| abstract | - Drastic Comics is a slice-of-life humour webcomic by cartoonist Adam Murray, sometimes co-written by Gill Smyth. Drastic was started in 2004 and has over 200 comics at the time of writing, the most recent being dated 2008. Originally a collaboration between Adam Murray and Niall Feeney, Murray later took the reins fully until Gill Smyth joined him as co-writer. The comic is focused on slice of life humour, the battle of the sexes, ignorance of social conventions and what Jesus has on his ipod. Both Adam and Smyth felt a need to distance themselves to distance themselves from their comic avatars, as the uses of their real names was never really thought through. As Murray himself said in 2008, "The only reason his name is Adam is because waaaaaay back in the day, myself and Drastic's co creator Niall [Feeney] named the characters after ourselves is because and I swear to god this true, we couldn't think of any other names."link While the first 80 or so strips were populated with the creators social circle, once a decision was made to have the characters open up "Shut the Hell Up records" a moratorium was placed on including friends and acquaintances in the strips for comedic value. Even from early on, Murray had a problem with this. Ironically that strip features Mark Egan, a friend of Both Murray and Smyth. From Strip 85 the Music store, "Shut the hell up records was opened, giving a setting to these shenanigans, rather than a non descrepit apartment, with an unfortunate hole in the floor. Poor Mrs Rodriguez. The comic went on a self inflicted 6 month hiatus in July of 2007 while Murray worked on some personal issues. The strip returned briefly in January 2008, only to be updated regularly from March 25. Several webcomic artists have contributed guest strips to Drastic, the most notable being Joe Dunn of Joe Loves Crappy Movies. Drastic was also nominated for a 2006 Eagle Award for Best Webcomic, although it was beaten by Penny Arcade.
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