Misplaced Pages

#430569

97-405: While the strip began as a gag-a-day -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 plotlines gradually became more complex and serious. Some critics have praised the humor of the strip and its use of subject matter not available in newspaper comics, while others have criticized

194-404: A mummy 's tomb, selling their shoulders for science, and other random occurrences. Every year on 25 August, the comic features a small animation to commemorate the comic's anniversary, most of which involve Kiki singing karaoke . The Fifth Anniversary, August 25, 2002, fell on a Sunday, which traditionally was reserved for full color extended comics. This comic combined the two themes, presenting

291-713: A 1 in 6 chance that it is "that" rabbit. Possibly also a reference to the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail . In the expansion called Munchkin Bites there is a monster card called "The Evil" which refers to a horror story in the comic. Shortly after the birth of Leah Nicole Abrams in the middle of "The Love Potion" storyline, Sluggy Freelance entered a three-week-long side story. The story involved Ki and Fooker of General Protection Fault , Lindesfarne and Ralph of Kevin and Kell , and Bruno and Fiona of Bruno

388-581: A 2006 article as "TV buff heaven ... think The Office -style sardonic observations about everyday life set in Buffyverse 's universe, with Battlestar Galactica thrown in ... very funny indeed." Many reviewers have criticized the length and complexity of storylines. In 2006, Eric Burns-White of Websnark called the "Oceans Unmoving" storyline "long, laborious, [and] turgid", and the "Oceans Unmoving II" storyline, which ended in 2006, "mind-numbingly long". He said, "I got pushed as far as I humanly could on

485-477: A chore, and I admit that I tapped out during the second "Oceans Unmoving" storyline (concluding in 2006), which I understand was the breaking point for many longtime readers." Cruz noted that "Abrams himself is aware of the impenetrable nature of his webcomic" and had been including footnotes with most pages, hyperlinking to previous strips to provide context for recurring characters, locations and storylines. Cruz also felt that "revisiting Sluggy Freelance [in 2014]

582-519: A convoluted interconnected plot line... by God, if I've mastered this universe, I'm in it for the long haul... Some of the Sluggy plots suck, but overall they're great, sometimes brilliant, like 'Ocean's Unmoving,' which got a very mixed reaction, but I loved it." In a 2014 article for Comic Book Resources , reviewer Larry Cruz felt that the mythos of the strip was impossible for a reader to retain, and said, "Marathoning Sluggy Freelance can often feel like

679-403: A full-color animated comic, which advanced one frame at a time. In every New Year's Eve storyline, Bun-bun gets drunk on 151 Rum , which results in his being uncharacteristically kind and courteous (such as apologizing to Torg or praising the main cast). Abrams invites other well-known webcomic artists to do the strip for a week once or twice a year, while he goes on vacation. A frequent result

776-536: A love of sharp things, to "Kiki's Petstore". In the webcomic Freefall , two rabbits are shown and the character Helix names them Kevin (presumably after Kevin Dewclaw in Kevin and Kell ) and Bun-Bun. In the game Munchkin by Steve Jackson Games , a monster card for players to fight against has a picture of a switchblade wielding Bun-Bun. There is a 5 in 6 chance that the monster is a perfectly normal bunny rabbit and

873-400: A mummy as follows: "A human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air. Also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric snow". Wasps of the genus Aleiodes are known as "mummy wasps" because they wrap their caterpillar prey as "mummies". While interest in the study of mummies dates as far back as Ptolemaic Greece , most structured scientific study began at

970-437: A nanotech-based Y2K bug . Robinson said that Sluggy Freelance had "irrepressible silliness", describing his humor as "absurdist", "geeky", and "left-field", but that the book did have a serious side, building on a previous plot threads and story developments, and said that Sluggy Freelance and other webcomics "collectively offer hope for the future of the comic-strip medium." The Sunday Times described Sluggy Freelance in

1067-411: A naturally occurring salt, for 70 days. Herodotus insists that the body did not stay in the natron longer than 70 days. Any shorter time and the body would not be completely dehydrated; any longer, and the body would be too stiff to move into position for wrapping. The embalmers then washed the body again and wrapped it with linen bandages. The bandages were covered with a gum that modern research has shown

SECTION 10

#1732780489431

1164-466: A number of factors. One such factor was the airtight seal (especially as the Korean climate is unfavorable to mummification) around the bodies, which was achieved using a mix of lime , clay, and sand. Recreations of the sealing process found that chemical reactions with the lime possibly caused a high and prolonged release of heat, which killed bacteria in the bodies. In addition, a large amount of clothing

1261-471: A post on the Sluggy Freelance forums, a Sluggy Freelance RPG was in development in 2006; it was being written by R. Brent Palmer in consultation with Pete Abrams and was first playtested at Dragon Con later that year. Pete Abrams (born August 4, 1970) is the writer and illustrator of Sluggy Freelance . Abrams said in an interview that he went to The Kubert School but was unable to get into

1358-515: A rescue excavation in the e 'Asi al-Hadath cave in the Qadisha Valley of Lebanon . The well-preserved spontaneous mummies, including an infant named dubbed Yasmine, offer insights into Maronite villagers' lives during the Mamluk era. The grotto's high altitude and dry conditions naturally mummified the bodies. The discovery provides historical context, aligning with documented Mamluk raids in

1455-413: A sequence of the installments. Most syndicated comics are of this type. Another term for this distinction is non-serial (gag-a-day) vs. serial strips . Compared to single-panel cartoons (" gag panels "), gag-a-day comic strips can deliver a better timing for the narrative of a joke. The distinction between continuity and gag-a-day strip may be blurred: a continuous story may still be delivered in

1552-558: A single culture, such as those from the ancient Egyptian culture and the Andean cultures of South America. Some of the later well-preserved corpses of the mummification were found under Christian churches , such as the mummified vicar Nicolaus Rungius found under the St. Michael Church in Keminmaa , Finland . There are also cases that fall outside of these categories. Until recently, it

1649-527: A symbolic meal for her last journey. Her left arm and hand were tattooed with animal style figures, including a highly stylized deer . The Ice Maiden has been a source of some recent controversy. The mummy's skin has suffered some slight decay, and the tattoos have faded since the excavation. Some residents of the Altai Republic , formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union , have requested

1746-602: A very close relative. However, Xin Zhui's body was the only one of the three to be mummified. Her corpse was so well-preserved that surgeons from the Hunan Provincial Medical Institute were able to perform an autopsy. The exact reason why her body was so completely preserved has yet to be determined. Among the mummies discovered in China are those termed Tarim mummies because of their discovery in

1843-455: A week. Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance has appeared in the webcomic General Protection Fault , and Trudy Trueheart, a character from that webcomic, is Gwynn's cousin. The creator of General Protection Fault said that the crossover doubled the readership of his comic overnight. There are several implicit cross-overs with R. K. Milholland 's Something Positive , such as a comic where Aubrey was forced to sell her bunny, an aggressive Mini Lop with

1940-654: Is a parody of the strip itself, other webcomics, other creative works and/or artists, including Scooby-Doo and Ayn Rand . Clay Yount of Rob and Elliot was guest artist several times prior to taking over Saturday duties. Abrams also has various other artists providing art for Saturdays and Sundays, most recently Stuart Taylor and Lauren Taylor of Chain Bear. Numerous other webcomics have referenced Sluggy Freelance, and various guest artists on Sluggy Freelance have included their own webcomics' characters in their guest strips, including User Friendly who swapped A.J. for Torg for

2037-650: Is a program that causes the Sluggy character Oasis to unleash her own level of destruction. Sluggy Freelance became a part of the Create a Comic Project . Abrams was one of the first cartoonists to make a full-time living from webcomics. The Washington Post reported in 2005 that there were only "a dozen or more" cartoonists able to earn a full time living from webcomics, though there were also "thousands" of cartoonists earning some money this way. As of 2005, Sluggy Freelance had more than 100,000 daily readers, and in 2012 it

SECTION 20

#1732780489431

2134-424: Is both a waterproofing agent and an antimicrobial agent. At this point, the body was given back to the family. These "perfect" mummies were then placed in human-shaped wooden cases. Wealthy people placed these wooden cases in stone sarcophagi that provided further protection. The family placed the sarcophagus in the tomb upright against the wall, according to Herodotus. The second process that Herodotus describes

2231-527: Is home to a diverse spectrum of spontaneous and anthropogenic mummies. Some of the best-preserved mummies have come from bogs located across the region. The Capuchin monks that inhabited the area left behind hundreds of intentionally-preserved bodies that have provided insight into the customs and cultures of people from various eras. One of the oldest mummies (nicknamed Ötzi ) was discovered on this continent. New mummies continue to be uncovered in Europe well into

2328-413: Is like stepping into a time warp", not just because the site "still looks like it was developed on Geocities and optimized for 14.4k dialup modems", but because one of the first scenes in the contemporary story "was a big-eyed female who resembles an anime girl with her clothes falling off," concluding their review by saying: "Things may change, but Sluggy never changes." In addition to being available on

2425-631: Is one of only two known which show the wrapping of a mummy (Riggs 2014). Another text that describes the processes being used in the latter periods is Herodotus ' Histories . Written in Book 2 of the Histories is one of the most detailed descriptions of the Egyptian mummification process, including the mention of using natron in order to dehydrate corpses for preservation. However, these descriptions are short and fairly vague, leaving scholars to infer

2522-560: Is some evidence of deliberate mummification, most sources state that desiccation occurred naturally due to unique conditions within the crypts. The Capuchin Crypt in Brno contains three hundred years of mummified remains directly below the main altar. Beginning in the 18th century when the crypt was opened, and continuing until the practice was discontinued in 1787, the Capuchin friars of

2619-663: The African continent . The bodies show a mix of anthropogenic and spontaneous mummification, with some being thousands of years old. The mummies of the Canary Islands belong to the indigenous Guanche people and date to the time before 14th-century Spanish explorers settled in the area. All deceased people within the Guanche culture were mummified during this time, though the level of care taken with embalming and burial varied depending on individual social status. Embalming

2716-460: The Tarim Basin . The dry desert climate of the basin proved to be an excellent agent for desiccation. For this reason, over 200 Tarim mummies, which are over 4,000 years old, were excavated from a cemetery in the present-day Xinjiang region. The mummies were found buried in upside-down boats with hundreds of 13-foot-long wooden poles in the place of tombstones. DNA sequence data shows that

2813-521: The Tollund Man was discovered in 1950. The corpse was noted for its excellent preservation of the face and feet, which appeared as if the man had recently died. Only the head of Tollund Man remains, due to the decomposition of the rest of his body, which was not preserved along with the head. The majority of mummies recovered in the Czech Republic come from underground crypts. While there

2910-433: The bituminous embalming substance. This word was borrowed from Persian where it meant asphalt , and is derived from the word mūm meaning wax. The meaning of "corpse preserved by desiccation" developed post-medievally. The Medieval English term "mummy" was defined as "medical preparation of the substance of mummies", rather than the entire corpse, with Richard Hakluyt in 1599 AD complaining that "these dead bodies are

3007-426: The papyri that have survived only describe the ceremonial rituals involved in embalming, not the actual surgical processes involved. A text known as The Ritual of Embalming does describe some of the practical logistics of embalming; however, there are only two known copies and each is incomplete. With regards to mummification shown in images, there are apparently also very few. The tomb of Tjay, designated TT23 ,

Sluggy Freelance - Misplaced Pages Continue

3104-451: The web server originally ran slowly (sluggishly). Abrams draws the strip on card stock and uses Photoshop for lettering and coloring. According to a 1999 review, Sluggy Freelance followed the adventures of Riff, a self-described freelance bum and inventor, and Torg, a web site designer trying to make a living. They are aided, or sometimes hindered, by a Mini Lop rabbit named Bun-bun. Early characters also include their neighbor Zoë,

3201-465: The "Dimension of Pain." Every Halloween afterwards for several years, a different demon was sent to Earth to try to bring him back, failing in amusing and unexpected ways. Bun-bun has tried to kill Santa Claus every Christmas , with continuously escalating violence; the fact that Bun-bun became the Easter Bunny early on in the strip merely added spice to the relationship. There was a break in

3298-400: The 'why do I read this strip, again' thing, but I'm still here.... there's hope." Writing for AppScout in 2007, writer Whitney Reynolds said that "Sluggy Freelance was better in the 90's, when you didn't have to slog through ten years of continuity and alternate universe and rabbits to figure out what the heck is going on." A reviewer for Sequential Tart in 2008 said, "Sluggy Freelance has such

3395-576: The 14th and 19th centuries. Mummies have been discovered in Korea that have been dated to around the 15th to 19th centuries, during the Joseon period. This is thought to be because of the rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea , which prescribed certain burial practices that created conditions favorable to mummification. However, this mummification was likely unintentional, and even culturally seen as ominous and undesirable. Mummification likely occurred due to

3492-659: The 20th century. In 1992, the First World Congress on Mummy Studies was held in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands . More than 300 scientists attended the Congress to share nearly 100 years of collected data on mummies. The information presented at the meeting triggered a new surge of interest in the subject, with one of the major results being the integration of biomedical and bioarchaeological information on mummies with existing databases. This

3589-539: The 21st century. Great Britain , Ireland , Germany , the Netherlands , Sweden , and Denmark have produced a number of bog bodies , mummies of people deposited in sphagnum bogs , apparently as a result of murder or ritual sacrifices. In such cases, the acidity of the water, low temperature and lack of oxygen combined to tan the body's skin and soft tissues. The skeleton typically disintegrates over time. Such mummies are remarkably well preserved on emerging from

3686-481: The Aldenata series, the crew of a massive mobile artillery platform in the third book are depicted as Sluggy fanatics to comedic effect (including naming their vehicle after Bun-Bun and painting a giant picture of Bun-Bun on it). In the fourth book, Hell's Faire , a character is based on a friend of Pete Abrams who was the inspiration for Riff . A section of original Sluggy comics set in the alternate future world of

3783-498: The Bandit attempting to play the roles of Sluggy Freelance characters and find the original cast. Other characters, such as Gav from Nukees , and Trudy from General Protection Fault , made appearances. The non-comic characters from Mystery Science Theater 3000 also appear, in their silhouetted form. Science fiction author John Ringo has included references to Sluggy Freelance in his novels. For example, in his Legacy of

3880-468: The Douzlakh Salt Mine at Chehr Abad in northwestern Iran . Due to their salt preservation, these bodies are collectively known as Saltmen . Carbon-14 testing conducted in 2008 dated three of the bodies to around 400 BC. Later isotopic research on the other mummies returned similar dates, however, many of these individuals were found to be from a region that is not closely associated with

3977-572: The Egyptian animal mummies are sacred ibis , and radiocarbon dating suggests the Egyptian ibis mummies that have been analyzed were from a time frame that falls between approximately 450 and 250 BC. In addition to the mummies of ancient Egypt , deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of America and Asia with very dry climates. The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada , in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old. Before this discovery,

Sluggy Freelance - Misplaced Pages Continue

4074-627: The Mummy which the Phisistians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow". These substances were called mummia . The Oxford English Dictionary defines a mummy as "the body of a human being or animal embalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial", citing sources from 1615 AD onward. However, Chamber's Cyclopædia and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland define

4171-891: The National Museum of Beirut. In 1993, a team of Russian archaeologists led by Dr. Natalia Polosmak discovered the Siberian Ice Maiden , a Scytho -Siberian woman, on the Ukok Plateau in the Altai Mountains near the Mongolian border. The mummy was naturally frozen due to the severe climatic conditions of the Siberian steppe. Also known as Princess Ukok, the mummy was dressed in finely detailed clothing and wore an elaborate headdress and jewelry. Alongside her body were buried six decorated horses and

4268-576: The beginning of the 20th century. Prior to this, many rediscovered mummies were sold as curiosities or for use in pseudoscientific novelties such as mummia . The first modern scientific examinations of mummies began in 1901, conducted by professors at the English-language Government School of Medicine in Cairo , Egypt. The first X-ray of a mummy came in 1903, when professors Grafton Elliot Smith and Howard Carter used

4365-654: The bodies to decay in a matter of hours. An example of a Chinese mummy that was preserved despite being buried in an environment not conducive to mummification is Xin Zhui . Also known as Lady Dai, she was discovered in the early 1970s at the Mawangdui archaeological site in Changsha . She was the wife of the Marquis of Dai during the Han dynasty , who was also buried with her alongside another young man often considered to be

4462-400: The body. This process typically took forty days. After dehydration, the mummy was wrapped in many layers of linen cloth. Within the layers, Egyptian priests placed small amulets to guard the decedent from evil. Once the mummy was completely wrapped, it was coated in resin in order to keep the threat of moist air away. The resin was also applied to the coffin in order to seal it. The mummy

4559-580: The bog, with skin and internal organs intact; it is even possible to determine the decedent's last meal by examining stomach contents. The Haraldskær Woman was discovered by labourers in a bog in Jutland in 1835. She was erroneously identified as an early medieval Danish queen, and for that reason was placed in a royal sarcophagus at the Saint Nicolai Church, Vejle , where she currently remains. Another bog body, also from Denmark, known as

4656-492: The brain via the cranium, which then drained out the nose by gravity. The embalmers then rinsed the skull with certain drugs that mostly cleared any residue of brain tissue and also had the effect of killing bacteria. Next, the embalmers made an incision along the flank with a sharp blade fashioned from an Ethiopian stone and removed the contents of the abdomen. Herodotus does not discuss the separate preservation of these organs and their placement either in special jars or back in

4753-427: The brain was much easier when the brain was liquefied and allowed to drain with the help of gravity , as opposed to trying to pull the organ out piece by piece with a hook. Through various methods of study over many decades, modern Egyptologists now have an accurate understanding of how mummification was achieved in ancient Egypt. The first and most important step was to halt the process of decomposition, by removing

4850-448: The cavity, a process that was part of the most expensive embalming, according to archaeological evidence. The abdominal cavity was then rinsed with palm wine and an infusion of crushed, fragrant herbs and spices; the cavity was then filled with spices including myrrh , cassia , and, Herodotus notes, "every other sort of spice except frankincense ", also to preserve the person. The body was further dehydrated by placing it in natron ,

4947-411: The characters "form a sort of Scooby team that encounters ghosts, mad scientists, aliens and holiday mascots on the reg. The comic is epic in nature, yet it's adamant in its refusal to take itself seriously." While the strip started as a gag-a-day comic, it soon expanded into complex storylines. Abrams said that he felt able to have longer story arcs because readers could catch up with stories through

SECTION 50

#1732780489431

5044-471: The comics industry after school. Instead he got a job as a web designer, and started Sluggy Freelance as a creative outlet. He did not believe the attention span on the Internet was long enough for the kind of elaborate graphic novels he was used to drawing, so instead he went for a daily, quickly drawn strip. Sluggy eventually became so successful that it is now his full-time job, and he is reputed to be

5141-519: The creation of elaborate tombs , and more sophisticated methods of embalming. By the 4th dynasty (about 2600 BC) Egyptian embalmers began to achieve "true mummification" through a process of evisceration . Much of this early experimentation with mummification in Egypt is unknown. The few documents that directly describe the mummification process date to the Greco-Roman period . The majority of

5238-423: The dead had a profound effect on ancient Egyptian religion . Mummification was an integral part of the rituals for the dead beginning as early as the 2nd dynasty (about 2800 BC). Egyptians saw the preservation of the body after death as an important step to living well in the afterlife . As Egypt gained more prosperity, burial practices became a status symbol for the wealthy as well. This cultural hierarchy led to

5335-647: The earliest mummies in the Tarim Basin were exclusively Caucasoid, or Europoid " with "east Asian migrants arriving in the eastern portions of the Tarim Basin around 3,000 years ago", while Mair also notes that it was not until 842 that the Uighur peoples settled in the area. Other mummified remains have been recovered from around the Tarim Basin at sites including Qäwrighul , Yanghai , Shengjindian , Shanpula (Sampul), Zaghunluq, and Qizilchoqa. As of 2012, at least eight mummified human remains have been recovered from

5432-419: The embalmers offered was to clear the intestines with an unnamed liquid, injected as an enema . The body was then placed in natron for seventy days and returned to the family. Herodotus gives no further details. In Christian tradition, some bodies of saints are naturally conserved and venerated. In addition to the mummies of Egypt, there have been instances of mummies being discovered in other areas of

5529-416: The first book printing, " Sluggy Freelance sits comfortably in the top tier of comic strips out there today, and Is it Not Nifty deserves to be on every MIT student’s shelf." An A.V. Club of the fifth book in 2002 by Tasha Robinson called Sluggy Freelance "one of the oldest and best of the ongoing Internet comic strips", and described plots in which the characters are attacked by Satan-spawned kittens and

5626-461: The first person to make a living at drawing webcomics . As of 2005, Abrams lived in Denville , New Jersey . Gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of a story line across

5723-401: The first two novels of Ringo's distant-future Council Wars series have appearances by an irascible, treacherous, switchblade-toting, telemarketer-hating AI in a rabbit-shaped body, created by a long-dead fan of an unnamed 20th-century webcomic. In S.M. Stirling 's Conquistador , one of the characters unleashes a self-destruct sequence with the code phrase "Override B-1 oasis". Override B-1

5820-517: The gag-a-day format. In fact, Lynn Johnston recommends it for story strips, to keep the readership and engage new audience which may be not very familiar with the background of the story. This comics -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals , extreme cold, very low humidity , or lack of air, so that

5917-417: The grave. Mummies from various dynasties throughout China 's history have been discovered in several locations across the country. They are almost exclusively considered to be unintentional mummifications. Many areas in which mummies have been uncovered are difficult for preservation, due to their warm, moist climates. This makes the recovery of mummies a challenge, as exposure to the outside world can cause

SECTION 60

#1732780489431

6014-422: The human body is believed to be a quintessential feature of Egyptian life. Yet even mummification has a history of development and was accessible to different ranks of society in different ways during different periods. There were at least three different processes of mummification according to Herodotus . They range from "the most perfect" to the method employed by the "poorer classes". The most expensive process

6111-399: The infant to between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. A long incision located on the right abdominal wall, and the absence of internal organs, indicated that the body had been eviscerated post-mortem , possibly in an effort to preserve the remains. A bundle of herbs found within the body cavity also supported this conclusion. Further research revealed that the child had been around 30 months old at

6208-436: The initial plan was to write the original characters out of the story as new ones were introduced, to keep the strip fresh, but a couple years later he found out he liked the characters so much that he stuck with them. In its early days, the strip was hosted on Big Panda , but today has its own website. In a 2007 interview Abrams would not reveal the origins for the name "Sluggy Freelance", instead joking that he couldn't hear

6305-467: The internal organs and washing out the body with a mix of spices and palm wine. The only organ left behind was the heart, as tradition held the heart was the seat of thought and feeling and would therefore still be needed in the afterlife. After cleansing, the body was then dried out with natron inside the empty body cavity as well as outside on the skin. The internal organs were also dried and either sealed in individual jars, or wrapped to be replaced within

6402-428: The long and complex stories and continuity. Sluggy Freelance started on August 25, 1997. In an interview, creator Pete Abrams said that he had always hoped the strip could become his full-time job, and treated it like a job from the start. According to Abrams, he promoted the comic to friends, at conventions, and in posts on newsgroups , and popularity came from "organic credibility". In the interview, Abrams said that

6499-403: The majority of the techniques that were used by studying mummies that have been unearthed. By utilizing current advancements in technology, scientists have been able to uncover a plethora of new information about the techniques used in mummification. A series of CT scans performed on a 2,400-year-old mummy in 2008 revealed a tool that was left inside the cranial cavity of the skull. The tool

6596-469: The mine. It was during this time that researchers determined the mine suffered a major collapse, which likely caused the death of the miners. Since there is significant archaeological data that indicates the area was not actively inhabited during this time period, current consensus holds that the accident occurred during a brief period of temporary mining activity. In 1990, a team of speleologists uncovered eight mummies, dating back to around 1283 AD, during

6693-632: The monastery would lay the deceased on a pillow of bricks on the ground. The unique air quality and topsoil within the crypt naturally preserved the bodies over time. Approximately fifty mummies were discovered in an abandoned crypt beneath the Church of St. Procopius of Sázava in Vamberk in the mid-1980s. Workers digging a trench accidentally broke into the crypt, which began to fill with waste water. The mummies quickly began to deteriorate, though thirty-four were able to be rescued and stored temporarily at

6790-457: The most common being for religious purposes. Spontaneous mummies, such as Ötzi and the Maronite mummies , were created unintentionally due to natural conditions such as extremely dry heat or cold, or acidic and anaerobic conditions such as those found in bogs . While most individual mummies exclusively belong to one category or the other, there are examples of both types being connected to

6887-600: The mummies had Haplogroup R1a (Y-DNA) characteristic of western Eurasia in the area of East-Central Europe , Central Asia and the Indus Valley . This has created a stir in the Turkic-speaking Uighur population of the region, who claim the area has always belonged to their culture, while it was not until the 10th century that Uighurs are said by scholars to have moved to the region from Central Asia. American Sinologist Victor H. Mair claims that "

6984-594: The mummy be returned shortly after the body was moved to the Albany Museum in Grahamstown . The mummies of Asia are usually considered to be accidental. The decedents were buried in just the right place where the environment could act as an agent for preservation. This is particularly common in the desert areas of the Tarim Basin and Iran. Mummies have been discovered in more humid Asian climates; however, these are subject to rapid decay after being removed from

7081-401: The nostrils can be digitally reconstructed in 3-D . Such modelling has been utilized to perform digital autopsies on mummies to determine the cause of death and lifestyle, such as in the case of Tutankhamun . Mummies are typically divided into one of two distinct categories: anthropogenic or spontaneous. Anthropogenic mummies were deliberately created by the living for any number of reasons,

7178-507: The novels appears in the end of Hell's Faire , and a sampler of Sluggy storylines is included on the CD-ROM bound into this book. Pete possibly returned the favor shortly thereafter by entitling one subchapter "Hell's Unfair." Another possible Sluggy reference is in the short story "Lets Go to Prague" where one character uses the codeword Kizke. This is the common mispronunciation of the demon K'z'k. (The proper pronunciation has no vowels.) Also,

7275-819: The oldest and most successful webcomics. Sluggy Freelance was nominated for Best Comic by the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2001, and was included in a 2007 exhibition by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art called "Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics". Early reviews noted that being published on the internet allowed Sluggy Freelance to use subject matter not allowed or not typical for newspaper comics, including geeky subjects such as Star Trek , The X-Files , Aliens , The Matrix , slasher films and Microsoft , as well as references to alcohol and sex. A 1999 review in MIT 's campus newspaper, The Tech , said of

7372-750: The oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BC. The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 at the Cueva de las Momias in Argentina. The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin Mumia , a borrowing of the medieval Arabic word mūmiya (مومياء) which meant an embalmed corpse, as well as

7469-529: The online archive. As time progressed he wanted to write longer and more involved stories, and in order to tell the story quickly enough, he added more panels to each daily strip. Characters in Sluggy Freelance include: Sluggy Freelance has featured several yearly recurring themes, although many of them have eventually been broken or discontinued due to developments in the overall plot. In an early 1998 plotline, one of Riff's inventions sent Torg to

7566-484: The only X-ray machine in Cairo at the time to examine the mummified body of Thutmose IV . British chemist Alfred Lucas applied chemical analyses to Egyptian mummies during this same period, which returned many results about the types of substances used in embalming. Lucas also made significant contributions to the analysis of Tutankhamun in 1922. Pathological study of mummies saw varying levels of popularity throughout

7663-453: The question and that his great-grandfather was named "Sluggy Freelance". According to a 2014 article in CBR, the "Mokhadun" storyline provided an in-canon explanation for the title, "which has been a source of consternation for webcomic pundits for nearly two decades". This relates to a god named 'Sluggy', related to main character Bun-Bun. The contributors-only blog operated by Abrams mentioned that

7760-544: The recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least the early 17th century. Mummies of humans and animals have been found on every continent, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats. Many of

7857-416: The region. Artifacts, including pottery with inscriptions, manuscripts, and clothing, suggest a Maronite community, and the mummies' burial practices parallel present-day Lebanese customs. The remains were called "Maronite mummies" because the individuals found in the 'Asi-al Hadath cave were believed to be Maronites , an indigenous Christian community in the region. Some of the mummies have been transferred to

7954-812: The return of the Ice Maiden, who is currently stored in Novosibirsk in Siberia . Another Siberian mummy, a man, was discovered much earlier in 1929. His skin was also marked with tattoos of two monsters resembling griffins , which decorated his chest, and three partially obliterated images which seem to represent two deer and a mountain goat on his left arm. Philippine mummies are called Kabayan Mummies . They are common in Igorot culture and their heritage. The mummies are found in some areas named Kabayan , Sagada and among others. The mummies are dated between

8051-435: The strip’s straight woman , and Dr. Lorna, a parody of talk show psychologist Dr. Laura . A 2002 review described the comic as "telling a complex ongoing story in a punchline-a-day style... His characters, a pack of cheerfully put-upon twentysomethings... frequently fight killer robots and drop into alternate dimensions as Abrams parodies popular film, television, and video games." Writing for CBR , Larry Cruz said in 2014 that

8148-675: The time of death, though gender could not be determined due to poor preservation of the sex organs. The first mummy to be discovered in South Africa was found in the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area by Dr. Johan Binneman in 1999. Nicknamed Moses, the mummy was estimated to be around 2,000 years old. After being linked to the indigenous Khoi culture of the region, the National Council of Khoi Chiefs of South Africa began to make legal demands that

8245-429: The tradition when Bun-bun was thrown out of time and was not present in 2005, and aside from an attack more inconveniencing than dangerous in 2006 he has not resumed the feud. Also on almost every Christmas / Hanukkah , Torg and Riff have attempted to continue their own, private tradition of giving each other "a beer every year." Usually they never quite get it right, for a variety of reasons, including being trapped in

8342-487: The website, Sluggy Freelance has been collected in paperback. At least 21 collections have been published, including: Tomes In 2005, Blood & Cardstock Games published Get Nifty, a card game based on Sluggy Freelance designed by Rob Balder with illustrations by Abrams. It is a 2–6 player game taking about 40 minutes per game. In 2001, Cheapass Games published an expansion to their game Button Men of six buttons with Sluggy Freelance characters. According to

8439-489: The winter of 1958–1959 in the natural cave structure of Uan Muhuggiag . After curious deposits and cave paintings were discovered on the surfaces of the cave, expedition leaders decided to excavate. Uncovered alongside fragmented animal bone tools was the mummified body of an infant, wrapped in animal skin and wearing a necklace made of ostrich egg shell beads. Professor Tongiorgi of the University of Pisa radiocarbon-dated

8536-480: Was a rod, made of an organic material, that was used to break apart the brain to allow it to drain out of the nose. This discovery helped to dispel the claim within Herodotus' works that the rod had been a hook made of iron. Earlier experimentation in 1994 by researchers Bob Brier and Ronald Wade supported these findings. While attempting to replicate Egyptian mummification, Brier and Wade discovered that removal of

8633-682: Was believed that the earliest ancient Egyptian mummies were created naturally due to the environment in which they were buried. In 2014, an 11-year study by the University of York , Macquarie University and the University of Oxford suggested that artificial mummification occurred 1,500 years earlier than first thought. This was confirmed in 2018, when tests on a 5,600-year-old mummy in Turin revealed that it had been deliberately mummified using linen wrappings and embalming oils made from conifer resin and aromatic plant extracts. The preservation of

8730-571: Was carried out by specialized groups, organized according to gender, who were considered unclean by the rest of the community. The techniques for embalming were similar to those of the ancient Egyptians, involving evisceration, preservation, and stuffing of the evacuated bodily cavities, then wrapping the body in animal skins. Despite the successful techniques utilized by the Guanche, very few mummies remain due to looting and desecration. The mummified remains of an infant were discovered during an expedition by archaeologist Fabrizio Mori to Libya during

8827-403: Was not possible prior to the Congress due to the unique and highly specialized techniques required to gather such data. In more recent years, CT scanning has become an invaluable tool in the study of mummification by allowing researchers to digitally "unwrap" mummies without risking damage to the body. The level of detail in such scans is so intricate that small linens used in tiny areas such as

8924-414: Was reported to have "hundreds of thousands" of readers. Shaenon K. Garrity said in a history of webcomics that around 1996–2000, while newspaper-style strips continued to dominate webcomics, "now the winning genre was the ongoing serial adventure strip, usually done with a heavy dollop of geeky comedy", and listed Sluggy Freelance as a prime example. Writing for The Beat , Maggie Vicknair called it one of

9021-454: Was then placed in natron for seventy days. At the end of this time, the body was removed and the cedar oil, now containing the liquefied organs, was drained through the rectum . With the body dehydrated, it could be returned to the family. Herodotus does not describe the process of burial of such mummies, but they were perhaps placed in a shaft tomb . Poorer people used coffins fashioned from terracotta . The third and least expensive method

9118-435: Was then sealed within its tomb, alongside the worldly goods that were believed to help aid it in the afterlife. Aspergillus niger , a hardy species of fungus capable of living in a variety of environments, has been found in the mummies of ancient Egyptian tombs and can be inhaled when they are disturbed. Mummification is one of the defining customs in ancient Egyptian society for people today. The practice of preserving

9215-404: Was to preserve the body by dehydration and protect against pests, such as insects. Almost all of the actions Herodotus described served one of these two functions. First, the brain was removed from the cranium through the nose; the gray matter was discarded. Modern mummy excavations have shown that instead of an iron hook inserted through the nose as Herodotus claims, a rod was used to liquefy

9312-446: Was used by middle-class people or people who "wish to avoid expense". In this method, an oil derived from cedar trees was injected with a syringe into the abdomen. A rectal plug prevented the oil from escaping. This oil probably had the dual purpose of liquefying the internal organs but also of disinfecting the abdominal cavity. (By liquefying the organs, the family avoided the expense of canopic jars and separate preservation.) The body

9409-451: Was usually placed inside tombs, which led to a shortage of oxygen inside. Mummies buried using the lime mixture sealing technique reportedly have especially excellently preserved soft skin and hair, which has enabled medical and genetic studies to be performed. Insights have been offered into the lifestyles and pathologies of Korean people during this period. Specific diseases for each individual have been identified. The European continent

#430569