User:Lubal/PLIF

The Parking Lot is Full (PLIF) is an alternative comic written by Pat Spacek and illustrated by Jack McLaren that ran from 1993 to late 2002. Originally published in Imprint, the University of Waterloo's newspaper while the creators were students there, it was later released solely on the Internet, where it achieved cult status as a result of its dark and often absurdist humor.

History
The Parking Lot is Full was created in 1992 by Rob Green and Jack McLaren, with the help of several other students living in the same house. Its name came from the parking problems at the University of Waterloo, as the strip was originally intended to satirize University life; its seemingly-inexplicable title was maintained after the early years, emphasizing the strip's absurdist leanings through the contrast between the comic's mundane title and its twisted contents. In 1993, the strip was first published in the student paper, and quickly became a source of controversy and criticism, but also accumulated a devoted fanbase. In 1995, the strip first appeared on the Internet. By this time, the comic's staff had shrunk to include only Pat Spacek and co-founder McLaren.

After their 1996 graduation, while McLaren remained in Canada, Spacek moved to Korea. However, they continued to release their comic, collaborating each week through e-mails. The strip had always been largely created on computers, with only McLaren's original pencil drawings being done on paper, so the transition from in-person discussions to online, long-distance ones "proved to be a decent solution", in McLaren's words. The main change was that the time-delay present in their conversations required each to become "more independent at [their] respective jobs". Spacek commented that The Parking Lot is Full would probably have been "a lot sillier" and "a lot less focused" without the forced separation. Spacek characterized their late-night collaborations as taking place in "that magic time at about 4AM when everything is funny, and when we started laughing uncontrollably at nothing", whereas his solitary writings were in "a different kind of 'late at night,' when insecurities kind of bubble up and things seem funny because they just don't make sense".

The Parking Lot is Full came to an end due to a number of reasons; the comic's official site explains that "after nine years of ups and downs, the creators decided that they'd said everything they wanted to say, so the comic was wrapped up and all the toys put away", with the archive of old strips left up as a "memorial". The comic's author, Spacek, currently maintains a mailing list on Yahoo! that centers on his warped and unusual fiction.

In addition to its own website, The Parking Lot is Full was distributed through a variety of online venues, including Artcomic, the webcomic collective associated with Art Comics Daily. It was also carried by several webzines such as Fade to Black, Just Laugh, and Humanist Network News (a publication of the Institute for Humanist Studies).

Two collections of The Parking Lot is Full strips were released. The first, A Brief History of Fear (1996), reprinted some of the early strips, while the second, Like Salt for a Head Wound, reprinted 143 of the 1996–2000 comics.

Format and Themes
The Parking Lot is Full consisted of one-shot strips that usually had only a single panel (though occasionally multiple panels were used) and were often narrated with a short paragraph of text below the panel, though speech balloons were common as well. McLaren explained their preference for one-panel, self-contained comics:

"We occasionally dabble in multi-panel formats, because they're good for establishing a character, creating a cinematic atmosphere, or relating large amounts of exposition. But the single-panel strip is, and always will be, our main format, just because it suits our style of humor better. The multi-panel format is like a romance, taking its time with the reader and developing a relationship. The single-panel format, on the other hand, is like a punch in the face. It can catch you off guard. It can bloody your nose a bit. That's more our style."

The comic's format was similar to that of strips like The Far Side, and Spacek has noted that "obviously, Gary Larson was a major early influence, though now whenever I look at his comics I feel both admiration and a nagging sense that he could have gone farther. Not just farther in being weird, but farther in pushing the artistic limits of the medium."

In McLaren's words, the strip largely avoided recurring characters because "most character strips tend to fall into ruts because of the continuity of the characters". However, this formula was broken in the comic's final year, which had a linear, albeit bizarre and self-referential, storyline focused on a pair of sock puppets.

Reception and Legacy
The Parking Lot is Full's publication in Imprint was frequently controversial. In particular, an installment published in the September 23, 1994 issue depicted a man carrying a spiked sex toy, locked out of his bedroom by his partner. The comic was captioned "But honey! Love is SUPPOSED to hurt!". In response to large volumes of complaints that the comic—and, by extension, the paper itself—was sexist and supportive of violence against women, Imprint editor-in-chief Sandy Atwal felt compelled to publish a response discussing efforts to balance free speech with community concerns. McLaren then attempted to explain the central irony of the comic: the man was "misguided," and the woman had rejected him for his incorrect beliefs; nevertheless, complaints—and support—continued for some time.

Contemporary reception of the webcomic was mixed. Writing for Sequential Tart, Toni Morris compared PLIF to The Far Side but felt that—like Jackass and South Park—its shock value outweighed the humor. Anne Elizabeth Moore at The Comics Journal labeled it "genuinely intriguing" and superior to most of the other Artcomic-hosted works, but considered its greatest asset to be its long presence online. Lollipop Magazine review of Fade to Black counted PLIF as among the best reasons to visit the webzine.

Retrospective reviews of the webcomic have been more generally positive. Splice Today's Zach Kaufmann called it the "best webcomic you've never heard of." Marc Alan Fishman described it similarly for Comic Mix, labeling PLIF a webcomic "you should have read" because of its macabre sensibilities that blended humor with disturbing elements, although he did find the art "crude". In his book on the history of webcomics, T. Campbell observed that the elements of shock and surprise in PLIF, like in Doctor Fun and The Perry Bible Fellowship, were necessary for the humor. Zach Weinersmith, creator of webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, considers PLIF one of the two greatest influences on his style.

Some The Parking Lot is Full strips have received individual attention, including PLIF #221. Showing a world in which most people are inhuman doppelgängers, it was used as an illustration of Jean Baudrillard's concept of philosophical simulacra. Other panels have been cited as the origins of later internet memes. The depiction of Jesus looming behind a seated God in PLIF #264 has been identified as a potential origin of the "soon" image macro, while PLIF #134's child abuser in a Goofy costume was later turned into a meme at /pol/.