These are all comics strip characters who were around in the early days of the 21st century — but since I have no idea how old this “classic” strip is, it’s hard to say how relevant to the joke it is that they’re not all still around in 2019.
Also, I’m not sure what the joke is.
Well, hence the CIDU tag, I guess.
Comics I Don't Understand 
If this is a new strip with characters not seen in a long time, it makes sense. Regardless of their age in the comic, they’re actually all old. That one is holding a newspaper emphasizes their old-fashionedness.
But if it really is an old strip, I’m stumped, too.
The only place I’ve ever seen “My Cage” is here at CIDU. That’s barely enough familiarity for me to vaguely recognize the blue duck. I have not an iota of a clue about any of the other characters in this strip.
P.S. For all web-comic artists: Even if you don’t have a syndication contract, it’s a good idea to put a date (or at least a sequential ID number) on each strip you release. Otherwise your archive becomes an untraceable soup.
He’s not a duck, he’s a platypus. Also, it was syndicated at the time. Only the new strips are web-original (not sure when this is from, but it ran from 2007-2010). Norm and Max are actually the only characters I recognize here who were traditionally published at the time. (Not that I recognize most of them – Skull the Troll from PVP, Dr McNinja (of the eponymous comic), Agatha Heterodyne of Girl Genius, Clango from Diesel Sweeties, and Coney from Kevin & Kell are the only ones I can name.)
Which is where the joke comes in – it doesn’t matter if they’re traditionally published, or web-original…they’re all comic characters, and comics are cool, no matter how they’re delivered.
(The raccoon looks a lot like Woo (of Sandra and…), but Melissa doesn’t seem to have been attempting to copy Powree’s style, so…I don’t know if that’s him or not.)
Yeah, this is pretty old. I’m fairly sure this is from the original run and not post-cancellation. In fact, this might have been part of the cancellation run-up,with the point being that they’re going to the Internet where things are a little different.
My first thought was that these were *all* comics that started on the web, but I’m not at all sure that’s true. The blonde girl with the rabbit ears is Coney from Kevin and Kell, while the tall blonde next to her is Teenage Girl President from Medium Large (by Ces Marciuliano, who also currently writes both Sally Forth and Judge Parker). The plump kid at right is Gil (titular character of one of Norm Feuti’s strips).
Wow, six comments in in a topic I’da thought the regular suspects would have nailed and buried, but no one has yet mentioned the to me obvious “joke”: He says “We’re all the same” while standing in a line of the most diverse group of characters the writer/artist could come up with — not only aren’t they all blue ducks or platypuses or whatever, they aren’t even all anthropomorphic animals, they aren’t even vaguely of the same drawing style. How sentimental, the “new” scary Internet place is so inclusive that people are truly color-blind…
Yeah, larK has my reading of it.
I do believe all of the “guest stars” in this strip are from webcomics specifically.
“How sentimental, the “new” scary Internet place is so inclusive that people are truly color-blind…”
On the Internet, noone knows you’re a blue platypus.
Aw, Teen-age Girl President! Nice.
“My Cage” Ran for a time in Post-Dispatch back when the strip was syndicated.
Pity they couldn’t have put Achewood in there, but you can’t have everything.
So the only ones not identified yet are the rocket pig, the fork-and-spoon critter next to the pig, and the dog with antennae at the far right. Any ideas? I knew pretty much the same ones as Kamino Neko identified, though I was pretty sure about Woo and didn’t know Dr. McNinja at all.
TGP! I knew she looked familiar. It’s been ages since Ces did anything with her.
I miss TGP and the rest of the semi-regular Medium Large characters. It’s nice to read Ces regularly in Sally Forth and Judge Parker (he really invigorated those old chestnuts) but they still lack the insanity of the ML comics.
Yep, just a celebration of being a comic character for the masses to enjoy. Doesn’t matter what the media source was.
“Gil”, at least is still around – new every Sunday on Norm Feuti’s website. (Gil is the one saying how much he loves comics.)
@Mark – both Kevin & Kell and Medium Large are both web-original (K&K is one of the oldest still extant web-original comics), although K&K is now printed in some papers (mostly ones that carry Holbrook’s actual traditionally published comics) and ML has gotten a spot on GoComics.
I think the blonde woman in green on the left is Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet, but it has been a long time since I read that strip.
^^ No. that’s Agatha Heterodyne from Girl Genius.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Is the big rabbit on the left end the one from the now-gone British webcomic “Ways N Means?”
The left end is a troll. The aforementioned Skull.
Thx. Woo and Clango were the only ones I knew for sure.