Sluggy Crossover Highlights PartiallyClips “Guest Art” Experiment

You may have noticed that clip-art comic strip PartiallyClips has been experimenting with guest art from other webcomics creators for more than two months now. The latest entry takes it further, with an actual crossover appearance by main characters from Sluggy Freelance. Pete Abrams supplied the art, drawn during the webcomics panel at UberCon, and Rob Balder wrote the dialogue for Pete’s characters Torg and Riff.

Since Labor Day, Balder has had guest art instead of the regular, royalty-free commercial clip art he has used for most of the strip’s four-year history. So far, guest contributors to PartiallyClips have included Chris Impink of Fragile Gravity, Bill Holbrook of Kevin & Kell, Phil Kahn of Hoojie Crew, Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary, Chris Battey of Scatterplot (twice), Shannon Henry of Blue Crash Kit, Ben Thompson of Townies, Dave Cheung of Chugworth Academy, and non-webcomics artists R. Craig Enslin and Kenji Watanabe.

Balder has even drawn the art himself once. Balder confirmed to me that he has more guest art on tap, including Rich Burlew of Order of the Stick, Rachael Richardson of Comrade Geek, Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Jeff Darlington of General Protection Fault, and Shawn Handyside of Staccato.

It’s an interesting experiment for a strip that has relied on the juxtaposition of words and nondescript clip art to rely on guest art. Balder says he has no plans to end the experiment any time soon, and would be happy to hear from other artists who would like to participate.

Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.