Angst Technology is an online comic by artist Barry T. Smith. It is about a game company named, appropriately enough, Angst Technology, and the plot revolves around the staff of this company. Their only release to date is called Cowmandos, which I believe is a first person shooter in the world of Gary Larson’s The Far Side. Their current project is to design a MMORPG for Cowmandos.

For anyone working in the computer industry, this is a comic that speaks to you. Those working outside the industry, and are not computer geeks themselves, will probably lose most of the humour involved. The comic includes many obscure references such as ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!! and 1337 speak.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

  • Hugh – the Boss. Not particularly bright, and seems to have a hearing problem. However he’s incredibly rich and has a love of video games as well as a kind heart. His attempts at karaoke are hilarious.
  • Dante – Lead Programmer. Married and all about The Code. He has a perpetual squint, chain-smokes, and has recently become the father of twins, whom he refers to as jawas. He’s really the only person aside from Kit who seems to know what’s truly going on.
  • Web Monkey – Webmaster. He is, quite literally, a monkey. He was better than the other applicants that applied for the job, and he does his work. As long as he doesn’t get angry and fling poop, he’s pretty quiet.
  • Marc – Project Manager/Customer Support. Marc is one of those people who is just not very observant. He’s very helpful, courteous, kind, etc… a real Boy Scout. Unfortunately, he’s not very observant as far as people go.
  • Yaz – Artist. Yaz is similar to Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. He tries so hard to be cool, but, unlike Jay, fails miserably instead of just badly. His main hobby is pr0n and chasing Kit’s skirt.
  • Kit – HR / Office Manager – Combination object of desire and babysitter. She keeps everything in the company from falling apart. She is usually only interrupted from this by Yaz’s lame attempts to hit on her.
  • Lance – Customer Support. He is not very bright, but is probably a super-hero that can fly in disguise. There hasn’t been much delving into this mysterious person’s life, though he did save Angst Technology from Dark Marc, a robot designed by Theodore, to steal back a hard drive.
  • The IT Ninjas – IT Department. My personal favourites and Angst Technology’s best kept secret. Few people at the firm actually know of their existence, but the IT Ninjas are very good at what they do in-house, though they do have a habit of offering completed service tickets up to the gods on a shrine.
  • Salvadore the Llama – Network Security. A real llama (hey, if a monkey can perform the web-presence duties, why can’t a llama be network security?) He was first introduced after Marc beat him at Counterstrike. Yaz hates Salvadore.
  • Dante’s Wife – (not staff). Recently gave birth to twins, she is very understanding of Dante’s habit of sitting in front of the computer as soon as he gets home. She really only gives him flack if he has deserved it. (such as asking her if he can bring his laptop to the birth of his children).
  • Theodore – (arch nemesis). Not a whole lot to say about Theodore. As villains go, his presence has been pretty weak. I think, however, we’ll see more of him in the future.
  • Dark Marc – (evil robot). Recently assaulted Dante, Hugh, and tried to fly away with a hard drive that had been liberated from Theodore after he hacked the servers. However, he was intercepted by Lance, and had the arm holding the hard drive ripped off.