A special public service announcement from your friends at The System. By the way if this comic looks familiar, it ran as part of an article on ZDnet thanks to Systemic SkawtNYC, who is now a blogger over there. I reformat and sometimes write him comics for his blog posts, which has been great to invite people over to the site. If you’re coming over because of that, hello! Otherwise you should check out his blog here, it’s pretty interesting stuff.

Remember, I’ll be at InterventionCon this coming weekend with many goods for sale. Be sure to stop by my table and say hi, even if you don’t plan on purchasing anything. If you find me at the con, be sure to let me know that you’ve already read the comic. Current readers get free stuff! The secret password is “tacos”.

For that matter, I’ll be on a few events as part of SUPER ART FIGHT which we’re doing as part of the con. The confirmed events so far are our full live event on Saturday and an “after dark” SAF show that night that is sure to be interesting, and R-rated in nature. We’re letting Noguchi use all his 4-letter words, so that will not be something to miss. Be sure to come see those too!

Let’s see here…

• Bad pun? Check.
• Web design reference? Check.
• Old school video game reference? Check.

Yeah, I think my work is done here.

But your work isn’t done! Some outstanding Systemic Actions need your help!

The Venn F%*king Diagrams shirt is up for sale. Lots of you were interested and haven’t preordered yet, consider this your best chance to do so. Don’t have the cash? I’d consider it a solid favor if you spread the word just the same.

Still trying to get that SXSW panel! If you could go to the site and vote for it, then leave a comment that would help a ton. The site is at 10 comments right now. If it gets to 20, I’ll do more custom art (like I did for the survey, see below).

Jami “Angry Zen Master” Noguchi is working on Puppy Cow, and needs your help milking the last 25% of the funding together. He even did a cute comic thingy with Puppy Cow (just follow that link).

Oh, and remember that survey you guys filled out? I lived up to my end of the bargain! Go check out the post to see some custom awesome artwork I did, and if you haven’t filled out the survey please do. It helps, and thanks to those of you who already did!

Welcome to comic #400, and the 2-year anniversary of The System! I know what you’re saying, comic #1 was posted July 1st. True, but it went live somewhere around July 8th and y’know what? Close enough.

Since then we’ve seen lots of changes to the site, from some recurring characters to comics that have been across the internet and back (with varying amounts of credit thrown my way). I could not have made it this far if not for the help of my many friends (both those with websites and without) and fans who have encouraged and supported this project along the way.

Over the next few weeks you will start seeing some improvements around here, as some new personal opportunities have come up that will allow for some more time and effort to be put on the comic and its various accoutrement. If you’re a fan of the site and would like to do your part, check out the online store and consider supporting the comic and taking something home while you’re at it. If you don’t see something you like don’t worry, preorder for BOOK 1 of The System will be going up soon along with other pieces of amazingness.

For those of you less monetarily inclined but with plenty of free time, it always helps when you share comics on StumbleUpon, Reddit, forums, blogs, BoingBoing or any other sites you frequent. Or for that matter just participating around here by commenting on posts and talking back as I use this site (and Twitter, and Tumblr) to talk at you. I know RossMom always appreciates it, and at this point I think we can pretty much call her a moderator. And yeah, that’s my mom.

Also upcoming, I’m going to start posting a bit of a retrospective on how The System is doing in an effort to show you guys what goes on behind the scenes and also get some thoughts out. Posts about how I’ve gotten this far (if you call this far) and what I’ve learned along the way. For those who like that kind of inside baseball I think you’ll appreciate them. For those that don’t, well, there’s always the comic.

Speaking of the comic, can you pick out where all the panels are from? The art is all from previous comics starting between comic #304 and #399. See what you can do and post it in the comments!

Here is that recap I promised, in the same vein as #100 and #200.  As I said in the post on #300, thank you all for reading, commenting, sending in System in the Wild posts, and doing all the little things you do to support The System.  I notice.

Remember, this, along with all comics, can be purchased as a comic print through HilariAwesome.com! This one comes out to a Super A3/B print (13″ x 19″ paper for all you laymen) that is high quality poster awesomeness.  It may be way bigger than the normal comic, but it’s still the same $10 at HilariAwesome.com!

UPDATE: Systemic Lextrical put together a little “magic bean”, a piece of music based upon this comic. Here it is!

What We’ve Learned Lately by lextrical