# Sinfest

Sinfest is a long-running daily American comic strip by Tatsuya Ishida. It originally appeared in the Daily Bruin student newspaper between 1991 and 1994. Ishida relaunched the comic strip in 2000 by self-publishing it online as a webcomic. Sinfest has also been collected into five printed books; Dark Horse Comics published two of them, in 2009 and 2011.
The comic has received mixed reactions over the years on its inclusion of topics such as race, feminism, politics and sexism. The themes and tone of the comic have shifted multiple times over the years, with the 1990s incarnation being regarded as especially crass. The 2000s comics are often black comedy, with references made to pop culture, and in 2008, the comics began incorporating even more political and ideological themes, including radical feminism (starting in 2011). By the 2020s, the comic underwent a change in a direction which caused the author to be banned from Patreon and Twitter for hateful content.

## History
### Launch and transition from print to online publication

Sinfest was initially published by the University of California, Los Angeles' Daily Bruin from October 16, 1991, to 1994. Publishers Weekly described these strips as even "raunchier and harsher" than Sinfest comics from the early 2000s. In 2009, Ishida said he wanted to create comics after reading a Peanuts paperback as a child, due to "the simplicity and solitary nature of the medium." Following this phase of Sinfest, Ishida briefly worked as penciller for Dark Horse Comics' G.I. Joe Extreme (published 1995–6).
In 2000, Ishida taught himself HTML, put together a Geocities web page, and started uploading Sinfest strips seven days per week. By April of 2000, Sinfest was being hosted on the webcomics site Keenspot. Ishida has said that he maintained a 7-day-a-week schedule during the first seven years through "coffee and revenge". In 2013, Author Sean Kleefeld described some of the earliest strips as using "racial stereotypes" that are "racially insensitive at best" and "insulting and degrading." Ishida, who lives a private life and has little interaction with his readership, has said that Sinfest has included political views that have led to reader complaints since its early comics. Writing for The Comics Journal, comics-writer Shaenon Garrity has described how the comic has included "a lot of offensive material over the years, including racial caricatures, sex and drug humor, and lots of sexism." Writing for The Comics Beat, journalist Laura Sneddon stated that, during this period, "the comic was indeed a Sin-fest, stuffed with black comedy and poking outrage for humour". Paste magazine described it as a four-panel comic strip relying on pop culture references and dark humor. Sinfest was nominated for three Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2004.
The comic's art-style resembles chibi. According to Garrity, it can get away with offensive material for being "darn cute", and she and Kleefeld both commended the art-work. Early characters included Slick, something of a main-character and a hedonistic womanizer, resembling Bill Watterson's Calvin. His side-kick was it girl Monique, Garrity describes her as a "sexy coffeehouse poet" and recounts her spending "one of her earliest strips in a bikini, showing her ass to the reader". Other early characters included God and the Devil.
Ishida self-published three print volumes of Sinfest between 2002 and 2005. Two volumes of early Sinfest have been published in print by Dark Horse Comics. The first of these was released in mid-2009 and reprints the first year of the webcomic. Dark Horse planned another book release in late 2009, but that book was cancelled due to the poor sales of the first book. The second volume, a 2011 collection titled Viva la Resistance, covers the webcomic's run from 2003 to 2004. Sinfest has also appeared in the Norwegian comic magazine Nemi.
During the 2008 United States presidential election, Sinfest incorporated even more political themes. Critic R. C. Harvey wrote in The Comics Journal in 2009 that it was the best webcomic around, and that "It borders on the blasphemous, but uproariously so. Surely we deserve to be offended in so hilarious a fashion." Ishida has said that he switches between characters and situations in his webcomic "pretty much on a whim", saying that "the longer storylines help to pull it all together." In 2011, Ishida started to produce weekly strips in color on Sundays, giving readers, in his words, "something extra fun and engaging".

### Later changes in direction and themes

In October 2011, the comic abruptly shifted in tone, focusing heavily on radical feminist themes. Ishida introduced new characters to explore these new themes, and to confront the humor in older strips. Over its first decade as a webcomic it evolved into a more serious work, with a large cast of regular characters commenting on such themes as organized religion, American exceptionalism, and economic insecurity. It abruptly shifted focus to radical feminism in 2011, tackling issues such as slut-shaming, misogyny, and street harassment. In this period, Monique cut her hair and began questioning gender roles and patriarchy as a system of oppression, the latter depicted as a Matrix-like oppressive simulated reality. Sneddon compared the comic's themes in this period to I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space, another feminist webcomic, noting that Sinfest had a larger audience—inherited from before the change in direction; however, some of these old fans were outraged by the changes to Monique.
Garrity said in 2012 that "raunchy strips about strippers are followed by cute cat-and-dog gags are followed by religious humor are followed by autobio strips are followed by shit-stirring political cartoons are followed by spoken-word poetry are followed by lessons in drawing Japanese kanji, one of Sinfest’s signature running features", and that "Sinfest is always, first and foremost, about what Ishida wants to cartoon at any given moment." PC Magazine listed Sinfest among the best webcomics of 2015. Ishida said in 2017, "Over the years [Sinfest] has gone through many changes, to the delight of some and dismay of others. I hope to continue polarizing audiences for many years to come." Kleefeld wrote in 2020 that "The message of social justice through radical feminism is still the strip's raison d'etre, but it's a message of safety and inclusion rather than one of outreach and education."
In April 2022, Journalist Ryan Broderick noted the addition of "long-running internet conspiracies, like the Illuminati and the Bilderberg group" (by the early-2010s), the MAGA movement (2016+), anti-trans storylines (2019+), and QAnon (2021+), and opined that "as of now, the comic is a Christian fascist slurry of random internet nonsense." In September of that year, Ishida wrote that he was locked out of Twitter for "hateful conduct", in reference to his September 3 strip. In December 2022, Ishida wrote that he was banned from Patreon for promoting "sentiments of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation"; he had started the "sinfest" account on January 8, 2018.
In 2024, Kleefeld wrote that when catching up on Sinfest strips, he "wasn't understanding them", and that the comic had gone into a "downward spiral".

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Award | Category | Result |
| 2001 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Best Female Character | Won |
| 2001 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Best Other Character | Won |
| 2003 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Comic | Nominated |
| 2003 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Black and White Art | Nominated |
| 2003 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Line Art | Won |
| 2003 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Short Form Comic | Nominated |
| 2003 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Gag Comic | Won |
| 2004 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Black and White Art | Nominated |
| 2004 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Character | Nominated |
| 2004 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Short Form Comic | Nominated |
| 2005 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Short Form Comic | Honorable Mention |
| 2008 | Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards | Outstanding Short Form Comic | Nominated |