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Long before the "I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC" commercials came out (it's been running since 2003), Applegeeks was promoting the agenda of switching to Mac. A college-based Slice of Life comic with a few surreal elements, it's utterly filled with Product Placement — and Apple isn't paying a thing for all the advertising. Its co-creators are writer Ananth Panagariya and artist Mohammad F. Haque.
It can be found here.
As of October 25, 2010, Haque has placed the comic on indefinite hiatus.
Tropes used in Apple Geeks include:
- Art Evolution: This is #195, and the style of any non-guest comic before it. This is #196. It then gets even Darker and Edgier just a few comics later before reverting to something similar to the second style as of #219, only to change styles again later--right around #300 or so. Also, starting with #380, Yuko Ota became part-time artist, causing yet another Art Shift. Officially,
hisher name is only on #380-382, #485, and #493-496 (current), although shortly after the first guest appearance, the difference between Haque's style and Ota's narrowed quite a bit, for one final art shift (thus far).- Heck, even the character's skin tones have shifted (most evident in Hawk, who now looks much more like Haque, on whom he's based).
- Author Avatar: Hawk/Haque
- B-Side Comics: AG Lite, a newspaper-style comic updating three times a week, in contrast to the full-color, continuity-based main comic.
- Crossover: A few times, both with Ctrl+Alt+Del (Hawk beats down Buckley with his laptop) and Megatokyo (Piro just...pops up out of nowhere, but doesn't directly interact with Hawk)
- Face Heel Turn: Frost - after being absent from the comic for over 150 issues.
- Funny Background Event: Twice, one when Hawk begins work on Eve (before she got a human body) and when Hawk returned home to eat a bunch of donuts.
- Lampshade Hanging: On the rampant Product Placement
- Masquerade: Pushed to breaking point with Eve - She largely avoids attention despite her bright blue hair, glowing parts, energy blades, facial markings and body armor as people believe her to be a cosplayer. Who exactly they think she's cosplaying as is never mentioned. This gets played with in #497 where Gina's friend thinks Eve is in costume, and, when Eve says she's actually a robot, doesn't believe her.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping - Gina originally had a fairly Narmy irish accent, but this was quickly dropped after a couple of issues.
- Orphaned Series: In the middle of a time travel arc, no less.
- Product Placement
- Robot Girl: who, of course, is built using apple hardware
- Schedule Slip: AG Lite updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday without fail (though it was only Wednesdays and Fridays at first, the first Monday comic being #49). The main AppleGeeks, however, updates erratically at best - and has been recently reduced to only a single issue per week. As a result, despite AG Lite beginning in 2006, three years after the main comic, the thousandth overall comic was AG Lite 476 (Wednesday, June 24, 2009)--almost half of the overall output. In fairness, a black-and-white comic strip is considerably easier to make than a full-color, full-page comic.
- It Got Worse. In late 2010, updates started to become sporadic at best until Haque finally put the comic on hiatus.
- Ship Tease: Gina/Hawk looked like it was going to happen for awhile, but that's changed. Also occurred earlier with Naku/Hawk, though this subplot abruptly vanished along with both Naku and her real-life counterpart.
- Show Some Leg: Gina distracts her foe by flashing...her.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Issue 496.
- Talking Animal: It's actually just a figment of Hawk's imagination.
- Token Minority: Hawk may or may not qualify as a Twofer Token Minority, as he is black and Muslim (as evidenced by his honoring Ramadan); but the "Token" part is misleading as he is modeled after the original artist.
- The Verse: Part of a pseudo-canonical "Macverse" comprised of it, Megatokyo, Mac Hall
- Victorious Childhood Friend: After a lot of "Will They or Won't They?", Jayce and Alice are finally dating.
- Webcomics Multiverses: Takes place in the same multiverse as Megatokyo, Ctrl+Alt+Del and Comedity.