Living with Insanity
A webcomic created in late 2008 by David Herbert, Living with Insanity is a surreal humour strip that deals with the day to day life of some odd individuals.
Originally created out of Herbert's frustration from dealing with artists who dropped out on projects, the comic updated week-daily for over a month until harsh criticism caused him to abandon the artistic duties and hire Paul Salvi. Together, the two have managed to amass a readership in the thousands.
The story is about Herbert's Author Avatar David, who has survived a car accident that left him brain damaged and reliant of hallucinogenic drugs. However, the driver gave him a settlement that allowed David to retire and make comics full time. Lonely from living alone, David bought a cat and a sentient robot head, both of whom wish to kill him, and soon gained a roommate named Alice. Eventually he was sent an artist named Paul, Salvi's author avatar, who has become addicted to David's drugs.
The comic was originally auto-biographical with many fantastical elements inserted, but the auto-biography seems to be gone in favour of surreal plots.
You can find it here.
- Affectionate Parody: This was meant to be the case with the Talent Scouting arc, towards Ryan Sohmer and Lar DeSouza, whom Herbert looks up to as creators.
- Alice Allusion
- All Devouring Black Hole Loan Sharks: Only way Alice could have wracked up so much debt in a year.
- Animal Wrongs Group: With the unfortunate name ANAL.
- Artist Disillusionment: David has had some moments of this.
- Cats Are Mean: The cat wants to kill David.
- Censor Box: Salvi draws full frontal nudity, but hides it with these. There can also be some hidden jokes when you see the sizes.
- Chewbacca Defence: Mentioned in this strip.
- Creator Breakdown: The reason David stopped drawing the strip.
- Deconstructive Parody: The Bad Writing arc.
- Depending on the Artist: The characters got many redesigns when Paul came on board.
- Film Noir: The Noir arc.
- Friends Rent Control: At first Alice was David's tenant, despite being unemployed. After a year, she finally got a job to pay back everything she owed.
- Genre Adultery: While this is a comedy strip, Herbert's print comics and Domain Tnemrot tend to be serious stories with some dark tones.
- Hammerspace: Where David summon Hammer Time.
- Hey, You: No matter the situation, David refuses to respond to anyone who calls him Dave. Apparently this is also the same in RL.
- Hypocritical Humour: Alice spends all day dealing with annoying customers, then while getting coffee, she yells at the waitress. David calls it the circle of life.
- Parody Sue: The Bad Writing arc parodied a lot of bad writing tropes, but mainly this one.
- Rich Idiot With No Day Job
- Self-Deprecation: Herbert's blogs and author's notes are full of this.
- Self-Parody: The new arc takes a shot at David's printed series Gemini Storm.
- Series Hiatus: Not very often, but there was one in January that was only supposed to last two weeks and wound up going for an extra month.
- Shout-Out: The cat knows Scratch Fury
- Take That: Has been done several times.
- Write Who You Know: David and Paul. Alice is also based off of a girl Herbert was dating when he started the comic.