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Sluggy Freelance is a popular, long-running daily web-comic written and drawn by Pete Abrams. The comic has over 100,000 daily readers and premiered on August 25, 1997. Abrams is one of the few, and first, web-comic creators successful enough to make a living as an artist.
While the strip began as a gag-based series in which the three main protagonists (Torg, Riff and Zoë) would stumble from one brief, bizarre, parody-centric adventure to the next, the characters and plot lines have gradually become longer and more serious. However, even the more dramatic and soap operatic story arcs often conform to the common gag comic strip format. While there is often sexual innuendo and cartoon violence, the comic contains little strong profanity and no explicit nudity.
Characters
Vampires
Vampires in the Sluggy Universe are organized into circles, each led by a master. The members of each Circle have their own free will to a point, but a higher-ranking vampire can override this. The method varies somewhat between circles. Vampires have many weaknesses that vary from circle to circle - Vykrolak vampires are instantly killed by stakes, while Lysinda vampires are merely incapacitated. A potentially common trait is that they recover energy by sleeping on their native soil.
The Lysinda Circle Vampires
The Lysinda Circle was a powerful and highly-respected group of vampires that had existed for an immeasurably long time. It takes several days to create a new Lysinda Vampire; the potential convert must be bitten for three consecutive nights then made to drink vampire blood. These vampires have many weaknesses, including holy symbols and the inability to enter homes without invitations. However, they can only be killed permanently by either exposing them to direct sunlight or stuffing their severed heads with garlic. Stakes can temporarily put them out of action, but once the stake is removed, the vampire is fully restored.
The circle turned Sam, and intended to turn Torg and Zoë before Riff rescued them and destroyed nearly all the vampires. Sam Sein is the only surviving Lysinda Circle vampire; he renamed it the Sam Cirkhail Mamajama when this was pointed out to him
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