El Goonish Shive

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El Goonish Shive
Grace in anthropomorphic squirrel form.
Author(s)	Dan Shive
Website	http://www.elgoonishshive.com/ RSS
Current status	Story: Tuesday, Thursday, Filler: Saturday (Temporary), (newspaper on hiatus)
Launch date	2002-01-21[1]
Genre(s)	Fantasy/Sci-fi
Rating(s)	13+

El Goonish Shive (EGS) is a contemporary fantasy webcomic, written and drawn by Dan Shive. It debuted on 2002-01-21 and has been hosted on Keenspot^[2] since Summer 2003. EGS is rated "13+" by Shive.

The comic depicts the lives of a group of friends who are currently in their junior year of high school. They are subject to mundane problems of teenage life including disapproving parents, nasty rumours and arbitrary school decisions, and also to problems involving magic, aliens, parallel dimensions and superscience. One of the comic's major themes is the acceptance of differences, including homosexuality. The characters are complex, and believable presentation is attempted despite humorous undertones, and the setting as a whole is organized and consistent within the comic.

Storylines are usually part of a long, continuous plot rather than returning to a status quo. Stories of no or little importance for the main plot are narrated outside of the main context of EGS in El Goonish Shive: Newspaper. Most main storylines are short and follow only a few characters, but some are multi-part arcs in which the whole lead cast is involved. As of March 2007, there have been four multi-part arcs: "Sister", "Night Out", "Painted Black" and "Grace's Birthday Party". The chronology of the strip has advanced by a few weeks in five years of production.

Since 2005, Keenspot has published two volumes of collected editions. As of March 2007, Volume 1 is the third best selling Keenspot article.^[3]

Contents 1 Author 2 Themes 3 Synopsis 4 Cast 5 History 5.1 Storytelling 5.2 Art 6 Reception 7 Collected editions 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Author

The author of El Goonish Shive is Daniel Elliot Shive (born 1983-02-18). Shive regularly participates in discussions with his fans on the EGS Keenspot forum, and sometimes releases information about the storyline and world in which it is set, as well as discussing storyline decisions and alternate paths he might have taken with the comic.

Shive occasionally draws himself in the comic outside of continuity, using an anthropomorphic squirrel, designed as a mix of the cast’s characteristics, as author surrogate. This avatar often plays the funny man in fillers, as opposed to the character Elliot Daniel Dunkel, who appears as the straight man within EGS.

Shive has been a panelist in the annual Comic-Con International since 2003.

[edit] Themes

While El Goonish Shive is not an editorial strip, it supports widespread tolerance. This is shown by the otherwise different main characters agreeing on accepting a number of differences, including sexual orientations such as homo-, bi- and transsexuality,^[4][5] non-traditional gender roles and lifestyle choices. Even alien species are accepted. Limits to tolerance are shown by few to none of the characters supporting something. Non-consensual sexual acts and fighting except for defense of self or others can be assumed as being strongly rejected by all main characters, as even the characters most likely to act in that respect reject even minor cases.^[6][7]

As the main plot proceeds, the characters are shown to slowly change in some ways from who they have been before, which mostly happens as growth that enables them to develop fuller personalities and accept their responsibilities (Coming of Age). However, not all changes have been pleasant to the characters, for instance Nanase, who had been introduced as strong and confident,^[8] was shaken to the core when she discovered her homosexuality (something her mother despises),^[9] and is only slowly recovering.

Manipulation is shown in different forms, from the humorous to the dangerous. For instance, government agent Mr. Verres hides the widespread presence of Uryuoms by giving them T-Shirts with "Human" printed on it, which seems to work for yet unknown reasons. More dangerous to the characters are the direct mental manipulation by the invisible "Mastermind" and the open question whether the information about Lord Tedd being a villain is correct or was planted.

The nature of self-identity is examined primarily through the character Ellen, who must find a new identity after being pushed out of the one that her memories told her was hers. Though she tries to hide it from most people, she admits that she still views herself as a duplicate Elliot rather than her own person some time after her creation, despite being considered a completely separate person by most people that are close to her.

[edit] Synopsis

The plot begins with the "Goo" storyline, in which Tedd creates goo in class which becomes a danger and Elliot apparently destroys it using martial arts. In the following storylines including "Sister", the other lead characters are introduced: Sarah as Elliot's friend, Grace as hybrid shapeshifter who fled from the cruel Damien, Nanase and Justin as Elliot's fellow martial art students, and Susan as Sarah's feminist friend. Tedd's father Mr. Verres is revealed to be a member of a secret agency. In the "Sister" arc, Tedd accidentally transforms Elliot into a girl, who is later split into two people. A male Elliot and a female, dubbed Ellen. Ellen mistakenly believes that she will be short-lived and wants to destroy Elliot's life as revenge and heads for school, where her plans mostly fail. Ellen is then attacked by the goo, which is actually computerized and claims to have been sent by "Lord Tedd". At the end of the arc, Ellen destroys the goo with the help of the others, and is accepted as their friend, and by Elliot and his family as a sister.

The next storylines expand the characters: Ellen befriends Grace, Sarah and Elliot deepen their relationship formed in "Sister", and both Tedd's parents, and Susan's, are revealed to be divorced, the latter because her father commited adultery. In the "Night Out" arc, Tedd and Grace, both transformed into the opposite form, go to the cinema with Sarah and Elliot. Grace's shapeshifter "brother" Hedge, recognizes Elliot, whom he saw transformed, as an anthro-feline, during "Sister". The second part of "Night Out" shows Ellen, Justin and Nanase following Susan's invitation to watch videos at her house. Susan develops a crush on Justin,^{[citation needed]} before finding out he is gay, and Nanase discovers that she is a lesbian, and is attracted to Ellen. She is desperate to keep it a secret, fearing her mother will find out.

The storyline "Tam eh Tedd" introduces the alien Uryuoms and their reproductive method, where any DNA can be inserted into an Uryuom egg, and still produce viable offspring.^[10] The Uryuoms are revealed to be the origin of Tedd's transformation gun.^[11] The "Painted Black" arc begins with Hedge abducting Elliot, while he and Sarah are together in the park. Elliot painfully transforms into an anthro-feline and passes out. Hedge pushes Sarah away easily, but tells her he will take Elliot to the "Nest". Ellen and Nanase accompany Grace to the Nest, her birthplace. Grace enters the Nest, but is caught and bound by Damien, and placed next to Dr.Sciuridae, who had treated her like a daughter. Sciuridae reports how he replaced the human DNA for the Uryuom egg in the "Shade Tail" project designed to kill Damien with his dead daughter, Grace's.^[12] Elliot, Ellen and Nanase defeat Grace's brothers, Hedge, Guineas and Vlad and Damien wants to fight the intruders himself. Instinctively, Grace transforms into a very powerful form, fighting and wounding Damien severely until he flees. Damien prefers his death to captivity, and unable to kill Grace otherwise, he blows himself up next to her. Nioi, who was secretly watching, rescues Grace and brings her back to her friends. Nioi then touches Ellen's nose, promising it will help her, and vanishes. The arc closes when troops from Mr.Verres' agency bring Hedge, Guineas and a now human, female, "Vladia" to the agency to prepare them for living normal lives. Elliot, Grace, Nanase and Ellen return home.

The storylines from "Sleepy Time" to "Family Reunion" tell several stories in parallel that happen during the following week in story time. Grace feels guilty about having been violent, and remains in human form. She invites her friends to a gender-switching birthday party. While most dislike the idea, all agree to come. For the next few days after Nioi's "nosebeep", Ellen's dreams are of the memories of an alternate Ellen, from birth to high school graduation, who grew up in a world where hybrids such as Grace were common and where Tedd and Nioi's alternates and a hybrid named Archie were her friends. Tedd teasing a distraught Susan about her Star Trek shirt leads to his school's Principal introducing a strict dress code for Moperville North HS. At Moperville South HS, a group of girls tries in vain to recruit Nanase to get more male attention, observed by Justin's former friend Melissa and the distant Noah. On Grace's birthday, her siblings contact her, and they convince Grace that she shouldn't feel guilty about what she did to Damien. At the beginning of the "Grace's Birthday Party" arc, the ghostly "Mastermind" tries to subconsciously make Ellen transform Elliot, apparently hoping the ray will transport him into Elliot's body,^{[citation needed]} he fails and is chased away by two "immortals". Afterwards, the party progresses with gift-giving, gender-switching and a Karaoke competition, won by Ellen who explains about her dream alternate, who was a singer in a band. Then, people go their own ways, ending up in groups of two. Elliot and Sarah make out despite being gender-switched. Tedd and Grace work out misconceptions about each other. Male Susan and female Justin go from remembering sad moments of their past, to Susan consoling Justin, to both making out, only not going further when a lamp burns out. Ellen tells Nanase that she is a lesbian, after alternate Ellen's seduction of Archie ended badly, but Nanase is silent, only telling Ellen of her own homosexuality, and kissing her in the final strip of the arc.

The storyline "Hidden Genesis" reveals the Mastermind to be a man named Magus from another dimension, transported into the astral plane of this one two years prior to "Sister". The current storyline, "The After Party", follows the characters on the day after the party, introducing Nanase's family, and emphasising Nanase's fear of her relationship with Ellen becoming known by them.

[edit] Cast

Main article: Characters of El Goonish Shive

Elliot Dunkel appeared in the Comic's very first panel, and has remained an important character since. He has been described as having a 'Knight in Shining Armour' complex,^{[original research?]} feeling compelled to help those in need, which has been important to his involvement in several storylines. Elliot is a black-belt student of "anime-style" martial arts, and attends Moperville North High School as a Junior. Events in the Sister story-arc allowed him the ability to shape-shift into both an anthropomorphic-cat^[13] and a female version of himself.^[14]

A level-headed character, Elliot is often the comic’s straight man.

Tedd Verres is an androgynous teenage boy with a knack for trouble and technology. Tedd is in love with Grace, and is Elliot’s best friend. He wears large electronically enhanced glasses. Formerly shy due to being harassed for his feminine appearance, he has attained a great deal of confidence since being entrusted with developing alien morphing technologies,^[15] which he uses in his spare time for his own amusement.

Tedd’s relationship with Grace has developed quickly during the "Relations" storyline. He has a furry fetish alongside a number of other fetishes. As such, he likes Grace’s animal forms, mainly her half-squirrel and half-cat forms, though not to the exclusion of herself. Although his role is in many ways that of a typical horny teenage boy with the addition of an obsession with transformation, his core character has forced those who have judged him, particularly Susan, to re-evaluate their perceptions.

Ellen Dunkel is the female duplicate of Elliot, who was magically split from him in the "Sister" storyline. She initially strove to be his "evil twin" when she saw herself as an ephemeral "extra Elliot", but has since adjusted better, although she still has not settled on a self-identity of her own. Ellen can shoot a beam from her hand that partially mimics the effect of Tedd’s transformation gun set to "Female Variant #5". She is bisexual, but uncomfortable with her attraction to men. She is much more playful and flirty than Elliot, whom she has compared to herself as being "like [her] if [she] was being directed by George Lucas", i.e. rather wooden and deliberate.

At the end of the "Painted Black" storyline, the sorceress Nioi cast a spell on her which has caused her to dream of a "second life" - she experiences living the life of a female alternate of Elliot in another dimension, apparently intended to give her the life experiences she would have had if she had grown up normally. This has led to some unexpected explorations of her personality, the most obvious of which was bringing to the surface her repressed discomfort with finding men attractive, which eventually resulted in her identifying as a lesbian.

Ellen and Nanase (who was once Elliot's girlfriend) have shared mutual attraction since the Night Out story arc. They revealed their feelings to each other at the end of the "Grace's Birthday Party" story arc.

Sarah, at the beginning of EGS, was Elliot’s close friend, and his girlfriend since the beginning of the "Sister" storyline. She attends Moperville North, is artistic and arguably the most normal character, having no paranormal abilities or skills. Sarah is presented as usually level-headed and rarely loses her temper, regardless of the number of bizarre experiences she has had. Referred to, but never shown in the comic, was an incident involving Tedd transforming her into a cat. She has been extremely cautious about transformations involving herself.

Grace, formerly known as Shade Tail, is a shapeshifting squirrel/alien/human hybrid who spends a good deal of her time as a human girl. She can transform into a variety of forms, including squirrel, half-squirrel, half-cat, half-hedgehog, Tedd, and a human girl and is capable of creating "legion" forms, which are combinations of two or more forms. Having been genetically engineered as an assassin, Grace is extremely powerful, and at least some of her forms are fire resistant due to her being designed to kill Damien, but she is a pacifist, terrified of abusing her strength, and only uses her offensive capacity when her friends are in mortal peril. Her name comes from Grace Sciuridae, a girl whose DNA was partly used in making her. The traits she displays most often are innocence and cuteness. She has been Tedd’s girlfriend since the "Relations" storyline. With the help of Tedd, she designed the clone form of a green-haired girl with Asian features (and without antennae) that she can assume, and goes by the name Claire when using it. This enabled her to go into the public unnoticed by people looking for her usual forms.

Nanase Kitsune is Elliot's ex-girlfriend and Tedd’s cousin. She is another black-belt student of "anime-style" martial arts and was initially presented as the best student; there have been no solid conclusions yet whether Elliot is the more competent martial artist. Nanase is a dangerous fighter and magic user. She has learned to levitate and to transfer her consciousness into little fairy forms near her friends for communication using magic. Nanase dresses provocatively when she can get away with it, as her family makes her dress conservatively in eyeshot, but disdains manipulative use of her looks. It has been recently revealed that Nanase has a younger sister, named Akiko.

Nanase’s new friendship with Ellen has led to some uncomfortable self-discovery, and after some speculation from Justin, Nanase revealed herself as a lesbian to Elliot and Susan. By various ways, all main cast members now know that, but Nanase is unaware of that and still considers her sexual orientation a secret to all but Susan, Elliot, Ellen, Justin, and possibly Sarah (it isn't made clear in that regard). Since the "Night Out" storyline, Nanase has been attracted to Ellen and the latter is aware of that and has voiced frustration at Nanase’s reluctance to come out. Nanase finally came out to Ellen at Grace's 18th birthday party, and the two shared a kiss.

Justin Tolkiberry is learns martial arts with Elliot and Nanase, though is of a lower skill level. He attends school with Nanase, and is her closest friend. Justin is homosexual, and feels that he is in love with Elliot, after Elliot rescued him from a fight. During Grace's Birthday Party, he and Susan kissed, although both were the opposite sex at the time. Justin’s last name is a reference to J. R. R. Tolkien and Gene Roddenberry. He has an interest in The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, and works in a comic book store.

Tiffany "Susan" Pompoms was the last major character to be introduced in EGS. Initially a friend of Sarah and an extreme feminist, Susan has developed friendships with all other major characters and a crush on Justin. As a reaction to seeing her father’s affair with a blonde woman and her parents’ subsequent divorce at an early age, events that have been partially shown in the "Sleepy Time" and "Grace’s Birthday Party" storylines, she colors her hair dark blue and prefers and enforces the use of her middle name to avoid similarity with the blonde woman. Susan lives with her mother in a mansion and works in a video store.

Susan has taught Sarah to use Hammerspace^[16] and met Nanase on the optional Moperville joint class trip to France, where both Nanase and Susan gained access to magic. Relations between Nanase and Susan were portrayed as mutually unkind in "Sister", but improved to friendship when Susan let Nanase pick Ellen’s clothes for "Grace’s Birthday Party".^{[original research?]}

[edit] History

[edit] Storytelling

Shive occasionally shows earlier ideas for El Goonish Shive within the strip, in no particular order.

The strips earliest drawn do not include the more fantastic elements of the setting. They show Elliot, Tedd and Sarah meeting for a roleplaying evening.^[17] In "Painted Black Special Features" Shive reports he made several changes to his previous ideas when he decided to make a webcomic. Elliot, Tedd and Sarah remained main characters, while elements of a fourth character were used for Grace and Susan. EGS gained powerful villains with Damien and Grace's brothers, and was destined to lead to a major battle against them in what would become the "Painted Black" arc.^[18] Shive later provided them, and Ellen^[19] and Lord Tedd^[20] who were also introduced as villains, with a more detailed character and reasons for their actions.

The early strips establish the danger Damien presents and prepare the way for Ellen's creation and struggle in the "Sister" arc, with occasional humor mainly in the form of gags and references to pop culture. After "Sister", the next storylines focused on humor. From then on, Shive slowly changed EGS by letting new friendships form and examining the characters' more realistic problems, while humor is still present and the more fantastic elements of the setting still play a major role. The "Painted Black" arc with its battle still happened, but it became a violent disruption of the characters' usual lives, affecting some characters deeply, instead of the focus of the entire story as which it was planned.^[21]

As of March 2007, the main cast of El Goonish Shive still consists of the same eight teenagers present at the end of "Sister", although several secondary characters have been introduced. While the core personalities of the main cast have been established, characters develop in response to the situations they face, and for many characters most details of their lives are still unexplored, such as their family and school situations.

[edit] Art

Shive's methods of drawing El Goonish Shive have considerably changed since the comic's launch. In early strips, characters had disproportionally large heads and thin necks,^[1] and facial expressions that were "sometimes a bit off".^[22] While these elements have become more realistic since, other non-realistic elements remained, like minimalistic mouth features and disproportionally large eyes, which appear almost round, except for characters with Asian ancestors, like Nanase and Tedd.^[23]

Shive used backgrounds rarely in early strips, but increased their quality and frequency over time. He then reorganized drawing his backgrounds by actually mapping places like Tedd's house at the beginning of "Grace's Birthday Party".^[22][24] Shading was rare before January 2005 when it became a regular part of the strip. While shading and backgrounds have been added, color has become rare over time. EGS had been started as grayscale comic with colored Sunday strips, then switched to full color for a while and back to full grayscale in December 2002, with very few colored strips outside the main section since. The comic's strip size had begun with newspaper format, but Shive switched to double the height during "Relations, Part II" and has rarely strayed from this, and exceptions usually differ by having multiple rows of panels instead of just two.

The improvement of details in the comic had an effect on the update schedule. EGS started with daily strips. With the introduction of the EGS:NP section updates were still meant to be daily, but split into three updates of the main section, three in the EGS:NP section which used newspaper strip format, and one filler on Sunday. EGS eventually settled with a schedule involving three main section updates per week. In March 2007, Shive temporarily opted to release two main section strips and one filler per week, due to time constraints.

[edit] Reception

El Goonish Shive is cited with a pictorial reference in T. Campbell's The History of Webcomics.^[25] The comic featured in the September 2006 issue of Edutopia magazine,^[26] where its use of chimerae was an opening on cross-species hybrids.

EGS has been reviewed at the "Webcomic Book Club" in Summer 2004, where four reviewers came to very different conclusions about the strip's quality. Criticisms included the contemporary tendency for cast members to look alike, poor initial characterization, and over-verbose writing.^[27] In September 2005 a long review by Robert A. Howard on his site "Tangents" found the strip has very good inking, character chemistry and character development and only average backgrounds and story continuity.^[22] A short April 2007 review in the comic zine Sequential Tart gave EGS a 7/10 rating. The review focused on the gags and jokes of the strip.^[28]

As of 2007 it holds positions in the top twenty of several lists of webcomics by popularity.^[29][30]

[edit] Collected editions

• El Goonish Shive, Volume 1: Read, or the Owl Will Eat You ISBN 1-932775-10-2
• El Goonish Shive, Volume 2: The Piece That Does Not Fit ISBN 1-932775-40-4

Both volumes are published by Keenspot and are consistently in greyscale, except for the cover.

Volume 1 contains strips from the comic's launch up to the end of "Sister Part V", Volume 2 those from "Sister Part VI" up to the end of "Q&A #2".

As of March 2007, Volume 1 is the third best selling Keenspot article.^[3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• El Goonish Shive
• El Goonish Shive Filler
• El Goonish Shive: Newspaper
• EGS RSS RSS
• EGS Official Character Guide
• El Goonish Shive Character Statistics
• English/Uryuomoco Translator
• Keencast#2, Interviews Dan Shive and mentions this article
• Review of El Goonish Shive Transgender.org