''Sinfest'' is a long-running American webcomic by Tatsuya Ishida. Updating daily, ''Sinfest'' started as a

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

strip in January 2000. It covers such topics as

American politics The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers. These are: the U.S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a b ...

organized religion Organized religion, also known as institutional religion, is religion in which belief systems and rituals are systematically arranged and formally established. Organized religion is typically characterized by an official doctrine (or dogma), ...

, and

radical feminism Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...

Overview

It follows the characters of Slick, Monique, and pig person Squigley. Supporting characters include religious figures such as God,

the Devil Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood ...

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

, and

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

, as well as personifications of

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. ''Sinfest'' originated as a four-panel comedy strip relying on

dark humor Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

with frequent

pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' ...

references. It evolved into a more serious work covering such issue as

American exceptionalism American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is inherently different from other nations.slut-shaming,

misogyny Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practice ...

, and

street harassment Street harassment is a form of harassment, primarily sexual harassment that consists of unwanted sexualised comments, provocative gestures, honking, wolf-whistlings, indecent exposures, stalking, persistent sexual advances, and touching by str ...

. ''

Wired.com ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' stated that ''Sinfest'' "takes a very irreverent view of

". Ishida uploads a new

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

strip of ''Sinfest'' every day of the week, and publishes a larger, full-color page every Sunday.

Development

In an interview with ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', Ishida stated that he knew he wanted to become a comics author ever since he read a ''

Peanuts ''Peanuts'' is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ''Peanuts'' is among the most popular and inf ...

'' paperback as a child. " mething about the simplicity and solitary nature of the medium appealed to me." Ishida briefly served as

penciller A penciller (or penciler) is an artist who works on the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms, with a focus on the initial pencil illustrations, usually in collaboration with other artists, who provide inks, colors ...

for

Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops know ...

' ''

G.I. Joe Extreme ''G.I. Joe Extreme'' is a line of military-themed toys that was sold in retail from 1995 to 1997. The toys were produced by Kenner following their acquisition by former competitor Hasbro and was intended to succeed the '' G.I. Joe: A Real America ...

'' in the early 1990s. Ishida said that he botched this job, noting that "several

f his F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

pages were so poorly drawn they had to get another guy to redo them entirely". Later on this decade, Ishida attempted to work in

animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

, but this path also did not pan out. In 2000, Ishida taught himself

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...

, put together a

Geocities Yahoo! GeoCities was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest. GeoCities was started in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and ...

web page, and started uploading ''Sinfest'' strips seven days per week. Ishida stated that he managed to sustain this strict schedule during the first seven years purely through "coffee and revenge". Ishida views his older works as an indicator of his emotional state during this period, describing his early ''Sinfest'' strips as "unhinged, totally off the chain". In 2009, Ishida claimed his strip was "still pretty wild, but there's also more warmth, more tenderness", citing 2005 as a turning point. During the

2008 United States Presidential Election The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator fr ...

, ''Sinfest'' became much more politics-heavy. This was in part because of the "collective anxiety" regarding the

Financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...

and the magnitude of the $700 billion emergency bailout proposed by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...

. Ishida stated that he switches between characters and situations in his webcomic "pretty much on a whim", claiming that the longer storylines of his webcomic help to tie it all together. In 2011, Ishida started to produce colored strips as well, giving readers "something extra fun and engaging" on Sundays. Ishida remains rather private and interacts little with his readership. Ishida

self-published Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

three volumes of ''Sinfest'' in print between 2002 and 2005. Two volumes of ''Sinfest'' have been published in print by

. The first of these was released in mid-2009 and reprints the entire first year of the webcomic. The second volume, titled ''Viva la Resistance'', covers the webcomic's run from 2003 to 2004, featuring over 600 pages that were previously uncollected. ''Sinfest'' has also appeared in the Norwegian comic magazine '' Nemi''.

Reception

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the presen ...

'' listed ''Sinfest'' among the best webcomics of 2015. ''Sinfest'' has been nominated for various

Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a ''The New York Times'' column on webco ...

. On December 7th, 2022, Patreon banned Ishida Tatsuya for allegedly promoting "sentiments of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation."

References

{{reflist American webcomics 2000s webcomics Webcomics in print American comedy webcomics Satirical webcomics Short form webcomics Web Cartoonists' Choice Award winners Fantasy webcomics 2000 webcomic debuts Feminist webcomics