El Goonish Shive
El Goonish Shive (EGS) is an English-language webcomic by Dan Shive, started on January 21, 2002, about a group of teenagers in the fictional US city of Moperville, whose lives have recently been through phases of transformation, parallel universes and the appearance of a half-squirrel -Shape shifter on the run from her family has become quite adventurous.
Characters
There are a lot of permanent characters in EGS, but the focus is on eight teenagers (all around 17), almost all of whom are in the penultimate grade at one of two high schools in Moperville. In total, the comic includes around 200 different characters.
main characters
Elliot - has the black belt of the local martial arts school. After a childhood in which he quickly attacked every school bully, he now mostly tends to be cautious. He is now trying to please everyone and not hurt anyone (not even with words). It is very difficult for him to make his own decisions.
Tedd - is fascinated by technology and has a talent for getting himself into trouble, especially with his loose mouth. Through the ridicule of his classmates and the death of his mother, Tedd cut himself off from the world during his childhood. For many years, Elliot was his only friend. With the task of programming a transformation beam for two friendly aliens, he finds new courage to face life. He has shoulder-length purple hair and generally looks very androgynous . He wears large glasses to hide his feminine face.
Sarah - is the most normal of all, and more artistically oriented. She has been friends with Elliot since childhood, and even if she has no special powers, she sometimes surprises with hidden talents. After Nanase, she is Elliot's second boyfriend.
Grace - also known as Shade Tail - stands at Tedd's door one day and hopes that he will provide technical means against her family of shape-shifters trained to be assassins. She is a shape shifter herself, with one-third human DNA and two-thirds alien DNA. Like her brothers, she was born in a laboratory to later fight Damien.
Nanase - has red hair, also a black belt and magical abilities. She is initially Elliot's boyfriend and Tedd's cousin.
Justin - also trains, but is not as advanced as Nanase or Elliot. He also works in a comic and trading card business. He was outed as homosexual by his girlfriend at the time, Melissa, two years before the start of the plot, and has not been in a relationship since.
Susan - is easily irritable and because of her father, whom she caught cheating, strongly influenced by feminism. Their attitudes towards boys and men will change and become more moderate as the plot progresses. She is quick to jump over her shadow when her help is needed.
Ellen - Elliot's twin sister appears very unexpectedly for everyone during the "Sister" story arc.
More characters
Mr. Verres - Tedd's single father works for the government.
Greg - Sensei's Martial Arts School.
Director Crazy - constantly trying to keep today's youth on the right track; the result of his efforts are usually murals such as "LIES or the owl is eating you!"
Guineas, Hedge and Vlad - Grace's older "brothers".
Nioi - comes from the "alpha dimension" and knows the Tedd there, who calls himself Lord Tedd . She seems helpful, but has said little about herself or her home dimension.
Damien - his past is in the dark. It is believed, however, that a cult created it in a laboratory. He considers himself a god and wants to conquer the world with the help of shape shifters. He wants to recruit Grace to breed his army.
Ashley - Elliot's number three friend. Distinguishing features are her sloping ponytail and her Asian facial features.
Dr. German and Amanda - dispute various "question and answer" insertions
Structure and publication
The webcomic is divided into three sections. In the EGS section (volume: over 2000 pages - as of December 2015) the main plot is divided into chapters, although there is no fixed status quo. People and their relationships with one another change over the course of history. But there are also short, mostly independent stories in comic strip format in the EGS section: NP (approx. 400 pages - as of Dec. 2015) and often colored drawings in the Sketchbook section (approx. 900 pages - as of Dec. 2015 ) if an appointment was missed. Recently there is also a separate, independent section called "EGS PinUps", which is only published on Tumblr and contains images that are primarily intended for an adult audience. All 4 sections are currently being updated regularly - how often depends in part on the Patreon milestone reached each month. EGS and NP are usually updated 3 times a week, while the Sketschbook or PinUps sections are only updated monthly.
In 2005 Keenspot Entertainment published the two anthologies Read Or The Owl Will Eat You and The Piece That Does Not Fit .
action
The plot begins with the introduction of Tedd, Elliot and his girlfriend Sarah. The three go to the local school Moperville North . There, Tedd creates a living slime that they later fight together with Nanase. Tedd introduces his years of work on a transformation pistol and accidentally meets Elliot. Elliot is furious and desperately wants to be back in his male form. Despite his new shape, he continues to go to school until they find a solution to the problem. In the course of the "solution", Ellen, a magical, female clone of Elliot is created and both "awaken". This means that the magical potential of both is enough to be able to do magic. Elliot's spells involve all sorts of magical transformations, but they are always feminine, while Ellen can create rays of transformation from her hands. Elliot has to transform into a girl for several hours every day to use up magical energy, but thanks to Ellen he can cope with it much better now. The two as well as Nanase and Susan receive various, sometimes very powerful spells in the course of the plot. Shape shifter seeks out Grace Tedd early on in the action. She expects him to help with her shapeshifter brothers and Damiens, a mad demigod who wants to subjugate humanity. With the help of friends, she finally defeats Damien and is reunited with her brothers. She becomes Tedd's boyfriend.
style
The actual action is regularly interrupted, e.g. For example, "Doktor Deutsch" (originally Dr. German) and his assistant Amanda appear to answer readers' questions. Later, such digressions are usually outsourced to EGS-NP.
The comic also goes into detail on the relationships between the individual characters and repeatedly takes up the theme of transformation. In this context, various questions about human sexuality are raised in the comic and in the accompanying comments, which are then discussed by the author on Twitter and Tumblr . Topics on homosexuality , transgender , genderfluid , transsexual , furry and many others are covered.
A super-deformed style is used for sections with explanations .
Patreon
The site is funded by Patreon . Each comic page has its own commentary, in which Dan provides background information on creating the page or the script. In addition, references to older, significant pages are linked here. In the course of the Patreon campaign, comments were also made on older pages that either contained interesting information or simply nonsense.
reception
EGS was judged by the Webcomic Book Club in the summer of 2004 , with four reviewers reaching very different conclusions about the quality of the comic. The criticism includes the tendency that the depicted persons are similar, a poor initial characterization and a very lengthy writing style.
El Goonish Shive is cited with a pictorial representation in T. Campbell's The History of Webcomics . The comic is mentioned in the September 2006 issue of Edutopia magazine, where the use of chimeras is used as an opening for crossings of species.
Web links
- Main page with current comic (English)
- Wiki about the comic book (English)
- Tabular overview of the characters
supporting documents
- ↑ Full Reviews of El Goonish Shive . Webcomic Book Club. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 12, 2007.
- ^ T. Campbell: The History of Webcomics. ISBN 0-9768043-9-5 .
- ↑ Christopher Thomas Scott: Tions and Ligers and Geeps - Oh, My! . September 2006. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
