Say Yes or Die, Toots.

June 2, 2005 1:21 PM

In the Future, Everyone Will Propose Via the Internet. Sluggy is running ad free today in order to allow some guy to propose. The New Geek Standard -- threaten your fiance-to-be with pistol packing mini-lops on your favorite website.
posted by psychotic_venom (27 comments total)

The idea of two people bonding over Sluggy Freelance is simultaneously both incredibly romantic and incredibly depressing.
posted by kevspace at 1:24 PM on June 2, 2005

Does the typo add to or detract from the romance?
posted by nickmark at 1:30 PM on June 2, 2005

man, i used to read that comic all the time up until about three years ago. does pete abrams even write or draw it anymore? it seems like it's all just terrible filler nowadays.
posted by jimmy at 1:34 PM on June 2, 2005

awwwwwwww

i hope i get proposed to via email someday. that'd be great.
/geekness
posted by ackeber at 1:36 PM on June 2, 2005

Sluggy was such a crucial part of college that I'm surprised that it washed out so quickly. Pete probably only does 200-250 new comics a year, most of which are some long, drawn out, overly complicated storyline which if you miss a week you're completely out of the loop for another 3 months.

It's time to put that puppy to bed unless they bring back the riff-zoe-torg-gwynn tension that makes it all good.
posted by psychotic_venom at 1:51 PM on June 2, 2005

it seems like it's all just terrible filler nowadays.

The comic is pretty terrible now. But the reason it's filler at the moment is that Pete injured his drawing hand, and has to wait for it to heal.
posted by unreason at 2:12 PM on June 2, 2005

Dear quonsar, will you be my widdle missus?
posted by davy at 2:22 PM on June 2, 2005

Fear the Bunny. Ka-Click!
posted by warbaby at 2:36 PM on June 2, 2005

I tried to propose via MeFi once, but jrun put an end to that.
posted by graventy at 2:46 PM on June 2, 2005

Sluggy was such a crucial part of college that I'm surprised that it washed out so quickly. Pete probably only does 200-250 new comics a year, most of which are some long, drawn out, overly complicated storyline which if you miss a week you're completely out of the loop for another 3 months.

Umm, you know that it *does* have archives right? You miss a week, spend 15 minutes reading through the stories you missed! Just because it's not all beer and fart jokes anymore doesn't mean it's all bad.

Although, the amount of filler strips (and the Z-Com ones flew RIGHT over my head) has definitely increased, and made it somewhat irritating to follow on a regular basis. I pretty much only read it because it's in my del.icio.us comics list and I'm too lazy to delete it. Plus, what if Zoe and Torg eventually get together?!?!?
posted by antifuse at 2:54 PM on June 2, 2005

Fear the Bunny. Ka-Click!

oh, i should add that "bun-bun" will always remain in my mind as one of the worst, most annoying characters i've ever seen in a comic strip.
posted by jimmy at 2:57 PM on June 2, 2005

24's kind of young to be getting married.
posted by hammurderer at 3:08 PM on June 2, 2005

24's kind of young to be getting married.

That's just the kind of statement that gives me hope for our generations. You realize that 24 is way out on the "About Time!" end of the scale only a couple of generations ago?
posted by eriko at 3:12 PM on June 2, 2005

I'm gettin' married. And I'm 22.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:14 PM on June 2, 2005

Wow - when I read the jpeg image (the first link) it was all like, corrupted and stuff, and I thought it said that Jamie was 94 years old! I was like, whoah, dude, I hope I can use whatever-the-internet-of-the-future-will-be when I'm that old...

I'm sort of disappointed that she's only 24...
posted by muddgirl at 3:23 PM on June 2, 2005

"For your 24th birthday today"

get out, quick
posted by a thousand writers drunk at the keyboard at 3:43 PM on June 2, 2005

So did she say yes, or what?
posted by danb at 3:46 PM on June 2, 2005

I got married when I was 21.

Of course, I got divorced when I was 26.

But, hey, I'm getting married again and I'm 35.

And best of luck too you, B_B.
posted by papercake at 3:51 PM on June 2, 2005

antifuse: "Umm, you know that it *does* have archives right? You miss a week, spend 15 minutes reading through the stories you missed! Just because it's not all beer and fart jokes anymore doesn't mean it's all bad."

Thank you, antifuse. Reading Sluggy day-by-day is like reading War and Peace one paragraph a day. It's really good, but it's maddeningly difficult to read realtime. Lots of people have become turned off to it because of this.
posted by Plutor at 5:25 PM on June 2, 2005

awwwwwwww

i hope i get proposed to via email someday. that'd be great.

Email? Perhaps.

Front page of a Web site that has enough traffic to host ads? No thanks. Kinda tacky and impersonal in my book.

With the former, no harm except to the parties involved.

With the latter, you get jackasses like myself who think that 24 *is* definitely too young to get married and make snide comments like "kinda tacky and impersonal in my book."
posted by mrgrimm at 5:35 PM on June 2, 2005

About twenty weeks into Kitten II is when Sluggy became sadly unreadable for me, and really if he'd never done another strip after Fire and Rain that would've been okay too.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 5:37 PM on June 2, 2005

hammurderer, eriko: It all depends. I got married at 25. I was the youngest bride in 3 generations of my family. Mr R was also 25. He was the one of the oldest (first-time) groom in the recorded history of his family (which goes back 5+ generations). (That was 16 years ago, so it looks like we might be in it for the long haul....)
posted by jlkr at 7:18 PM on June 2, 2005

i hope i get proposed to via email someday. that'd be great.

Well, I hope you give a better response that I got when I tried this.
posted by dg at 8:33 PM on June 2, 2005

She said No. Poor guy :(
posted by renesisx at 10:32 AM on June 3, 2005

Ouch. Sorry, dg. (I'm guessing you're not this Bryan, though).

She said No. Poor guy :(

Based on his letter, I'm not surprised. It smelled of desperation. Guys at 24 fall too easily in love. It's a good thing girls have gotten smarter.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:43 AM on June 3, 2005

You know people have tried it at restaurants, on boats, when the sun rises over the ocean, when the sun sets over the ocean, on bended knee, by hiding the ring in a dessert, or just plain out asking. So, why not on the net?


The following story has a relevant point, but it's a personal story. You are free to scroll down.

Over five years ago I was dating a woman I had decided was "the one." I thought of hundreds of ways to propose. Then I thought of the realistic ones. I wanted my proposal to be unusual and that reflected us.

One of our commonalties was that the Internet was the place where we both worked. So I woke up early one morning and got everything ready. When she awoke she asked to use my PC while I got ready for work. (Aside to daughter in college: do not have sex before marriage. Yes, I understand. OK, then not without a full police check and letting your father meet the man first for a little chat. Thanks.)

Where was I? Yes, she wanted to use the PC to check her favorite newsgroups. It was always her "morning paper." As she read she noticed one post marked off topic. Without mentioning her by name the poster knew her nickname, her habits, her heart, her dreams, her plans for the future. After expressing much love, dreams, and examples of their close-ties the unnamed poster finally asked her to marry him. She re-read the last line, called out and stood up to find me standing behind her -- asking if the answer was "yes."

It was. We did. And we still are.

And yes, a couple of the posters on the newsgroup didn't like the off-topic post. Especially since it didn't include a recipe or a joke they had learned from their seven year-old niece. Everyone else liked it. Or ignored it.

I do hope the future won't have everyone proposing marriage through the Internet, but it works every now and then.
posted by ?! at 8:50 PM on June 3, 2005

Man... I feel bad for posting it since she said no! BAH.
posted by psychotic_venom at 10:38 AM on June 7, 2005