diff --git a/network/sic/README b/network/sic/README
index c4a96694d5..842025a1bf 100644
--- a/network/sic/README
+++ b/network/sic/README
@@ -1,10 +1,18 @@
-sic (simple irc client)
+sic (simple irc client from suckless.org)
 
 sic is an extremely simple IRC client. It consists of less than 250
 lines of code.
 
-The default host is "irc.oftc.net" and the default port is 6667. You
-can change these by setting IRCHOST and/or IRCPORT in the script's
-environment, e.g.:
+You can control the build via environment variables:
 
-# IRCHOST=chat.freenode.org IRCPORT=6668 ./sic.SlackBuild
+IRCHOST - sets the default IRC server (default: irc.oftc.net).
+IRCPORT - sets the default port (default: 6667).
+SLASH - set SLASH=yes to change the command prefix from a colon (:) to
+        a slash (/), to make sic work more like other IRC clients.
+
+For even finer-grained control, you can copy config.def.h from the
+sic source to config.h in the SlackBuild directory, and edit it before
+building.
+
+If you want to apply any patches to the sic source, see patches/README
+for instructions.
diff --git a/network/sic/git2tarxz.sh b/network/sic/git2tarxz.sh
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..c169301276
--- /dev/null
+++ b/network/sic/git2tarxz.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+# Create source tarball from git repo, with generated version
+# number.
+
+# Note that this script doesn't need to be run as root. It does
+# need to be able to write to the current directory it's run from.
+
+# Takes one optional argument, which is the commit or tag to create
+# a tarball of. With no arg, HEAD is used.
+
+PRGNAM=sic
+CLONE_URL=https://git.suckless.org/sic
+
+set -e
+
+GITDIR=$( mktemp -dt $PRGNAM.git.XXXXXX )
+rm -rf $GITDIR
+git clone $CLONE_URL $GITDIR
+
+CWD="$( pwd )"
+cd $GITDIR
+
+if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
+  git reset --hard "$1" || exit 1
+fi
+
+GIT_SHA=$( git rev-parse --short HEAD )
+DATE=$( git log --date=format:%Y%m%d --format=%cd | head -1 )
+TAG=$( git tag | tail -1 )
+
+VERSION=$TAG+${DATE}_${GIT_SHA}
+
+rm -rf .git
+find . -name .gitignore -print0 | xargs -0 rm -f
+
+cd "$CWD"
+rm -rf $PRGNAM-$VERSION $PRGNAM-$VERSION.tar.xz
+mv $GITDIR $PRGNAM-$VERSION
+tar cvfJ $PRGNAM-$VERSION.tar.xz $PRGNAM-$VERSION
+
+echo
+echo "Created tarball: $PRGNAM-$VERSION.tar.xz"
+echo "VERSION=$VERSION"
diff --git a/network/sic/patches/README b/network/sic/patches/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..a9c9ce960d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/network/sic/patches/README
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+This directory is for optional patches. Any *.diff files found here
+will be applied to the sic source in ASCIIbetical order, when the
+SlackBuild is run.
+
+If the order of patches matters (if later ones depend on earlier
+ones), name them e.g. 001-foo.diff, 002-bar.diff, etc.
+
+Upstream provides a few patches here:
+
+http://tools.suckless.org/sic/patches/
diff --git a/network/sic/sic.SlackBuild b/network/sic/sic.SlackBuild
index 6e05bc4249..0b04f980b3 100644
--- a/network/sic/sic.SlackBuild
+++ b/network/sic/sic.SlackBuild
@@ -22,6 +22,13 @@
 # OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
 # ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 
+# 20210924 bkw:
+# - update for latest git.
+# - add support for SLASH=yes.
+# - add support for user config.h.
+# - add support for patches.
+# - update README to reflect the above.
+
 # 20201113 bkw: The original author of this script hasn't been heard
 # from since 2011, and it needs some attention (still mentions i486)
 # so I'm taking it.
@@ -35,7 +42,7 @@
 cd $(dirname $0) ; CWD=$(pwd)
 
 PRGNAM=sic
-VERSION=${VERSION:-1.2}
+VERSION=${VERSION:-1.2+20210506_058547e}
 BUILD=${BUILD:-1}
 TAG=${TAG:-_SBo}
 PKGTYPE=${PKGTYPE:-tgz}
@@ -48,9 +55,6 @@ if [ -z "$ARCH" ]; then
   esac
 fi
 
-# If the variable PRINT_PACKAGE_NAME is set, then this script will report what
-# the name of the created package would be, and then exit. This information
-# could be useful to other scripts.
 if [ ! -z "${PRINT_PACKAGE_NAME}" ]; then
   echo "$PRGNAM-$VERSION-$ARCH-$BUILD$TAG.$PKGTYPE"
   exit 0
@@ -80,22 +84,52 @@ rm -rf $PKG
 mkdir -p $TMP $PKG $OUTPUT
 cd $TMP
 rm -rf $PRGNAM-$VERSION
-tar xvzf $CWD/$PRGNAM-$VERSION.tar.gz
+tar xvf $CWD/$PRGNAM-$VERSION.tar.?z
 cd $PRGNAM-$VERSION
 chown -R root:root .
 chmod 644 *
 
-sed -i "s/CFLAGS =/CFLAGS +=/" config.mk
+# this is more complex than it has to be: upstream released a a mix
+# of -p0 and -p1 patches.
+for i in $CWD/patches/*.diff; do
+  if [ -e "$i" ]; then
+    P=1
+    patch --dry-run -p0 < $i &>/dev/null && P=0
+    echo "=== Applying $( basename $i ) with -p$P"
+    patch -p$P < $i
+  fi
+done
 
-[ -n "$IRCHOST" ] && \
-  sed -i "/host *= *\"/s,\"[^\"]*\",\"$IRCHOST\"," $PRGNAM.c
+if [ -e "$CWD/config.h" ]; then
+  # if the user's got his own config.h, use it
+  cat "$CWD/config.h" > config.h
+else
+  # if not, use the upstream default
+  cat config.def.h > config.h
+fi
 
-[ -n "$IRCPORT" ] && \
-  sed -i "/port *= *\"/s,\"[^\"]*\",\"$IRCPORT\"," $PRGNAM.c
+# IRCHOST IRCPORT SLASH modify the config.h, even overriding what's
+# in the user's custom one. Also fixup the man page.
+if [ -n "$IRCHOST" ]; then
+  sed -i "/DEFAULT_HOST/s,\".*\"\$,\"$IRCHOST\"," config.h
+  sed -i "/default host/s,(.*) *$,($IRCHOST)," $PRGNAM.1
+fi
+
+if [ -n "$IRCPORT" ]; then
+  sed -i "/DEFAULT_PORT/s,\".*\"\$,\"$IRCPORT\"," config.h
+  sed -i "/default port/s,(.*) *$,($IRCPORT)," $PRGNAM.1
+fi
+
+if [ "${SLASH:-no}" = "yes" ]; then
+  sed -i "s|':'|'/'|" config.h
+  sed -i '/^\.BI :/s,:,/,' $PRGNAM.1
+fi
 
 CFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS -Wl,-s" \
 DESTDIR=$PKG \
 make \
+  VERSION="$VERSION" \
+  CFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS" \
   PREFIX=/usr \
   MANPREFIX=/usr/man \
   install
@@ -103,7 +137,7 @@ make \
 gzip -9 $PKG/usr/man/man1/$PRGNAM.1
 
 mkdir -p $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION
-cp -a LICENSE README $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION
+cp -a LICENSE README config.h $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION
 cat $CWD/$PRGNAM.SlackBuild > $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION/$PRGNAM.SlackBuild
 
 mkdir -p $PKG/install
diff --git a/network/sic/sic.info b/network/sic/sic.info
index f466828855..355b87cd23 100644
--- a/network/sic/sic.info
+++ b/network/sic/sic.info
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 PRGNAM="sic"
-VERSION="1.2"
+VERSION="1.2+20210506_058547e"
 HOMEPAGE="http://tools.suckless.org/sic"
-DOWNLOAD="http://dl.suckless.org/tools/sic-1.2.tar.gz"
-MD5SUM="eb099e790c3ce7866df50d3fe1a52c25"
+DOWNLOAD="https://slackware.uk/~urchlay/src/sic-1.2+20210506_058547e.tar.xz"
+MD5SUM="e28bbec757711fd3a8883200e467b088"
 DOWNLOAD_x86_64=""
 MD5SUM_x86_64=""
 REQUIRES=""
diff --git a/network/sic/slack-desc b/network/sic/slack-desc
index 8a2a71b460..bc34e76761 100644
--- a/network/sic/slack-desc
+++ b/network/sic/slack-desc
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 # customary to leave one space after the ':' except on otherwise blank lines.
 
    |-----handy-ruler------------------------------------------------------|
-sic: sic (simple irc client)
+sic: sic (simple irc client from suckless.org)
 sic:
 sic: sic is an extremely simple IRC client. It consists of less than 250
 sic: lines of code.