On Friday November 1, the online comic strip "General Protection Fault" officially concluded with it's final strip going up. This brings to an end one of the longest-running online comic strips that was updated regularly. Cartoonist Jeff Darlington would say a few words.
And that's a wrap, folks. As of last Friday's update (November 1, 2024),
the main GPF Archive is finally complete. I hope you enjoyed the
strip's "big finale" ... First and foremost, I'd like to thank all of you who have taken this
journey with me over the past quarter century. Whether you started
reading from the beginning or you only just recently discovered it, it
has been an immense and indescribable joy to have you read my little
story and look at my random scribbles. I've heard from a great many of
you over the past few months about how much GPF has meant to you, and
your kind words have warmed this old cartoonist's heart. While it's
obvious GPF wouldn't exist without me creating, writing, and drawing it,
it's no stretch of the imagination to say that it wouldn't exist
without you reading it. It's been your encouragement and
engagement over the years that kept me going, and I thank you all from
the bottom of my heart.
I would do a review of the comic a few years ago as part of
a larger story on longtime running online comics. It started of as the misadventures of several computer geeks,two sapient slime molds, and their employer at the small business that bears the comic's name, with stories about life at the workplace and on computers doing
things like coding and other things such as science-fiction conventions,
enduring alien abductions, taking a ride on a time machine, and more. There are also occasional dream sequences such as "Harry Barker and the
Napier's Bones" that parody popular stories. Over time, the skills
of one go beyond programing and he starts building things that over time help
set the stage for some adventures for the characters. However, over time
they also attract the attention of secret agents, James Bondish
villains, aliens, and a few characters not of this universe.
Four times in the course of the story are major plotlines that take
months to resolve, "Surreptitious Machinations," "To Thyne Own Self," "Scylla and Charybdis," and "The Enthropy War." Following the end of each, the characters
have to deal with some big changes in their lives. The story ends with the main characters, save one, returning to normal lives following their big adventures, looking forward to "just another quiet day at the office."
Darlington stated that now that the comic was done, he planned to take some time off, and then finish a side-comic, "Surreptitious Machinations 2," which describes what happened to some secondary characters after the comic's first major plotline story. Then the comic itself will go into reruns. Darlington also stated plans to write some novels. But this may not be all. There were a few hints in the last strips that there may be further adventures of some of the characters.
And so ends one of the longest-running online comics, coming to an end some thought odd but was satisfying.
Bixyl Shuftan
