Freefall (webcomic)
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Freefall is a popular webcomic written and drawn by Mark Stanley. It is a humorous science fiction story detailing the misadventures of the starship Savage Chicken and its crew: Sam Starfall, a lovable alien con artist; Helix, a childlike robot; and Florence Ambrose, a genetically engineered "Bowman's Wolf" (i. e. an anthropomorphic canine). Stanley began writing and drawing the strip as a feature for the occasional furry zine Yarf!. He began the web comic with the intent of telling the actual story behind the characters, and the storyline began on March 30, 1998. The comic is updated three times every week. It celebrated its thousandth strip in August 2004. The strip is in black and white, but the first 388 strips are also available in fan-colored versions.
The plotline focuses on the life of Florence, a hard-working and honest technical engineer, after she is hired to work for the shady, less-than-ethical Sam. Since the beginnings of the strip, Florence has worked to repair Sam's spaceship and actually get it flying again -- while at the same time trying to keep her sanity in the wake of Sam and Helix's trouble-making. Sam's reputation as a no-good low-life is known far and wide across the curiously named colony planet "Jean", where the story takes place, even to the point where the local authorities know that if anything bad goes wrong in their society, Sam probably had a hand in it. Sam wears a humanoid enviroment suit with a goofy face, but he has hinted that his true appearance is squid-like.
Freefall's plot has been criticised by some as slow-moving. The comic's seven years (in 2005) of thrice-weekly strips has so far covered only a few days' activity in the story.
Robots in the Freefall universe are programmed with the same Three Laws of Robotics that Isaac Asimov made famous in his stories, but their artificial intelligence is well developed, and they have a lot of autonomy.
A running gag throughout the comic is the reaction of the robots when they first meet Florence. Since the Bowman's Wolf is a brand new species, the Freefall robots do not recognise her, and their first reaction is invariably to throw their arms out wide and shout "doggy!". The effect can be "kinda freaky" when a lot of them do it at once. But despite this childlike behaviour, the Freefall robots have developed a great respect for Florence, especially after she risked her life to rescue two robots from destruction during a hurricane. Because the memories of most of the robots on "Jean" are networked together, all the robots on the planet are now aware of Florence's deeds and are desperate to help her in any way they can.
Freefall is noted as being one of the more scientifically accurate science fiction web comics available today. Author Stanley has stated he intends to keep the science in the comic as realistic as possible without relying on deus ex machina (or "magic") devices such as "warp drive," "artificial gravity," or "transporter beams."
An in-joke for Star Trek fans is that the Savage Chicken's registry number is 1071-CCN - the reverse of the Starship Enterprise's NCC-1701.
External links
- Freefall home page: http://freefall.purrsia.com/
- Websnark on Freefall: here (http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/12/you_know_that_d.html).
- Cross Time Cafe (http://www.whiteponyproductions.com/comicstrips/ctc/present.htm): Webcomic (updated weekly) based upon Freefall's fans and discussion forum members. Wikipedia Article: Cross-Time Café