The latest from Hyperbole and a Half is a touching post entitled Adventures in Depression. The story revolves around the authors experience with depression and how she eventually gained a new perspective on her feelings.

I spent months shut in my house, surfing the internet on top of a pile of my own dirty laundry which I set on the couch for "just a second" because I experienced a sudden moment of apathy on my way to the washer and couldn't continue. And then, two weeks later, I still hadn't completed that journey. But who cares - it wasn't like I had been showering regularly and sitting on a pile of clothes isn't necessarily uncomfortable. But even if it was, I couldn't feel anything through the self hatred anyway, so it didn't matter. JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE.

A comment thread started by the author on Reddit expands on this a bit more.

Hyperbole and a Half has an excellent post entitled Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving on what it is like moving a long distance with dogs. The post touches on many elements of canine behaviour that people with dogs may recognize: irrational fears, bizarre actions, and poor problem solving skills.

Hyperbole and a Half is very funny and the art is eerily reminiscent of Girish's early adventures with MS Paint. Other stories I recommend you read are The God of Cake, Dog, and This is Why I'll Never be an Adult.

Warbot in Accounting is the story of a military robot who lost its job due to a disarmament treaty and was forced to find work in an accounting firm. The comic covers X-17's attempts to survive in the workplace and gain the acceptance of coworkers.

The humour is of a dark nature since all of Warbots attempts to fit in and perform his job fail miserably. Furthermore, the comics creator has a stated goal of making each comic more depressing than the last and only stopping the series "until the Internet cries out for us to stop".

Despite being dark and going downhill fast, the comic is an excellent look at the work and social life of a robot who just can't seem to fit in.

James over at Slurpees and Murder declared March to be Manitoba Markers Month and issued an invitation asking for uniquely Manitoban things he can draw with markers. I left a comment asking for him to draw the commenters at the Free Press website, and this morning he posted his masterpiece.

I must say that this is an excellent job. The final image even conveys the feeling of dirtiness I feel after reading the comments. I am eager to see what comes up next as the month goes on. Currently it looks like something that will make Brandon residents angry will be posted soon, along with zombie Steven Juba.

One of my and Emily's favourite web comics has finally reached the end of its run. Anders Loves Maria is the story of a rural girl meeting a famous big city boy and the assorted love and trials they go through together. The story is excellent (although occasionally NSFW), and while the artwork varies a bit through time it is always quite good. The narrative is basically linear so I recommend reading the strips in chronological order starting with the link above if you want to learn more about Anders and Maria.

I'm probably going to spend my evenings this week re-reading the comic and refreshing my memory now that I know it's conclusion.

When I was younger Garfield was my favourite comic strip. I think I liked it for two reasons; Garfield was a cat, and the sight gags were funny. Now that I have a bit more maturity I read such comics as Dilbert and Userfriendly to waste my time.

I was very interested when I came upon a forum post that talked about how Garfield becomes a surrealist comic when you remove Garfield's speech bubbles. I tried it on a few comics from the past few weeks and reached a different conclusion; Garfield becomes the most depressing comic of all time.

Normally Jon falls out of luck and Garfield is there to poke fun at him and turn the situations from awkward to funny. When you remove the speech bubbles to make the comic slightly more realistic, Jon becomes a pathetic loser who talks to his cat hoping that it will respond in some way. Jon becomes even more of a loser than he was before (which most thought could never happen). Whenever Garfield does something other than sit around, it usually involves hurting Jon's feelings or taking advantage of him.

So without further ado, here some depressing cartoons of a pathetic loser and his cat.