Dust puppy

The Dust Puppy is a fictional character from Illiad's online comic strip User Friendly. He first appeared in the strip on December 3 1997; born in a server from a combination of dust, lint and quantum events, the Dust Puppy looks similar to a ball of dust and lint, with eyes, feet and an occasional big smile. He was briefly absent from the strip from January 6 to January 10 1998 after accidentally being blown with compressed air while sleeping inside a dusty server.

Although the Dust Puppy is very innocent and everything but worldly, he plays a superb game of Quake, doing his first deathmatch only four days after his initial appearance in the strip, on December 7 1997, and even beating Zock, the Quake god, on February 13 1998; he also created an artificial intelligence named Erwin on January 25 1998, with whom he has been known to do occasional song performances (the first one being on February 8, 1998).

Generally, all the other characters in the strip like the Dust Puppy; notable exceptions to this are Stef and the Dust Puppy's evil nemesis, the Crud Puppy, who first appeared in the strip on February 24 1998.

The Dust Puppy has (in the strip for January 17 1998) described himself as:

"I walk around looking short, and sleep in the servers, and give advice to people who need it and sometimes I even play Quake."

External links

• Dust Puppy's first appearance in User Friendly
• Dust Puppy's and Erwin's first song performance
• Dust Puppy's cast description