Sinfest is a long-running daily American comic strip by Tatsuya Ishida. It originally appeared in the Daily Bruin student newspaper between 1991 and 1994<!--physical, not a webcomic-->. Ishida relaunched the comic strip in 2000 by self-publishing it online as a webcomic. Sinfest has also been collected into five printed books; Dark Horse Comics published two of them, in 2009 and 2011.

The comic has received mixed reactions over the years due to its treatment of topics such as race, feminism, politics, and sexism. Its themes and tone have shifted significantly over time, with the 1990s incarnation often regarded as particularly crass. During the 2000s, the comic adopted a black comedy style, frequently referencing pop culture. In 2008, it began incorporating more overt political and ideological themes, including elements of radical feminism from 2011 onward. In the 2020s, Sinfest increasingly embraced conspiratorial, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi themes, and Ishida was banned from platforms such as Patreon and Twitter for violating policies on hateful content. Publishers Weekly described these strips as even "raunchier and harsher" than Sinfest comics from the early 2000s. Ishida has said that he maintained a seven-day-a-week schedule during the first seven years through "coffee and revenge". In 2013, author Sean Kleefeld described some of the earliest strips as using "racial stereotypes" that are "racially insensitive at best" and "insulting and degrading." Ishida, who lives a private life and has little interaction with his readership, has said that Sinfest has included political views that have led to reader complaints since its early comics. Paste magazine described it as a four-panel comic strip relying on pop culture references and dark humor. Sinfest won two Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2001 His side-kick was "it girl" Monique, described by Ishida as "age:16," a "SlutTrampHo" and "jail bait."

Ishida self-published three print volumes of Sinfest between 2002 and 2005. Two volumes of early Sinfest have been published in print by Dark Horse Comics. The first of these was released in mid-2009 and reprints the first year of the webcomic. Dark Horse planned another book release in late 2009, but that book was cancelled due to the poor sales of the first book.

Growth in sociopolitical and radical feminist themes

Over its first decade as a webcomic it evolved into a more serious work, with a large cast of regular characters commenting on such themes as organized religion, American exceptionalism, Ishida has said that he switches between characters and situations in his webcomic "pretty much on a whim", saying that "the longer storylines help to pull it all together." Ishida introduced new characters to explore these new themes, and to confront the humor in older strips, PC Magazine listed Sinfest among the best webcomics of 2015. Ishida said in 2017, "Over the years [Sinfest] has gone through many changes, to the delight of some and dismay of others. I hope to continue polarizing audiences for many years to come." The halo, a Black Sun, is a symbol of the esoteric neo-Nazi conspiracies increasingly referenced by the strip. In December 2022, Ishida wrote that crowdfunding website Patreon, where he had had an account for four years, had banned him for promoting "sentiments of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation".

In 2024, Kleefeld wrote that when catching up on Sinfest strips, he "wasn't understanding them", and that the comic had gone into a "downward spiral". In a subsequent 2026 article, he stated that Sinfest had entered a daily, months-long arc of "conspiratorial anti-semitism" that regularly vilified Jews, glorified Adolf Hitler, and promoted "increasingly unhinged" conspiracy theories such as those regarding the Rothschild family and the Kalergi Plan. According to Kleefeld, Sinfests historical negationism of World War II and its straightforward depiction of Hitler as a heroic opponent of Jews separated it from mainstream portrayals of neo-Nazi perspectives (such as Mark Waid's Red Skull), and suggested a "sincere" and concerning alignment with antisemitic views.

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|2001

|Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards

|Best Other Character

|style="background:#dfd;" | Won

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|2003

|Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards

|Outstanding Black and White Art

|style="background:#fdd;"| Nominated

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|2004

|Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards

|Outstanding Character

|style="background:#fdd;"| Nominated

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|2008

|Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards

|Outstanding Short Form Comic

|style="background:#fdd;"| Nominated

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Notes

References

  • Sinfest website
  • 1991 issues of Daily Bruin, including the first Sinfest strip from October
  • The architecture of visual narrative comprehension, 2014 Frontiers in Psychology article by Neil Cohn, using Sinfest as an example of narration in comics