Q: I said, what is this thing I am looking at?

A: Congratulations! Your wayward fumbling around the internet has led you to Lil’ Gardner & Robot Jesus, the world’s premiere webcomic about Lil’ Gardner and Robot Jesus. It is written and illustrated by Gardner Linn.

Q: I don’t know Gardner Linn, and I don’t want to know him. Am I going to understand this comic strip? Is it just a bunch of injokes about this Gardner and his kickball buddies? Is “Robot Jesus” really the name of his dog or something?

A: We’re doing our best to keep Lil’ Gardner injoke-free. We feel strongly that Lil’ Gardner, Robot Jesus and all their pals are characters for the ages, and that their adventures should be accessible to all readers. If you are a human being, then you will relate to Lil’ Gardner’s identity crises, rampant egomania and desperate self-loathing. If you are a robot or a deity, or both, you will relate to Robot Jesus’s frustration with Lil’ Gardner and, by extension, all humans. THIS IS NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Q: Is this like Lost, where there’s some five-year plan or something and I have to start at the beginning and pay attention to every little detail?

A: While of course we would love for you to read and cherish every one of our adventures, there is no overarching plot or plan. We began the strip in 2003, published it very sporadically for about a year and a half, and then stopped. We relaunched it on March 23, 2008 and ran two strips a week for a year. On March 26, 2009, we switched up the format a bit, replacing the minimalist cut-and-paste “aesthetic” of the comic with hand-drawn splendor. If you’d like to start at the beginning, here you go. If you’d like to start at the relaunch, here you go again, and head here for the beginning of our analog phase. We update every Monday and Thursday.

Q: I read a comic in the archive and it seriously didn’t make any sense at all.

A: Not a question, but okay. It’s possible that the comic is not to your tastes, or maybe even just outright bad. Or it’s possible that you just read a chapter of the 10-month storyline “Robot Jesus R.I.P.,” in which Robot Jesus died and Lil’ Gardner & co. tried to save him. It went on longer than I planned (considering I didn’t really plan it out), and there were numerous interruptions. But if you click right here, you can read the whole storyline from the beginning sans interruptions, and hopefully its mysteries will reveal themselves to you.

Q: Who is Gardner Linn?

A: Like Lil’ Gardner, Big Gardner is 29 and lives in Los Angeles. Unlike Lil’ Gardner, he is a real human being who works in the television industry. His work as a story producer has been seen in such shows as America’s Next Top Model, The Chef Jeff Project, Ax Men, Black Gold, Ice Road Truckers and T.I.’s Road to Redemption. He occasionally writes things on his blog, where you can find more information if you so desire. Along with co-writer Chris Thorn and artist Dave Lentz, he also produces the webcomic Registered Weapon, about Los Angeles’s toughest homicide detective and his new parter, a robot who used to be a cash register. It is much, much, much better drawn than Lil’ Gardner.

Q: Anything else?

A: That’s all I’ve got.