All There In The Manual / Comic Strips

• As the clock ticked down to the retirement date planned for Lynn Johnston's comic strip For Better or for Worse, she attempted to wrap up numerous loose ends in her ongoing story arcs. The sudden surge of activity in the previously glacial pace of the strips was too much to fit into her three- or four-panel a day limitation, so she set up a website containing letters written by the characters to their fans. In the letters she explained in more detail some of the sudden changes in plot or personality, and indulged in major retconning in response to fan outrage at some of the more absurd developments. Nonsensical in-strip events that were explained in the characters' letters became so commonplace they were a running gag in discussions on the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.comics.strips.
• The comic strip Pluggers uses a cast of Funny Animals to illustrate "Pluggerisms" sent in by readers (granted, the definition is a sliding scale). The now-defunct website used to include mini-bios for each characters, but their traits rarely, if ever, showed up in the actual strip. For instance, Sheila the kangaroo is supposed to be an aerobics instructor according to the 1997 character bios, but not once was she ever shown being one. The character bios were done away with less than four years later.
• The names of Phoebe's parents in Phoebe and Her Unicorn are Ethan and Emily according the character bio on the syndicate's website. While Ethan's name was eventually revealed in-strip, Emily's name is still a mystery unless you read the said bio.

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