Ctrl+Alt+Del

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About

Ctrl+Alt+Del (abbreviated CAD) is a gaming-related webcomic and animated series written by Tim Buckley. The name of the comic refers to the Windows command Control-Alt-Delete. Premiering on October 23rd, 2002, the comic's focus has gradually shifted away from single-strip gags towards longer story arcs and greater continuity through the use of video game references. It is the origin of Loss, an infamous panel that became a widespread meme for nearly two decades after it was published.

History

Comic Strip Series

The original version of the comic originated on October 23rd, 2002, starring the main characters: Ethan, an obsessed video gaming fan, and Lucas, his sarcastic roommate.^[25] Aside from the original cast of main characters, the series would also contain comics in which the main characters are either monotone stereotypical gamers (referred to as "Players #1, #2, #3 and #4") or fictional characters from video games.

On November 23rd, 2012, Tim Buckley announced that the original cast would cease to appear in the comics after a story arc in which the comic's universe is restored and Ethan is killed. Buckley announced that the main characters would return for a short period later with improved artwork, which he referred to as a "Hollywood Reboot".^[28] From October 29th to November 25th, 2014 and from May 4th to May 27th, 2015, the CAD website published pages from the digital comic book "Analog and D-Pad" starring Ethan and Jacob, who are displayed as superheroes.^[26]^[27]

Animated Series

Due to successful animated adaptations of other webcomics such as Cyanide & Happiness, Tim Buckley, with the help of Blind Ferret Entertainment released Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series, which was made exclusive to CAD Premium subscribers, on February 1st, 2006. The end result received a very negative response among subscribers, with similar complaints concerning the terrible dialogue, poor animation, bad voice acting and a price far too high for the end product ($30 for 12 3-minute episodes). Despite financial loss and poor reception, Blind Ferret made a second season of the series with the same length. The negative reaction to the videos led to a number of parodies, including an entire annotated series.

Winter-een-mas

Winter-een-mas is a holiday created by the comic's character Ethan. The event served to celebrate gamers and the "gaming spirit" during January. Although the event is celebrated all month, the official holiday occurs the last week of the month (January 25-31) with each day celebrating a different genre of gaming.^[29]

January 25th: Adventure / Action
January 26th: First Person Shooter (FPS)
January 27th: Fighting
January 28th: Real-time Strategy (RTS)
January 29th: Racing
January 30th: Role Playing Games (RPGs)
January 31st: Sports

Though the event is celebrated by followers of the comic, gaming retailers Ubisoft and GameStop have participated in the holiday with special discounts and sales for games.^[30] The event was also featured on a single-serving site wintereenmas.com (now defunct) which described the event and how to participate in it.^[31]

Reception

Ctrl+Alt+Del was negatively received due to relatively poor artwork and reused art assets. Before the revamping of the cartoon in early 2008, the cartoon's aesthetics relied mostly on copying and pasting techniques, leading many characters to appear nearly identical with a limited range of expressions. The emoticon B^U soon became associated with CAD characters as it resembled their facial expression when turned at a 90-degree angle. It quickly gained traction among the comic's detractors and anti-fans, earning the creator of comics the nickname "Tim B^Uckley"^[18].

Another large criticism of Buckley's comic was the density of dialogues and set-up for the punchline. In mocking the verbose nature of the webcomic, some anti-fans created parodies with all the original text replaced with "WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS."

Aside from the comic itself, Tim Buckley's often irrational behavior and lack of tolerance for criticism also contributed to the growth of CAD anti-fandom In the past, the artist has placed himself in the center of online drama such as lashing out at his fans^[19]^[20], deleting entire discussion threads^[21] and defacing the Encyclopedia Dramatica article written about him.^[21] In some user-generated artworks, the main character "Ethan" is often portrayed as Tim Buckley the cartoonist, allowing anti-fans to create parodies directly targeted at the artist, rather than his comics. In addition to the bouts of drama, he has also been entangled in numerous controversies unrelated to his online presence, including alleged accusations of grooming^[21], racism^[22] and plagiarism^[19].

Tim Buckley's cartoon representation

CADbortion / "Loss" Parodies

CADbortion refers to a series of edits of the episode "Loss", in which the main character Ethan visits a hospital, where he finds his girlfriend who recently had a miscarriage. The comic was resented by readers for its failure to present a dramatic story, leading to much ridicule.

The "Two Panel Rule"

The Two Panel Rule states that if the middle two panels from a Ctrl+Alt+Del comic strip are removed, the strip will become automatically funnier. The exact origin of the rule is currently unknown. However it was made popular on Tumblr after the blog metalslugx posted an example of the rule in practice (shown below, left), but without knowing the context of said example.^[32] Several months later, blog devipotato reblogged the post and gave context for the image, i.e. explained the Two Panel Rule, which increased the popularity of the post, and sparked interest in the rule.^[33] Three days later, on December 11th, 2016, the blog eggcup posted another example of the rule (shown below, right), which ended up being the most popular post about the rule, with over 48,000 notes.^[34] Shortly after, many other blogs would post their own examples, even spawning a blog dedicated to panel removals.^[35]