Loss (comic)

Ctrl+Alt+Del, abbreviated to "CAD", is a webcomic series by Tim Buckley. Created in October 2002, the comic focuses on characters Ethan and Lucas, and later Ethan's love interest Lilah.[1] In 2008, during a storyline where Ethan and Lilah were expecting their first child, Buckley posted the strip "Loss". Before releasing the strip, Buckley wrote a blog post, explaining that he had planned the storyline years in advance. He also mentioned personal experience in his life inspired the strip, mentioning an unplanned pregnancy and miscarriage with an ex-girlfriend in college.[2]

Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik (left) and Jerry Holkins (right) criticized Tim Buckley on "Loss".

"Loss" was received negatively by webcomic creators and critics. During the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo, creators of the event and webcomic series Penny Arcade Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins were asked about the strip during an interview with Joystiq. Both men criticized it, with Holkins describing Buckley as the "Antichrist", humorously citing "Loss" and its storyline as the first horseman of the Apocalypse.[3] Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, creator of the video game review series Zero Punctuation, referenced Ctrl+Alt+Del in his episode on video game webcomics, where he mentioned that having a story line where a character miscarries in a webcomic known for humor would be considered "an awkward tonal shift at best and hugely disrespectful of the subject matter at worst".[4] Kotaku's Mike Fahey, formerly a self-declared fan of the webcomic, agreed with Croshaw's complaints, mentioning being unable to read the series like he used to.[5]

The strip has also faced criticism for being an example of "fridging", a term coined by the website Women in Refrigerators where an author uses the trauma of a female character as a plot device often in a male character's story. Buckley later stated, in the event the situation was brought up again in the webcomic, he would do more research on the effects miscarriages have on mothers.[6]

A minimalist version of "Loss", consisting only of seven lines.

Since the strip was first published in 2008, it has become an internet meme, with users from sites such as 4chan and Tumblr creating edits of the strip, such as recreating it using scenes from other works such as Futurama and Pokémon. 4chan's video game board /v/ would later ban users who created new threads about these edits.[6] A minimalist version of the meme involves the sequence in the same four-panel style; first panel with a single vertical line, second panel with two vertical lines, the second line slightly shorter, third panel with two equal vertical lines, and the fourth panel with a vertical line and a horizontal line. Seeing this sequence would usually cause the reply, "Is this Loss?"[6][7]

New York Magazine's Brian Feldman declared it as "the Internet's Longest-Running Miscarriage 'Joke'".[6] Aryehi Bhushan from student newspaper Varsity wrote about "Loss" as a meme, praising its longevity compared to other memes that have short lifespans.[8] In 2016, the podcast Reply All discussed the strip during their eighteenth episode, Silence And Respect, where a variant of "Loss" was used as a joke about the results in the 2016 United States presidential election.[9]

On June 2, 2018, the tenth anniversary of "Loss", the original strip was replaced by an edit of the comic titled "Found".[7] While the first three panels remained the same, in the last panel Ethan instead looks at the audience with a smirk on his face. A day later, the original strip was restored with no explanation for the replacement.[7] Julia Alexander from Polygon considered "Found" to be an acknowledgement of the status "Loss" had achieved as a meme, comparing the evolution of the strip to Pepe the Frog.[10]

On June 2, 2019, for the eleventh anniversary, the strip was replaced once again by an edit of the comic titled "Cross".[11] Like "Found", this edit replaced the last panel with one where the birth was successful, however the child's face is a minimalist version of the comic itself. Unlike the previous year, this edit did not receive much attention.

• Downer, Adam (September 6, 2017). "Here's to Loss, the Internet's Greatest Meme". Know Your Meme. Retrieved June 3, 2018.

• The original strip