Droid Life



Droid Life is a newspaper comic-style strip that appears periodically in Two Thousand AD. Essentially a parody of the initial premise that the comic itself is written, drawn and edited by droids, it focuses on P14, a struggling wannabe script droid who writes the number onto page 14 of every copy of 2000AD (the joke being that this is erased by his colleague, Ray, when he's done) and his best friend Crumbs (whose job, incidentally, is to flick away the eraser crumbs left by Ray when he erases P14's work). P14's constant attempts to get one of his scripts published always end in abject failure.

The strip often parodies classic and current 2000AD strips in the form of P14's stories, which usually see him Completely Missing the Point of the character he's supposed to be writing.

As such, the strip has become something of an Ensemble Darkhorse within the comic and has actually had a graphic novel release.

Droid Life provides examples of:

 * Air Vent Passageway: P14 attempts one after a particularly bad Christmas party. Too bad it lead to the unsold copy incinerator.
 * The Alcoholic: Boxie, the box P14 came in.
 * Bad Boss: Tharg. And P14's supervisor who is constantly getting him to make his page numbers more thrilling (in spite of the fact that they're always about to be erased) and keeps a whip on standby at all times. At one point, the supervisor is so enraged, he is lost for words to describe P14 and gets chewed out by his superior for not being thrilling enough when chewing out a subordinate.
 * Butt Monkey: P14.
 * Cheek Copy: P14 does this when drunk once. Turns out, like everything else in the office, the photocopier is a droid. Technically speaking, this means that P14 slept with her. When P14 tells her that he has a girlfriend, she asks him if she can do double sided and collate.
 * Christmas Episode: In each of the annual specials, there's a Christmas party held. Or at least, for the Art and Script droids upstairs. For P14 and co. down in the sub-sub basement, they might get to watch the Christmas dinner being carted past them or be allowed to listen to the noise from the real party for four seconds through an air vent.
 * Critical Research Failure: In-universe. P14 writes strips to submit to Tharg, yet has never actually read 2000AD, despite having worked there for at least a decade.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Inadvertently happens in one strip, when Crumbs flicks an eraser crumb so thrillingly that he gets and extra 50p in his wages. Several readers thought the "FLICKKKKK!!!" visual sound effect was a Precision F-Strike cleverly disguised. Got lampshaded a couple of strips later.
 * Logic Bomb: P14 inadvertently destroys a union droid with one of these. He asks the droid what his job is, with the union droid telling him that his job is to go on strike. When P14 tells him that his job is to refuse to do his job, he flusters and his head explodes.
 * New Age Retro Hippie: The work experience student. Also, one episode shows protestors with signs that say "You can't hug your children with nuclear arms" until one disgruntled droid tells him that his mother had literal nuclear arms and hugged him all the time with them.
 * No Periods, Period: Averted by P14's girlfriend, whose dustbag gets clogged up, resulting in her being emotional at her "time of the maintenance cycle".
 * Really Gets Around: Cheryl the photocopier. When she shows the copy to P14, claiming it to be his, he responds that the barcode on the arse in question is not his. Suddenly, the office empties.
 * Ridiculously-Human Robots: Taken Up to Eleven and frequently lampshaded. Everything from the box P14 came in to the urinals to banana skins are robots. When P14 asks why a robotic teaboy is needed, it's stated that a robotic tea dispenser made everybody uncomfortable.
 * Stylistic Suck: P14's story submissions.
 * Take That: The Droid Life poster shows the droid responsible for the idea that Judge Dredd was to remove his helmet in The Movie sealed up in a room with no doors gathering cobwebs.
 * Ultimate Job Security: Parodied. P14, Ray and Crumbs get fired in one strip, only for the union droid to kick up a fuss (See Logic Bomb above). After this happens, P14 is told to sweep up the remains and get back to work. Later, not sure if he's even supposed to be still working there or not, he goes to an accounts droid......only for the droid to reveal he only pretends to be an accountant and will be fired if he's caught not playing video games.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Sergeant Bloodbath's description of every single biscuit and type of tea he serves up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: Roughly half of P14's Judge Dredd story submissions involve an Incredibly Lame Pun based upon the phrase "Gaze into the face of Fear" and end with Dredd's "GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD!" line. Of course, Crumbs tells him that it still doesn't work as a story.
 * And, of course, Staplie's winning strategy for Rock, Paper, Scissors, which involves beating all three with a stapler.