in an attempt to understand its evolution from dude bro comic to terf Q horror vacui screed, i am reading the entire 20 year run of sinfest right now and you know what it's not very good

so this sort of thing was pretty par for the course in 2000 (South Park was just then making racism COOL again after all) but still kinda surprised to see so much. i only remembered these early strips being all 'how to draw kanji' not THIS

these early strips about slick starting a mens rights militia are kinda ironic considering tatsuya's later storylines with his feminist anti-porn vigilante group The Sisterhood

finished the first year. It's mostly very typical of its time dude bro humor, which was sort of having a moment back then. A lot of that "haha it's a joke but also it's not a joke" kinda machismo that's also led to us having shit like bacon flavored soap

Ok sinfest year 2 GO

returning to the "joke but not a joke" machismo well a lot in these early strips. pretty standard stuff for 2001.

Seymour the god botherer is showing up more for some pretty gentle ribbing of religion. "christians are well intentioned but can be annoying" is as critical as sinfest ever got, but that was enough to convince most readers this strip had an overtly liberal viewpoint back then

this was in the days of South Park, after all, and that show's goofing on religion made most liberals 100% believe it was on their side.

never thought about this, but how old is monique supposed to be? i always assumed she was an adult and slick was... not really a kid but some sort of metaphorical man baby? But the size of monique's big charlie brown head is making me see her as like 14 or something here

oh shit!!! a pop up video joke!!! kids today won't know this, but this was QUITE the cultural phenonemon in 2001

you can really see why sinfest made such a splash. Crisp clean artwork, newspaper-ready 4-panel format & consistent daily update schedule - Sinfest had an aura of professionalism that most other circa 2001 webcomics, which were mostly made by high school kids, did not

again a very standard 2001 joke, but in light of Tatsuya's current terf mindset... it hits different

again, very much a 2001 dude bro joke but, probably because hindsight is 20/20, feels like you can plot a straight line from 2001 dude bro to "trans women are globalist plot to steal our vital essences" terf brain

Oh! this mens rights militia storyline is recurring apparently. this is clearly a goof so probably shouldn't read too much into it, but damn its really weird to read this knowing the future to come

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

credit where it's due, probably among the more tasteful webcomic reactions to 9/11

ok that was sinfest year 2. p standard webcomic of its time. Year 2 cut down on the racism, so hey good on him. very clear that tatsuya had aspirations of syndication, but realistically the mild cheesecake & toothless god goofin was probably still too spicy for that to happen

2002, baby!!!!!!

hahah i like this one because clearly what the jokes means is "i just need any girl who's down to clown" but it reads way different now. "the sexiest thing, you see, is free agency "

ok i think it's finding its stride, between these strips and the pimp ninja theater vignettes, there's some laughs in 2003

so sinfest year 3. actually not too bad. still pretty standard early 00s dude bro webcomic.

in year 4, slick gets estrogen poisoned

In 2003, we invaded iraq and sinfest was unable to ignore the geopolitical reality of the day

ok about once a year, tatsuya returns to this matriarchy dimension storyline. he's really getting into the matrix analogies with this one (feel like the matrix will come up A LOT in the future )

the matriarchy agent got bimbofied! it's playing out kind of like the later fembot storyline except backwards and also, i assume, ironically

2004, baby!!!!!! Gettin' political!!!!!!!!!

ummmmm

"girl moniques and boy moniques"

first donald trump reference

The Bush years

tatsuya is among the many anti-Iraq War "BUSHitler" sorts who have since absolutely lost their minds and become Q/MAGA chuds but it's always weird to see

Not much here, but you can see the roots of tatsuya's famous "walking around and sadly looking at this debauched world" bit that now happens every second strip. you can actually parse what's happening here tho, this was before he went full ben garrison

seems tatsuya had his head screwed on relatively alright during the Bush years, it really makes his descent into Q shit, terf lunacy & artistic incoherence all the sadder. jeez.

it's 2005 now so the furry mockery is right on schedule. this is p innocuous tho, just amusing to see

Oo hoo hoo! time for the annual matriarchy storyline! not much here, it's p much a rehash of the earlier ones. the joke's kinda getting old but then readers would have had a full year to forget the previous iteration

holy shit hahah

WHOA, what did you say there??????

2005 is kind of a turning point in the sinfest cosmos. the "will they/won't they" dymanic of slick & monique finally comes to fruition, percy & pooch have a cute sentimental storyline about getting lost, and everyone has an existential crisis when the devil briefly retires

2006 starts with Squigley accidentally ruining things bw Slick & monique and the devil swooping in to take advantage. Seems like after 5 yrs tatsuya was feeling cramped by the gag-a-day format, wanted to really get some drama and pathos going. also slick's new haircut

in 2006, tatsuya was not yet a swerf. still very pro porn at this point in his development

hmm. ever since his date w/monique was aborted, slick's reverted back to his old hair and outfit. also he's no once again talking about being a pimp. i guess tatsuya didn't like the new direction after all. back to the classics.

ah july 2006 tatsuya starts doing color sunday comics, another way he's telegraphing his hopes to one day be in the newspaper

tatsuya's website used to include a running tally of how many times Sinfest had been rejected by syndicates, something that he said “affirmed his status as an indie outsider rebel.” probably rejected b/c it was, let's face it, too cheeky & cheesecakey for the funny pages

standard "men are pigs" comedy here but possibly hints of the big feminist turn to come

first appearance by a proto-fembot here

ok that's it for 2006!! on that eggy note, i'll start next time with 2007

Ok!! Sinfest 2007!! Let's gooooooo

just realized that percival & pooch (whom I've p much completely ignored up til now cuz they're p innocuous) are supposed to be owned by Tatsuya? kind of a "hi i'm cartoonist jon arbuckle and this is my cat garfield" situation

Lil' Evil here is a character whose whole bit is that he wants everyone to think he's scary & evil but no one takes him seriously, so i think this is supposed to be commentary on the rampant islamophobia of the Bush years. I'm not sure this really works.

I can at least kinda parse out an intended meaning, tho. Tatsuya is still using words at this point, so you still have a chance of deciphering his message. at this point, he hasn't turned entirely to the weird silent dream tableaus that characterize modern sinfest

The Secret Sisterhood of Spooky Shit, a bridge story between The Matriarchy and the Sisterhood. (this one also includes a quick Matrix reference, since that's one of Tatsuya's ironically enduring obessions)

The first appearance of bad ass little girls on big wheels, later to be a recurring motif in the sinfest terf years

i really hate to bring up the "rotten egg" stereotype about transphobes but that tatsuya keeps doing stuff like this

well. i guess it's what it says on the tin

i just keep finding these

ok so um

hmm

Starting 2008 with the first appearance of Uncle Sam pimp! Does NWO stand for 'new world order' here? huh.

this joke is amusing enough, but it's just so weird to look back in time at an old election. 2008 huh? what a concept

The 2008 concept of what the dystopian future was gonna look like, very Bush world. We thought it would be a big surveillance state theocracy, not the blood-and-soil nazi casino world we got with trump

another drag king monique strip, hmm

Squigley's had a running storyline dealing with his porn addiction. Sinfest still generally seems porn tolerant at this point but perhaps shades of things to come

monique dragg kinging it up again with bonus matrix ref!!

squigley's story getting a little dark now

ok, genuinely, this is the funniest sinfest comic in the entire run so far

now here a comic that keeps getting funnier!!

Modern sinfest is p pro-cop/anti-protester (or at best it 'both sides' that shit). Bush era sinfest was a lot more sympathetic to talking back to The Man

whole lotta gender essentialism happenin in here lol

Squigley cross dressing here as sarah palin. hm.

Seymour being sexually obsessed with cross dressing squigley is a running gag now, it seems. again, a very typical carry on style gag but very weird to see it from tatsuya

So. uh. this comic is apparently about the wall street bail out (ie "socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us"). the key is you gotta read the fine print under the flag in panel 3

He's still using the same metaphor here, but it's getting a little strained. If you don't pay attention to the established lore, this doesn't make any sense. Feel like the brain worms are starting to manifest

Communism is when Capitalism (?????)

damn!!! makes you think!!!!

closing out 2008 with some not incorrect assessments of the american empire, credit to our boy here

tatsuya really believed in obama. he really believed in the hope and change. god. wonder how he's gonna deal with the years to come.

tatsuya is ahead of the game here. this is the "avengers assemble" meme before the "avengers assemble" meme

now this is the sinfest we remember

the sunday comics are becoming more and more convoluted w a real sustained use of internal symbology that really requires you to really keep track of shit. But this? if you can interpret this, please enlighten me

oh COME ON!!! tatsuya is just playing with me at this point

ok that's all i can take for tonight. tune in next time for 2009!

ok! Sinfest 2009! Before i start, a quick look at what we've learned so far. I've been cherrypicking the weirdest & most oddball examples, but in general sinfest has been fairly solid up to this point. It's not my preference but it's got some decent laughs and it flows alright

there's been some development with the slick/monique dynamic. the dude bro humor is, credit where it's due, a little more nuanced than a lot of what you got at the time

slick's chauvanism is p obviously supposed to be laughable & monique, while used for some "bitches be crazy" jokes, also gets to be a viewpoint character whose problems aren't always readily dismissed as irrelevant woman whining. you can almost see tatsuya's feminist turn coming

if i was reading these strips without knowledge of what was to come, tho, i still wouldn't predict the terf turn yet. most of the gender essentialist shit in early sinfest is pretty much par for the course in the mid 00s, so i don't think it's all that telling

the worst parts of sinfest so far are the racial jokes, but again... kind of to be expect in the long long ago of the early 00s. and that aspect is definitely fading by the mid 00s

the most interesting development is that sinfest becomes way more political in the later Bush years & by the 2008 election. Tatsuya's political strips rely more and more on classic political cartoon type anthropomorphic metaphors -- the statue of liberty, uncle sam, etc

tatsuya seems committed to making his metaphors have some sort of continuity -- like uncle sam & statue of liberty being a married couple -- which sometimes makes the message of a strip get a little muddled.

his need to jam in popular film references like the dark knight & matrix add to that confusion. it's not word salad yet but the tendency is there

not surprisingly for a comic called sinfest, religion is the biggest theme. buddah & the dragon seem like an attempt to make it feel like the comic is addressed issues of universal spirituality, but it's very clear that tatsuya has a christian worldview

or at least he's got that american thing where you absorb christianity as background radiation and you just sort of see all other religions as one-to-one analogues

there's multiple arcs about slick or squigley trying to "reform" and lead a moral life, reforming always being framed as abstinence, resisting the temptations of booze, junk food and especially porn

it is interesting that so far sinfest has been fairly porn positive (it's often presented as liberating and honest) so it's... odd that so many strips also focus on slick or squigley trying to give it up.

some people have suggested these arcs are autobiographical, who knows. tatsuya may be working through some guilt that he at first tried to dismiss by being porn positive but which he eventually squared with his feminism by becoming a swerf.

ok sinfest 2009! we're seeing more & more of the 2 devil girls. by now, monique is empowered because she's a slut on her own terms

interesting little moment here where its implied that this lesbian devil girl wasn't always a lesbian devil girl

Jesus makes the lesbian devil girls pure

Whoaaa now THIS feels significant. the devil has some trouble recorrupting the one devil girl after Jesus's touch. this is definitely shades of the devil's fembot factory arc to come

oh boy. um. yeah. this is a thing.

ok um. huh. interesting. ok kind of a good point here. i think? i really think tatsuya had such genuine faith in obama at the start.

there's now a running arc that the love of a good boy has "uncorrupted" the lesbian bikini devil girl into a good straight modest devil girl. this feels like a sea change

"fyoosh" ok i think this isn't some rando devil girl, this is fuchsia, the devil girl who ends up in a lesbian relationship with monique right before the full terf splosion.

ok fuchsia's disillusionment with evil is actually kind of an interesting storyline, tbh. i think i'm getting invested

he's bringing back mascnique way too often to just be coincidence

"it's unfair that girls can do androgyny and boys can't" hmmm. hmmmmmm.

wait, WHAT

haha

you know what? what tatsuya was on, he was ON

another abstinence storyline. this one is about monique going vegan, but it's hitting all the same beats as the squigley & slick porn abstinence storylines. you see, that's because women view food the way men view sex. eh? eh? eh?

the general abstinence message is really getting loud in 2009

slick goes to hell and returns with an evil laptop. tatsuya may be reassessing his rosy view of the internet by this point

foreshadowing

"clothing the devil whores" is a running thing at this point

modest dress is the first step to being fully human, but the devil returns to turn them into devil sluts again

tatsuya mines a week's worth of gay panic strips from slick eating a hot dog

there's suddenly a lot of strips about slick worrying that various innocuous things, like liking white bread, make him racist. this strip has something to say about appropriation

UM

fuchsia is trying to pass as human but she has a problem with tucking

fuchsia lashes out at a "real" girl because she wants what she doesn't have. also, over a year after her first appearance, fuchia is finally named for the first time. she's been seen! look at the euphoria!

fuchia's attempts to become a real girl are the most compelling things to happen in sinfest's run. has this other devil girl been named yet? i haven't noticed if so

goddamn, 2009 going out hard