History YMMV / SluggyFreelance

** The gag week where UN weapons inspectors are incapable of finding Bert living in the house was based on then-current events: the UN's inspectors in Iraq had reported that Saddam had no WMDs. This sounded pretty unlikely at the time and the inspectors were widely mocked. After the war, though, this gag week got a lot less funny when America didn't find WMDs either.

** A short gag week where UN weapons inspectors are incapable of finding Bert living in the house was already on shaky ground in the early 00's when Pete was clearly mocking the perceived incompetence of UN weapons inspectors trying to find weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, basically parroting a then-current line of American propaganda used to justify invading the country. It is an understatement to say that this week of jokes comes off as ''extremely'' tasteless in the present day aftermath of the 2003 invasion and the conclusive evidence that said propaganda used to inspire the content of those comics was made up out of whole cloth.

* AcceptableTargets: [[AnimalWrongsGroup PETA]] and telemarketers, especially in the earlier strips.

* HilariousInHindsight: The arc where the group first meets the Lysindra vampires was funny enough in 1998. Come 2005 and ''Twilight'', and the attack of the vampire Kullen and the fact that Torg has a mind that vampires can't read, and it's hilarious how well ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' gets mocked.

** The Steve Irwin CaptainErsatz "The Demon Hunter" gets stabbed in the chest with a nautically-themed spear. Could also qualify as CrossesTheLineTwice, as it does happen a second time, [[spoiler: when his assistant/wife betrays him.]]
** A short gag week where UN weapons inspectors are incapable of finding Bert living in the house was already on shaky ground in the early 00's when Pete was clearly mocking the perceived incompetence of UN weapons inspectors trying to find weapons of mass destruction in Sadam Hussein's Iraq. It is an understatement to say that this week of jokes comes off as ''extremely'' tasteless in the present day aftermath of the Iraq War.

* SeasonalRot: Opinion varies on where it started, what exactly's been going wrong, or whether it's still "good," and while many people feel that it's nowhere near what it was in the nineties and early 2000s, others think that despite the [[CerebusSyndrome changes]] it's just as good as it ever was.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: The Steve Irwin CaptainErsatz "The Demon Hunter" gets stabbed in the chest with a nautically-themed spear. Could also qualify as CrossesTheLineTwice, as it does happen a second time, [[spoiler: when his assistant/wife betrays him.]]
* HarsherInHindsight: A short gag week where UN weapons inspectors are incapable of finding Bert living in the house was already on shaky ground in the early 00's when Pete was clearly mocking the perceived incompetence of UN weapons inspectors trying to find weapons of mass destruction in Sadam Hussein's Iraq. It is an understatement to say that this week of jokes comes off as ''extremely'' tasteless in the present day aftermath of the Iraq War.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: When the comic began, it followed the standard four-panel black-and-white format of newspaper comics, complete with the triple-sized, full-color strip on Sundays. As the years went by, Pete Abrams began using color a lot more frequently, as well as often doing several strips each week that were double, triple, or even quadruple the normal size. All while sticking to a daily update schedule. Compare a week's worth of strips from [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/weekly/970927 early in the series]] to a week of strips from the [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/weekly/041204 "That Which Redeems" arc]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Torg Potter storylines are completely self-contained (at least so far), in contrast to pretty much every other storyline which can be guaranteed to have some effect later on.
** Abrams even added an annotation in a non-Torg Potter strip when K'z'k used the name of a spell from it, clarifying it was just meant to be a fun internal shout-out and not meant to signify any connection.

* CrazyAwesome: Torg's moments of victory prior to when he TookALevelInBadass - for example, his apparently inane practice of keeping around "Emergency Pants", which go on to become absolutely vital [[ChekhovsGun a few strips later]].

* FanNickname: Before we found out anything about it, the 4U City dimension was nicknamed "The Dimension of Rain", rhyming with Dimension of Pain and because it rains constantly.
* {{Filler}}: Usually of the 'non-demanding art' variety in between major storylines; in the early days this was usually planned stick-figure weeks or guest artist weeks (and these still appear) but there can also be more erratic examples of things like sketches and fanart submissions used unexpectedly when plotting issues, illness etc. delays the main comic.

* IKnewIt:
** The use of the Minion Master as a [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Gun]] was figured out by the forumites fairly easily.
** This trope is the reason the forum has a separate section for fan theories that Pete Abrams does not look at.

* MagnificentBastard: [[spoiler:Irving Schlock]] [[http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/110202 slowly became one]].

** Played straight and subverted by the same action: Oasis murders [[spoiler:Monica]], someone the readers know is an evil spy trying to bring about the downfall of the main cast. However, nobody (including Oasis) knew this fact. And up to this point, Oasis had not done any permanent damage to anyone the main cast would identify as innocent, meaning that for many of them (and Oasis herself) the event has become a MoralEventHorizon. Her true Moral Event Horizon may have come when she [[spoiler:burned Zoe alive.]]