even have direct bearing on the storyline. These include: Reader art Mailbag Contests Haiku Create a caption for a cartoon Narbonic T-shirt Give Dave a last name Give MIT student Dave Barker (an enemy of the strip) a new title (following graduation) The Narbonic Coloring Book, featuring Connect the dots (of Mell's gun) Paint by numbers (Helen and some living pink goo) Draw lines between two lists of animals (the second list is entirely "GERBIL") Crossword Fan fiction Down with the artist - a series of protests by the characters against the management of Shaenon. Reception Shaenon Garrity was nominated for "Best New Talent" in the 2001 Friends of Lulu awards. In 2005 she won their "Lulu of the Year." Garrity also won the 2005 Web Cartoonist Choice Award for "Outstanding Writer." Scott McCloud listed her as one of his 20 favorite web cartoonists in July 2004, saying, "Garrity is emerging as one of our best online humor writers." Li'l Mell and Sergio Li'l Mell and Sergio is a prequel of sorts to Narbonic, featuring the grade school exploits of a hyperactive and violent young girl named Melody Kelly, or "Mell", and her friend and classmate Sergio, a brilliant young boy with low self-esteem. It is published on the anthology site Girlamatic, and written by Garrity and drawn by a succession of artists, including Vera Brosgol, Bill Mudron, Andrew Farago, Neil Babra and Garrity herself. There is no evidence or mention of Sergio in Narbonic continuity, despite previous comics of her mentioned, including the comic that Dave and Mel both first appeared in. (Helen's comic is also linked on her site.) However, Artie makes a cameo in human form. https://web.archive.org/web/20091205035512/http://girlamatic.com/mell/2000/01/01/page-seven/ This is explained further in Narbonic: Volume Six's bonus story. References Further reading Boxer, Sarah (August 17, 2005). "Comics Escape a Paper Box, and Electronic Questions Pop Out". The New York Times, p. 1E. Ho, Patricia Jiayi (July 8, 2003). "Online comic artists don't have to play panel games". Alameda Times-Star (Alameda, CA) MacDonald, Heidi (December 19, 2005). "Web Comics: Page Clickers to Page Turners; It's like manga five or six years ago: a cult audience that is increasing steadily". Publishers Weekly'', p. 24. External links and other information Complete series Rerun of series Rerun series with commentary from Shaenon Garrity and fen Former Narbonic web site at Modern Tales 2000 webcomic debuts 2000s webcomics American comedy webcomics Science fiction