History
User Friendly started when J. D. Frazer, working as creative director for a Canadian ISP, started doodling a few cartoon jokes about his coworkers and boss. His boss encouraged him to post them online. Then people started emailing him, asking for more cartoons. Before that, he tried another comic, Dust Puppies, and sent it to six major syndicates, but was rejected by all.
The cartoon has been running online since November 17, 1997.
It is regarded as one of the first webcomics to achieve success, both financially and by popularity. It's also one of the few self-sufficient webcomics available, out of the thousands available on the Internet. His revenues come from advertising, sponsorships, the printed O'Reilly books and merchandising.
In late 1999, User Friendly and Sluggy Freelance swapped a character (A.J. and Torg).
J. D. Frazer made a cameo appearance in the webcomic Penny Arcade, on April 7, 1999. and, according to Penny Arcade's wikia, also on August 20, 1999.
In 2000, the Waiting For Bob webcomic ran a series of comics where several of the characters visited Columbia Internet to have them design and host a website advertising their product, "Caf".
Since 2000, User Friendly is published in a variety of newspapers, including The National Post, one of Canada's leading national newspapers.
Since 2001, several cartoon compilations have been published by O'Reilly Media. See User Friendly#Bibliography
In late 2007, it was part of the exhibit Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics in the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA).
Read more about this topic: User Friendly
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