Talk:Sluggy Freelance

Zoë's ancestry

Zoë is half-Korean? Where do we find this out?

When we meet her parents in this strip and several strips thereafter. To quote Pete through his mouthpiece Trillian (and this comes from the Defenders of the Nifty compedium, so if you have an account for that you can read it yourself there under 2001):

From the very beginning, Pete always intended for Zoë to be half-Asian, probably half-Korean and half-Cuban. He got the idea for that from a friend who was half-Korean and half-Cuban and had really interesting features. He kept her exact ethnicity undefined for a long time to give him a little extra writing flexibility in case he wanted to work in a Japanese samurai story or cheesy kung-fu parody based off Zoë's background. Unfortunately, the half-Korean half-Cuban idea went by the wayside because in the early days of Sluggy, Pete’s computer monitor was not calibrated correctly. This made him unaware of the fact that in the color Sundays, Zoë, who was supposed to be part Asian, looked very Caucasian, and Torg was pink as a pig! The only way Zoë could be half-Korean would be if her father was a Viking. So, when he brought her family into the strip, he made her mom Korean and her father very, very white to explain both her features and her coloring. (Pete: And fun was had by all!) -- Compendium entry for Sunday September 2, 2001 comic

Tyler 18:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Added link to the system.--65.27.238.201 20:30, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Character page?

I was thinking we should move the massive character list to its own page, and list only very short descriptions for the main characters (Torg, Riff, Zoe, Bun-Bun, Kiki, Aylee, Gwenn). nifboy 21:27, 8 Mar 2005

Storyline section

It's a bit big, isn't it? Especially as the 'characters' section has just been shuffled off to its own page. Might it not be better to do the same with this new section? Hig Hertenfleurst 19:57, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I honestly don't know. It could probably use a trim if it stays (possibly by sorting them into their major plotlines and cutting the sidestories), but I haven't seen any precedent for shipping plot summaries to their own pages. nifboy 19:22, 13 Mar 2005 (EST)

Is it important to have plot summeries at all? If someone wants to know the details of the plot, they'll presumably just go read sluggy... If the summeries stay, I think they should be shortened quite a lot. Oracleoftruth 23:23, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

What's the point in removing it? It gives new readers background if they don't want to spend hours (or days) reading every past comic. Not everyone does. - Tεxτurε 23:28, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Support moving the storyline sections to their own page. Sluggy Freelance is a noteworthy enough webcomic to merit a pretty in-depth plot summary (if anything is), but having it on the main page is a completely bad idea that greatly lowers the encyclopedicness and usefulness of the Sluggy Freelance page. Give it its own page and make it a more interesting read by scattering panels throughout it to illustrate various parts of the plot, just as was done with Characters of Sluggy Freelance to illustrate the characters. -Silence 09:35, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Still no action? OK, I'll do it myself. But first, I want to know which of the following three options is the way we should go with this:

• 1) Leave the organized by year (and add months and more detail, perhaps?), but move to a new page. Storyline of Sluggy Freelance?
• 2) Change the storyline section to being organized by storyline and perhaps book; we could even have one page for each collection of Sluggy Freelance, in the style of the The Sandman (DC Comics Modern Age) collections. Would work with the storylines as subsections, too, since no storyline is cut off by the end of a book. Sluggy Freelance: Is It Not Nifty, etc.?
• 3) Detailed plot summaries of a popular webcomic are unencyclopedic. Trim the section in Sluggy Freelance down severely, but don't bother transferring the information to any other page.
• 4) Other? -Silence 01:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, so apparently nothing's been done about this after how many months. I would suggest as a possible course of action what's been done on the Bob and George page. Namely, really short summaries of events on the main page (shorter than here), seperated by years, with longer summaries on a Storyline of Sluggy Freelance page. —Matthew0028 09:41, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I concur with the above comment. I think the storyline should be moved to its own page, with events separated by book order, and perhaps further by chapters. Meanwhile, we keep a brief section on this page, with events separated by years or (as the strip continues to get older) groups of years. Whatever happens, something definitely needs to be done about it soon.-Highway99 02:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Sahsa Riff's boyfriend?

Um... shouldn't Sasha be Riff's 'girlfriend', because currently, she's listed as his 'boyfriend'. Just thought I'd point that out.

• Um, you realize that this is a wiki, right? And that means you can, you know, edit stuff?--59.121.205.91 04:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Bun-bun's position

Shouldn't Bun-bun be under the bad guys? He's a psychpath, after all... he's just not bothered about killing the main cast (although he was during "On the Run"). The only times he's ever done anything good are when he's been coerced (often via baywatch, once by the Black Op Elves for a James Bond parody) or by accident (as in the end of The Bug, The Witch and The Robot). This also permits placing the holidays under the good guys (which is where most of them belong, although probably not Basphomy).

Nah. Bun-bun is still part of the "main cast" (read: good guys) regardless of his moral standing or relation with the holidays. Nifboy 11:28, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Bad guys = antagonists. Good guys = protagonists. Bun-bun is clearly a protagonist. (And currently a good Bun-bun, right? The nasty Bun-bun is currently dead.) - Tεxτurε 23:30, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Puns

One of the things Sluggy is infamous for is its terrible puns, inserted at every oppertunity... Perhaps these should get some mention?

Eh? I know Pete likes to drop a pun or two dozen at times but I wouldn't call him "infamous" for it. Nifboy 03:38, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

No, but the Pun Demon might get a mention on the characters page. (for those who don't know, the pun demon is a little stick figure Pete tends to draw in the background from time to time. An easter egg of sorts) ~Nec

Pic

Can we get any pic? There is fanart, I am sure we can get something for Wiki. Perhaps some more prominent visitor to Sluggy forums can even ask for an official piece of art to use on Wiki? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:43, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Z-Com Game

What is the game seen in the Z-Com strips in 2005? // X-Com

Character section, redux

The character descriptions on the main page are, I think, a bit too short to give any real information on the characters, and why they're important. I propose doing something similar to what's been done on the Bob and George page, and have basic information on the characters (briefly, but more than currently exists), and have the more detailed information on the second page (as you are now doing). —Matthew0028 09:48, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Broadman & Midget specific parodies?

Are the radio show co-hosts Broadman & Midget parodies of anyone in specific, the way Dr. Lorna parodies Dr. Laura? I don't think their name is similar enough to Rush Limbaugh's for it to be him. --Robotech_Master 04:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The first radio duo that came to mind was Opie and Anthony, although the setup is now cliche enough that it could simply be a parody of the format. Nifboy 21:37, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Too much material

This article needs to lose some weight. Are there sections that are particularly good right now, that the rest of the article should be brought to that level? - brenneman ^{L} 05:28, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Recent Storyline Title

Does anyone here think that the "next" storyline should be labeled the "recent" storyline and should be called "Pheonix Rising" and not "Slice of Evil"?

Spoiler Warning

Hey I noticed that the spoiler warning here is in the storyline section. After looking at Wikipedia: Spoiler_warning I'm going to remove it from that section. If you have any objections reply below or let me know on my talk page. Thanks! Jussen 20:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary

The section labelled "Storyline" is a massive 6,000 word slab of text giving a blow-by-blow account of events in the strip. As such it's a substantial derived work and, besides being pretty useless in getting an overview of the strip and its characters, poses copyright problems (6,000 words without transformative merits is difficult to pass off as "fair use"). I'm taking the unusual step of entirely removing this huge piece of text, mainly because of the copyright concerns (otherwise I'd just tag it for a rewrite). --Tony Sidaway 10:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It definitely comes to mind that there are far more useful ways this could be fixed; certainly not in the same laundry-list method as you seem to have removed a good dozen similar sections just today. I'm going to put it back in as wiped-out text for the purpose of trimming it down. Copyright concerns are debatable, and it is a debate that can be extended to almost every Wiki concerning a lengthy work of fiction. And as you so correctly put it, the way you just went about this is "unusual". --Human.v2.0 (talk) 18:42, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hiding it doesn't resolve the copyright problem (it's still copied to somebody's computer every time they look at the article, even if they don't see it on the screen). On the other hand, deleting it while retaining it in the history enables editors to work on it (they just look at an older revision and copy-edit material from that to the new revision). While I agree that copyright matters may be "debateable", the copyright status of a 6,000 word derived work is not debateable. --Tony Sidaway 19:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As the guy who started that mess three years ago, I'm now of the opinion that even the original version was obscenely long, and it's only gotten longer since. Even discounting the copyright concerns, it's not how to write an article. Nifboy (talk) 02:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that I disagree with the assertion that the plotline section was a mess, but I think the baby just went out with the bathwater, because right now anybody who's unfamiliar with the strip isn't going to be able to figure out what the strip is about or what happens in it by reading this article. I'm not saying that the section should be restored, but some kind of a summary of the whole thing -- say, a paragraph or two -- would be really welcome. (You can get an idea of it by reading through the characters, but that's a separate article -- right now, the Sluggy Freelance article doesn't really explain Sluggy Freelance. If anything, the whole thing is pretty confusing.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Parodies

Where does the line lie between simple observation and original research? I'll grant that some of the reverted items require more of a stretch than others, but many of them are flat-out parodies. I'd like a reasoning for how exactly this is being considered original research. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 01:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't have called it original research, but I would call it overly detailed: It's undoubtedly an incomplete list (the X-files are missing, for example), and listing them all would be an exercise in excessive archive-linking. It would be enough to name a few key examples in prose. Nifboy (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

That ia my thinking; it wouls be nuts to try and detail all of them, but some of them certainly should be mentioned in a less list-like fashion. --Human.v2.0 (talk) 17:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Page Down?

Any info about the Sluggy page being down? It's currently a GoDaddy.com parked page. --zandperl (talk) 21:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

They were doing a server upgrade yesterday, so I assume it is related to that. It'll be back soon. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Comic Strip Name

Why is the comic named "Sluggy Feelance?" I couldn't find a reason, but there must be one somewhere. It seems like something that should be included in the article, as it is not obvious at all. 24.196.146.119 (talk) 04:21, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I've never seen any explanation, but a few filler strips refer to it being a mystery to at least almost everyone; I assume it is unexplained. Ville V. Kokko (talk) 10:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment on articles for individual television episodes and characters

A request for comments has been started that could affect the inclusion or exclusion of episode and character, as well as other fiction articles. Please visit the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#Final_adoption_as_a_guideline. Ikip (talk) 11:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Sluggy

Currently this redirects here, but what about mention of Wiktionary? Tyciol (talk) 08:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Get Nifty merger.

On March 27, 2010 I merged the article Get Nifty into this one. I did so on the principle of being BOLD and on the basis on the discussion at the article's AFD. This discussion is available at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Get Nifty.

The article had mostly been written by User:Soaringdragon42, but including edits from User:That Guy, From That Show!, User:MarshBot, User:SmackBot, User:Craw-daddy and User:DimaG. Acebulf (talk) 18:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Logo comic.gif Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Logo comic.gif, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 25 November 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 00:47, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose to merge Characters of Sluggy Freelance into Sluggy Freelance. The current article 'Characters of Sluggy Freelance' has no independent citations at all. It does not appear to me that the subject "the characters of Sluggy Freelance" is notable in itself for an entire article. The article 'Sluggy Freelance' is not unduly long, and I don't think adding sourceable material on its characters would make the article too long.

Pinging people who edited either article in the last year, created either article, or are power users in the Webcomics Work Group: @DocWatson42, Linguistical, Not a very active user, DragonflySixtyseven, Crywalt, Nikkimaria, Jaison Lee, Nifboy, JakeyPotter, and MJL: HenryCrun15 (talk) 00:25, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I 100% approve. DS (talk) 00:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Support. I just checked the size of the articles, which come to 103,664 bytes (101 KiB) combined, and was concerned that the result would be too big (this is the first time I've dealt with the subject of article size), but the Donald Trump article is currently 500,790 bytes, so that does not seem to be a problem. <checks> Here's the relevant article: Wikipedia:Article size. Given the combined size and the relevant importance of the topic (fairly low), I too am in favor of combining them. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:35, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with merging them. I rarely get involved in editorial decisions like this (usually I'm just fixing grammar and spelling errors) but since you asked, I'll chime in. I'm often somewhat annoyed to find the information I want is off in another entry instead of with the main subject. I guess it makes sense in some cases where the article might get too long, but in this case it clearly isn't. So go for it! Crywalt (talk) 01:33, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, so after a week consensus is unanimous, so I'll go ahead and make the merger. HenryCrun15 (talk) 20:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Riff's bio-mom

[Riff's] biological mother was revealed early in the strip to be Dr. Lorna

"biological" implies that Riff also has an adoptive mother, or some such. Would anything be lost by removing that word? —Tamfang (talk) 01:45, 20 June 2023 (UTC)