Narbonic
| Narbonic | |
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Narbonic Vol. 1
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| Author(s) | Shaenon K. Garrity |
| Website | http://www.narbonic.com/ |
| Current status / schedule | Finished |
| Launch date | 2000-07-31 |
| End date | 2006-12-31 |
| Genre(s) | Comedy, Science Fiction |
Narbonic is a webcomic written and drawn by Shaenon K. Garrity. The storylines center on the misadventures of the staff of the fictional Narbonic Labs, which is the domain of mad scientist Helen Narbon. The strip started on July 31, 2000, and finished on December 31, 2006. On January 1, 2007, Garrity launched the "Director's Cut", an "annotated replay" of Narbonic. Narbonic became part of the subscription-based Modern Tales website for several years but moved in July 2006 to Webcomics Nation where it is back to being a free-to-read webcomic. The comic is also a member of The Nice comics collective.
Narbonic is drawn entirely by hand and presented in the style of the traditional American four-panel newspaper strip. It centers upon the adventures of computer programmer Dave Davenport, superintelligent gerbil RT-5478 (or "Artie"), evil intern Mell W. Kelly, and mad geneticist Helen Beta Narbon. While the strip is essentially an ensemble piece, with storylines focusing on major and minor characters alike, Dave occupies the role of protagonist more often than any other character.
As one of the few characters with a semblance of normality, the blandly cynical Dave Davenport has traditionally provided a convenient source of identification and emotional connection for the audience. In this strip's world, however, such a person is a natural target for misfortune. As a result, Dave suffers more calamity than any of the other characters, having been killed, sent to Hell, shot to the Moon, transported helplessly through time, sent on a road trip with dozens of identical android fugitives, and experimented upon without his consent countless times.
The strip uses the Mad Scientist trope as its premise, hearkening back to Sappo by Elzie Segar and the inventions of Rube Goldberg in theme. "Mad scientist" is a job description, and henchmen are unionized. The insane, pseudoscientific inventions and experiments of Helen Narbon and her nemesis and romantic crush, Professor Lupin Madblood, become the springboards for plotlines as the Narbonics Labs staff tries to deal with their consequences. These range from a revolution fomented by insane gerbils to Helen's mother murdering Dave with one of Helen's own death rays to a battle with the legions of Hell during a sleepover.
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