Customer Reviews

Techies Unite: Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Peter Zale's "Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet" is a very cool strip. Gotta love Helen--so nice to see a strong female character with mechanical ability for once.

Grouping the strips into categories was a smart move on the author's part. Makes this book more readable that the usual book of comic strips.

If you caught Helen when she was the Sweetheart of the Internet and available only on the Web, you already know she is a genius not to be trifled with. She is headstrong, female and beautiful, and she takes no guff from anyone. The Internet was a perfect place for Helen. She is capable of meeting Bill Gates at hacker conventions held so far underground that participants have to take an elevator up to the sublevel parking garage in order to leave. Gates creeps around her back door looking for sympathy when the Feds go after him (she's not the right one to ask for sympathy). Now Helen has been reborn in syndication more as a generic super techie than a Web denizen, but since that's really what she's always been, the translation to paper went smoothly. This book is a great, sometimes goofy celebration of geekdom. If you've ever wondered if geeks, nerds and techies can be sexy, funny and wonderful, here's your answer. Her name is Helen. This book collects some fine, funny strips from one of the best post-Dilbert comic universes of all. Highly recommended!

"Techies Unite" is the only book of its kind. Having been in the tech world for some time I have often felt and sensed the things that this book treats on. I'm amazed actually that someone out there actually wrote all this stuff down and used it so well. This guy knows this business. At least he seems to know me.

I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who knows anything about the tech world. It's hilarious and true. And Helen is a totally cool and unorthodox character. Nothing like her I've ever seen.

Helen, the comic, will likely be enjoyed by people who dig Dilbert and UserFriendly, but also has elements of more socially oriented strips like Sally Forth or Cathy. (Except that Cathy is terrible, IMHO, whereas Helen is actually funny.)

Helen, the character, is the ultimate grrl-geek. She has all the arrogance and brilliance required to be an alpha-geek, codes artificial intelligences in her spare time, rules over the techno-illiterate, and inspires awe and fear in lesser geeks.

Whether or not you're a techie yourself, you'll enjoy this caricature of social life inside the technocracy.

(If you really get into the strip, it's also interesting to note that the author, Peter Zale, is quite accessible to his readers, maintaining a personal website and a mailing list about the strip's progress.)

Helen captured my heart when I first saw the comic strip because Peter Zale had first captured the soul of the information technology guru. Helen is the spiritual embodiment of those of us who competently labor to keep the information infrastructure running while constantly enduring the overwhelming "lost in the wilderness" dependency of the know-nothing "Wharton School of Business" idiots who surround us and unfortunately are ultimately responsible for our pitiful paychecks.

If you like Helen you have to love this collection. Starting with the first Helen ever and following with the best of the best of the strips. Be careful where you take it though. I am ordering my second because I happened to show my first to the (female) instructor of a technology class I am taking, and the minute she saw it, I had to give it to her to under threat of instant flunking if I didn't.

For those of us on the tail end of the Boomers or the X and Y genners who take fast processors and instant access as our birthright, Helen is our icon. This book is the PERFECT thing for taking a break when you finally look away from the monitor after four hours of serious debugging (or playing Doom, whatever).

In surfing the web you have failed to run across Helen and the imaginative drawings of Peter Zale, you're about to discover the real power behind the internet.

Helen is the essence of the modern CIO, brash, always right, incredibly powerful. The only glass ceiling Helen recognizes the the one below her.

Helen isn't afraid to be herself, but still manages to portray the joint lost feeling that the modern IT professional often finds themselves in.

In Helen, Peter Zale has managed to capture the mood and humor inherent in this wired world (which, bTW, Helen doesn't read anymore. Peters creations have just enough of that ring of truth to make most people laugh, and to even bring a smile to grizzled old CFOs.

Do yourself a favor, buy this book and meet Helen

At the time, this was just a fun book; now it's a fun remember-when book from before the tech bust.

The only thing that I dislike about the book is that it's been "organized" by theme -- whether or not that means breaking up a story arc. It's rather disruptive, especially since the drawing style changed quite a lot (and generally for the better) in the early days. So you're cheerfully reading through a story, and BAM! You're back to scribbles and your story arc is nowhere to be seen.

If Peter Zale ever resurrects the strip, I hope that he'll consider a more chronological approach to future books.

Helen is a wonderful strip. for those who are terrified of computers or for those who love them, she is still the goddess. This strip is bright and witty and feels like the life and times we live in today. What we truly worship, terrifies us; and what we are terrified by, we worship. That is Helen.

I thoroughly enjoyed this witty collection of high-tech office/real life humor. Once you start reading, it's hard to put the book down. (It's like you just want to read ONE more strip ... okay, just one more ... and one more.) The main character, Helen, is intelligent, beautiful, powerful, and yet vulnerable. There's a little bit of Helen in every computer-literate woman/girl you know. In addition to the book's timely subjects, which include hilarious celebrity guest appearances, I was also charmed by the author's brief tongue-in-cheek commentaries that so aptly introduced each chapter. ENJOY!

I've been a fan of Helen's for years & this book is the culmination of all those years of enjoyment. If I was a techie, I'd want to be just like Helen. I find myself silently cheering her on as she says & does all those things I wish I could. She's beautiful, smart,& she says EXACTLY what she thinking! This is a VERY funny book - even if you're not a computer guru!