operation. This may pay better than they thought.

I'm afraid this is late this week, so late, in fact, that I'm reviewing two weeks at once. I hope you don't mind. Of course, over this time, a number of the artists were taking their annual Christmas vacations anyway, so I didn't miss much.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg tries to separate Gwynn from the book with little success, and the gang's plans for a surprise Christmas party nearly go awry when Kiki hides Christmas under the couch. Fortunately, the party goes well, although Torg's gifts leave something to be desired, and then Torg gets captured by the monster in the dining room... Yes, we all want to know about that, because the next week was Pete's vacation, where he answered reader questions without furthering the story. The only thing we know for certain is that it's not Aylee. My personal spec is that Gwynn accidentally summoned it for the Halloween party using the Book of E-ville. [NOTE: This webcomic review covers only Sunday, December 19th to Saturday, January 1st, and it was written on January 2nd, so it's possible we will know what's up with the monster by the time this post goes up.]

Day by Day — Day by Day has a lot of fun interactions between the characters, while mocking the AP, the New York Times, Coleman, and the MSM as a whole. Oh, and there's also a mention of the UN and Arnold.

Scary Go Round — So Ryan's family is reunited with their Dad, for a short time at least. And during John's vacation, he has Shelley reviewing his favorite albums. It's a lot of fun to read, but it's all British, so I don't think I've heard of any of them.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Mike meets the mutated Marsha, although we don't see a real reaction to her wings, as Mike hasn't gotten much of a chance to see them from his position, being choked. After that, it's Maritza's vacation, with a variety of artists doing guest strips with a Sci-Fi theme.

General Protection Fault — It's a snowball fight, Fooker and Sharon versus the building's other system administrators. Fooker ignores his own advice once he's insulted, and the fight ends in a draw.

Schlock Mercenary — The plans for Captain Tagon's funeral go awry when some unexpected guests show up, namely the O'benn and a contingent from Pranger's Bangers, the mercenary company Tagon beheaded when his mission went bad. Fortunately for Tagon's Toughs, they spot the O'benn, who are surprised by PB. With luck, our heroes will capture the would-be assassins.