Men In Hats

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Men In Hats
Author(s)	Aaron Farber
Website	http://www.meninhats.com/
Current status / schedule	Abandoned
Launch date	August 5, 2002
End Date	March 20, 2005

Men In Hats was a webcomic by cartoonist Aaron Farber, done in computer vector graphics. In the author's own words, "Men in Hats is the gripping story of 6 guys who stand around in the desert... talking... sometimes they have breakfast." The sometimes philosophical humor of the comic was compared by fans to that found in Calvin and Hobbes.^{[citation needed]} Men In Hats was part of the Keenspot webcomics group.

After a hiatus, Aaron Farber seemed to be updating again as of January 31, 2005, with the note of: "I don't know what to say, folks. I'm just no good." Updates then stopped as of February 28, 2005, with no explanation. In June, he posted on his website that the comic 'will probably return at some point, don't hold your breath on it happening any time soon', again with no actual explanation as to why he had stopped updating the comic.

On July 21, 2005, Farber pronounced the comic officially over due to his waning interest in it, and his growing resentment of/contempt for his "fans", but he promised that a new webcomic would be started soon thereafter. This new webcomic project never materialized, and Farber has not been heard from since.

In Autumn 2007 the final comic was inexplicably replaced by the first, and the bottom of the page was altered. It retains the "Men in Hats is..." sentence right up to the word "breakfast", but is followed by a picture of each character and their names. Below that has been added the sentence: "It was eventually determined to be too beautiful for this world and discontinued." However, the merchandise page was retained. The original Men in Hats page, complete with broken links and Aaron Farber's old blog entries, is now located at http://www.pentasmal.com.

[edit] Characters

Aram - an unfriendly sadist who frequently abuses and insults the other characters. He dislikes everyone and only Beriah shows any affection for him. He wears a black tuxedo and top hat. He inspired the recurring character of Hat Guy in the webcomic xkcd.^[1]
Beriah - a slow-witted but well-meaning man who either annoys the other characters or becomes the victim of Aram's pranks or his own inadvisable actions. He seem to be childishly innocent, and eats many bizarre things. He is dressed like a bellhop.
Gamal - the most reasonable of the characters by a long way, Gamal is the sole voice of sanity in the comic. His role is to try (usually failing) to talk sense into the others, often by way of sarcastic remarks. He works as a salesman, a job which he hates. He wears a simple white shirt, red tie, and bowler hat.
Jeriah - a depressive clown who tends to spout inane speech about how the world is against him. Although he is superficially a sad, lonely individual, it soon becomes clear that he has little justification for his depression and probably puts it on for attention. He has a drug problem. He wears a fedora hat.
Mayor Jeb - apparently the overweight mayor of the comic's unnamed setting. He is a caricature of dumb politicians, often introducing absurd and self-serving policies and rarely doing anything worthy of re-election (but the others keep voting for him for reasons even they are unsure of). He wears overalls and a straw hat.
Sam - a religious zealot who constantly tries to convert the other characters to Christianity by whatever means. No matter how hard he tries to convince them, his talk of embracing love and goodwill invariably turns to intolerant hate speech. He runs a church, although he is apparently its only member. He is dressed as a vaudevillian showman.