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[Link] Elf Only Inn [Date] 7/17/03 [Comments] 
Just found this one and I am ROFL!!! As usual, it has been going on for a while, and the archive adds a great dimension to the comic. The premise: a cranky guy who likes to roleplay as an elf tries to start a chat room entitled "Elf Only Inn" to attract like minded geeks. However instead his room is visited by users from a variety of other online worlds, and they won't leave, much to his consternation. Eventually they all become an online community of their own. The art on EOI has undergone a couple of transitions. Seizing on the observation that posters to chat rooms use id pictures that rarely change, the artist deliberately made a cut-and-paste comic in which the characters similarly did not change (also taking the opportunity to make fun of cut-and-paste comics). The reason this conceit worked is because the writing was hilarious enough to carry the whole comic. However, the author bit the bullet and has since proven that he can really DRAW! The comic is now incredibly beautiful, and yet the author has done more than just draw it, using the opportunity for motion to further parody the synergy between online fantasy and the mundane "real world". But now the writing has also cranked up several notches, and under each comic the story is continued with further punchlines in chat-room format. Elf Only In is unique in that the real characters in this comic are not the on-line ones that you see drawn, but the fictional people posting behind them, and they continue to grow more and more interesting. Update 7/21/03 Of course, it ends the week I post the review. Archives still good.
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