Diesel Sweeties
Diesel Sweeties is a webcomic and former newspaper comic strip written by Richard Stevens III (R Stevens). The comic began in 2000, originally hosted at robotstories.com. From January 2007 until August 2008 it was syndicated to over 20 United States newspapers, including major daily newspapers like "The Detroit News" and "Houston Chronicle". Material from "Diesel Sweeties" appears in Ted Rall's "," along with other webcomics such as "Cat and Girl", "Dinosaur Comics", "Boy on a Stick and Slither", "Fetus-X", and "The Perry Bible Fellowship". Stevens is a co-founder of the Dumbrella alliance of webcomic artists. Since  2002, Stevens has supported himself through online sales of merchandise related to his comics. Newspaper syndication. In late 2006, Richard Stevens announced that "Diesel Sweeties" would be syndicated to newspapers through United Features Syndicate. To replace "FoxTrot" by Bill Amend, which ended its daily run, some newspapers began running the strip on January 1, 2007. The regular distribution began a week later, on January 8. On June 26, 2008, Stevens announced that the print run of "Diesel Sweeties" would end on August 10 of that year. He had produced about 600 strips specifically for the newspapers. Stevens cited exhaustion from  doing a dozen strips per week, as well as the fact that the majority of his income remained tied to the website. Format. For the first several years, the comic consisted of four square panels of dialogue in a two-by-two grid, with a punchline (often a non sequitur, pun, or pop culture reference) in the final panel. In 2005 Stevens abandoned this traditional form and began consistently publishing strips with more panels in slightly more varied configurations. Single panels of the strip are occasionally animated. The comic depicts a world where robots exist alongside humans, with human-robot  romantic and sexual relationships commonplace. Although there is some character development and the occasional story arc, most strips are largely self-contained. Recurring themes include annual Halloween strips, featuring characters from the comic in costume. Characters. "Diesel Sweeties" incorporates many characters from other fictional works, from the real world, and introduces many original characters. Main characters (online version). The main characters in "Diesel Sweeties" are: Minor human characters. Generally in the order of appearance. Also includes some animals. Cartoons of real people. "Diesel Sweeties" often shows pixelated versions of real people in the strip. Some of these people include: Main  characters (newspaper version). Comics.com described the strip as "reformatted" for family newspapers. Other new characters for the newspaper version included TV, Coffee Maker, and Kitten. Together, they rule the household.