The Brief, non-technical WTF.
The Less brief, technical WTF (or, "how this works")
The Avatars (or "who are these people?")

<myra> I can't stop reloading it.
<myra> it's... horrible.

Well, that's pretty much it, really. AYP is generated dynamically from a logging script that sits on a specific IRC channel on a specific IRC server. These logs are updated in a database at midnight. At this point, the fu that makes AYP go grabs text from a random point and makes the comic, which may or may not be funny.

Which IRC channel? Which IRC server?

You don't need to know these things. In fact, it's probably better that you don't. Think of the children.

This has been done before.

Yes, it has. In fact, we got the idea from Subnova. Before that, there was Toonbots. We're different. We have angst. Among other things, such as Laura, Germans, and a fixation for AYB. We don't try to be funny. Most of the time, we succeed.

Who do the avatars represent?

People, for the most part. If you read everything and keep up on it, you should be able to figure things out. Names have been removed to protect the guilty, and pants have been included to protect the innocent. Some of the victims/assailants have donated their likeness to the cause. Those that haven't have been assigned to avatars that you'll likely recognize. Or should.

If you know who you are and don't like your avatar or want a new one... well, you should have gotten involved in the process, rather than saying "I want nothing to do with this!". :)

It's greyscale. Those other script-generated comics are color.

This makes the files smaller and the code easier to wrangle. It's also a hell of a lot prettier. And much more consistent.

So. WTF.

AYP is an experiment in more or less randomized comedy. The nature of the comic is such that once it's done and up, we don't have to touch it. At all. Ever. It runs itself, like a Maytag. This makes it remarkably more consistant in updates than your average webcomic, as updates are scheduled in a cron tab and the only thing that will mess them up is server downtime. There are other features, too- randomly generated strips, among other things. The idea is for AYP to be entertaining in some capacity- though it might take a few viewings to get you hooked. And once you are....

All Your Pants Are Belong To Us.

!suck ?

Yes. !suck. As in "cool". It's a user-defined database of strips. If you think something's funny, tell the site. This adds that strip to the !suck page for viewing by others.

What's up with "This Is Funny!" ?

Simple. If you click it, the strip in question is added to !suck, which is a sort of user-selected funny. !