Comic of the Week - 17th November 2008: Angst Technology
Welcome to this, our fifth Comic of the Week. This week, we look at a long-standing staple of geeky and tech humour: Angst Technology, by Barry T. Smith.
So, what’s it about?
Angst Technology follows the adventures of the staff at a newly-started games production company of the same name, and the various things things that happen to them.
The core staff are:
- Dante, the lead programmer - middle-aged geek with a coffee addiction.
- Yaz, lead artist - young, hip, far less of a ladies’ man than he thinks he is, and has a thing about designing characters that don’t wear trousers.
- Marc, lead tech support - the naive, kind soul that helps people, and plays the perfect straight man for Yaz.
- Hugh, the boss - who has a habit of misinterpreting the meaning of everything said to him.
- Kit, the HR manager - a no-nonsense but not uncaring woman who helps hold it all together.
- Webmonkey, website designer - who is actually a monkey.
- The IT Ninjas, internal IT support - very little is known about them, for they are ninjas.
What’s the appeal?
Anyone who has ever worked in an office will be able to relate to the characters - every office seems to have them, so it has that recognisability without being so blatant as Dilbert is for office setting.
Although the appeal will mostly be to people with a technical or gaming background, the humour is broad enough to appeal to everyone who has been in the office and knows that there are people out there like that - the office guru who knows everything and is addicted to coffee with the consistency of tar, the young hip ‘dude’ who thinks he’s a stud with the ladies but actually repulses them with his attitude, the young and naive wanting-to-help nice guy who gets used, and so on.
What makes Angst Technology work though is that it is situational comedy at its finest. Where else would you have a computer game called ‘Cowmandos’?
What about its history, and its future?
Well, when it started in 2000, it ran daily, but over time this gradually cut back through various reasons and stopped entirely in 2005.
But that doesn’t stop its influence there; one of Angst Technology’s 2001 storylines had the gang fight it out at a paintball field, to gain experience of first person shooting. The same field turned into its own comic strip - Weak-end Warriors - a few months later.
And more recently, Barry’s current strip - InkTank - is running a storyline where Dante met InkTank in a Starbucks branch, and now InkTank is going for an interview at Angst Technology, proving that Angst Technology is far from being truly gone or forgotten.
It doesn’t seem that things will ever focus completely on Angst Technology again, though, instead InkTank may take on elements from Angst Technology without becoming fully Angst Technology.
Closing thoughts?
A couple of strips from Angst Technology have previously been my desktop picture because they echo that perfectly the situation with me - this strip in particular rings very close to my heart.
It’s well worth putting aside the time to read Angst Technology since it offers a different view on both the gaming industry and office life to other comics, without really needing deep knowledge of either.
Great! Where next?
- Website: http://www.inktank.com/archives/AT/archive.cfm
- Updates: On hiatus
- Created by: Barry T. Smith
- My favourite line: “You have dishonored me for too long. Even though for every one of you I strike down, another two may take his place… …I will kill you all!” [referring to debugging] — Dante