About the comic

Around the Back is a comic strip about side doors: service windows, alley counters, staff-only showers, and the exact spot where a normal errand turns strange. Same problems as the front of the building. Different entrance. It's deadpan, occasionally indecent, and drawn simply on purpose.

Mature-ishMature-ish: adult language, sex jokes, existential dread, and frogs. No nudity you could get in trouble for. No age gate — just a heads-up.

New strips land most Fridays. Nobody in the strip learns anything, which keeps the continuity easy.

The cast

The Clerk

Runs the back window of every institution. Has a stamp. Has never once explained the stamp.

Boxer Shorts Guy

Heart-pattern shorts, laminated documentation, absolute confidence, no plan.

The Neighbors

Two people who stand over things and decline to act. The moral center, unfortunately.

The Genie

Grants wishes strictly through official channels. Currently between clipboards.

Transcripts, accessibility & AI crawlers

Every strip has a written transcript printed on its own page, plus a plain description of what the strip is doing. That's there first for people using screen readers, slow connections, or a phone in bright sun — and second so search engines and AI crawlers can actually read the jokes instead of guessing at a picture. Alt text alone wouldn't do either job properly.

Reuse a transcript to quote or discuss a strip. Please don't republish the art itself.

Start reading

Go to the latest strip, dig through the archive, or pick a tag: #bureaucracy, #absurdist, #alley, #deadpan, #feelings, #food, #frog, #magic, #mildly indecent, #relationships, #romance, #secrets, #sex joke, #wishes, #wordplay. There's an RSS feed too. Written by Devin Devito.