Sluggy Freelance

Sluggy Freelance is one of the longest running, best-known and most popular webcomics, with a new comic released daily since August 25, 1997. It is written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The main characters are:

• Torg, hapless freelance web designer and the butt of much of the humor. Primary protagonist in most storylines.
• Riff, genius inventor and "freelance bum" whose creations almost always bring mayhem and destruction in their wake
• Zoë, friend, housemate and occasional camel; probably the sanest one of the bunch. She is half-korean and has an incredibly overprotective mother.
• Gwynn, another friend and housemate; blind as a bat without her glasses, history of practicing black magic. Ex-girlfriend of Riff.
• Sasha, another ex-girlfriend of Riff. Played the role of straight-woman in Zoë's absence
• Sam, aka "Sam da man", a wanna-be ladies' man who was turned into a vampire in an early adventure.
• Bun-Bun, nominally Torg's lop-eared rabbit; has a switchblade, a Glock, and a really bad attitude, especially toward telemarketers
• Kiki, Riff's ferret; she is hyperkinetic and has a microscopic attention span and a dark past. Belonged to Sam for a time.
• Aylee, an alien refugee from another dimension who changes form about as often as Dr. Who, but more drastically; one incarnation was a dragon who created electromagnetic pulses after eating potato-based products

They constantly find themselves in strange and usually dangerous circumstances and surroundings. There is plenty of sexual innuendo and cartoon violence (the fansite listed below keeps track of how many kills each character has accumulated) but no strong profanity or explicit nudity. The strip tends to be more text-heavy than most.

Important and recurring villains and antagonists are:

• K'Z'K, aka "Kizke" aka "Kenny", a demon with plans to rule the world, originally summoned by Gwynn
• Lysinda, a vampire queen
• Dimension of Pain, an alternate dimension filled with demons who have a grudge against Torg
• Hereti Corp, a shadowy corporate organization that funds questionable scientific research and has its hand in a large number of conspiracies
• Oasis, a robotic gymnast assassin who is programmed to be madly in love with Torg and will kill anyone and anything in her path. Her status as a villain (and a robot) is debatable.
• Kusari, an assassin working for Hereti Corp who has a repeated tendency to return after being killed
• Dr. Steve, Oasis' creator and/or trainer, founder of Hereti Corp
• Dr. Crabtree, a scientist of highly questionable ethics, sanity, and bodily composition
• The Evil, an ancient group of evil beings created when Satan came to earth and lost a bet

Some of these characters have been killed at various points, but that generally does not preclude their return through an interesting plot twist or use of time travel.

Traditions

In an early plotline, one of Riff's inventions sent Torg to the "Dimension of Pain". Every Halloween, a different demon is sent to Earth to try to bring him back, failing in amusing and unexpected ways.

Bun-Bun and Santa Claus try to kill each other every Christmas, with continuously escalating violence; the fact that Bun-Bun became the Easter Bunny early on in the strip merely adds spice to the relationship.

Since January 18, 2003, Saturday's comic has been devoted to events "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain", done by guest artist Ian MacDonald of Bruno the Bandit.

Abrams invites other well-known webcomic artists to do the strip for a week once or twice a year, while he goes on vacation. A frequent result is a hilarious parody of the strip itself, other webcomics, other creative works and/or artists, including Scooby Doo and Ayn Rand.