GU Comics

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GU Comics
GU Comics: "Ding!" September 20th, 2000
Author(s)	Woody Hearn
Website	http://www.gucomics.com/ RSS
Current status	5 Days a Week, Noon PST
Launch date	July 10, 2000
Genre(s)	Gaming

GU Comics is a single panel webcomic written, drawn, and colored by Woody Hearn. Established July 10, 2000^[1] and launched August 15, 2000,^[2] GU is published, free, five times a week on its own web site (hosted by the SafeHouse). The comic focusses primarily on popular video games such as World of Warcraft,^[3] Vanguard: Saga of Heroes,^[4] Dark Age of Camelot,^[5]Guitar Hero and so on; but, it also comments on gaming industry and community news, often lampoons gamers in general through the adventures of Hearn and his fictional roommate, Ted, and occasionally parodies contemporary social, political, and personal issues related to the online and general video game world. Driven as it is by the ever changing videogame industry, continuity of the story line is not important, though it does have a few recurring themes.

1 History
2 Process
3 Characters
4 Criticisms
5 Controversy
6 Events and Public Appearances
7 Interviews
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

GU Comics was first released to a small group of friends on July 10th, 2000.^[1] Then known as "/gu ...", the original comics were set inside the MMOG fantasy world of Everquest and centered around the in-game antics of the artist and members of his guild (Purifying Light on Vallon Zek). Intended only as a hobby, the comic's link was passed around to various Everquest related community sites (Evercrest.Com being chief among them). On July 25, GU was contacted by the GameFan/Game Answer Network with an offer of affiliation and a proposal to go "live". Now hosted on the GameFan/Game Answer Network, GU was released for wide public consumption August 15th, 2000.^[2] The response was swift and significant. Since its inception GU has been forced to change hosts for various reasons. February 4, 2003, GU moved to its current home: the Safehouse.

On February 5th, 2003, signifying the move to the Safehouse and a shift in interest to the wider gaming world rather than focussing specifically on Everquest, the slash and ellipses were officially dropped from the GU logo.

[edit] Process

GU is hand drawn on 110 lbs. bright white card stock using a 5x7 inch template. The sketch is inked with Sakura Pigma Micron pens using an 02 nib for details and an 05 nib for emphasis lines. The inked image is scanned in at 1200 dpi for the purpose of cleaning up linework. The images are then resized to 300 dpi and colored using Adobe Photoshop CS on a Wacom Cintiq 21UX. The comic is then resized to internet resolution, where backgrounds, text, lighting and the gu logo, reference, by-line, and copyright info are added. Once the comic is published, a writeup, citing relevant news sources when needed, is associated with the comic and linked from the front page and archives, where GU readership is encouraged to participate in discussion of the topic.

The direction of the art in the comic has changed constantly throughout GU's history. Earlier strips were intentionally simplified and used a 2-color gradient as the background. The current work is a mix of complex detail, colored in a hard edge anime style, offset by a cartoon-like exaggeration of proportion and anatomy. The characters and text are set upon highly distorted backgrounds relevant to the theme of the comic, and use soft, but intense, light sources that serve as a counterpoint to the hard-edged coloring style. Text bubbles and font choices have remained relatively unchanged since GU's inception and help provide a bit of constancy to GU's style shifts.

[edit] Characters

GU is not a long-term storyline-based comic, instead featuring single, stand-alone comics or short, three-to-four-comic storylines. However, there are several characters that do make frequent appearances in the comic. These characters include:

Woody- a fictionalized version of Woody Hearn himself, almost always drawn with his characteristic orange ballcap. (introduced: September 1, 2000)

Ted Prescott- The fictional roommate of Woody who has often been described as Wood’s id given form. He is notorious for his obsession with all things game-related, as well as his conflicts with a sleep-deprivation-created hallucinatory monkey that he swears is real. (introduced: September 1, 2000)

The Zapper- While not a character in the traditional sense, the Zapper is the central figure in a series of comics which feature failed games and even entire development companies, flying into a giant bug zapper in the form of insects (introduced: August 31, 2004)

Iggy McStickson- The stick figure character which replaces a standard comic in times of technical difficulty, sickness, or other such problems (introduced: October 1, 2000)

Supporting Characters
Vhah - Barbarian Warrior (EQ) [1], Toast - Troll Warrior (DAoC) [2], Grektholar "Grek" - Orc Warrior (WoW)[3], Brad - Ted's Boss [4], The Vision - Brad McQuaid's idealistic vision of game design [5], The Girl Gamers (unnamed) - The female perspective [6], The Flies - represent troubled games [7], ED-209 (cat) & Ceasar (pug) - Woody's "evil" pets [8], Barhuk - Orc Dreadknight (VSOH) [9], Monkey - product of Ted's sleep deprived imagination [10]

[edit] Criticisms

Where GU artwork has rarely come under fire, the writing and forums have often been the target of scrutiny. The comic tends to fall into certain patterns based on Hearn's interaction with games themselves. That is to say when the writer/artist is playing videogames the subject of the comics extend from within the game. When he is not actively playing games he uses gaming news as a crutch, relying on caricatures of industry figures being interviewed, satirized, even mocked by an off-panel voice that has yet to be given a face or name. This practice is often referred to by detractors as "talking head" comics.

The GU Forums, being heavily moderated, often sets Hearn at odds with some of his readership. The cartoonist and his moderator staff sometimes uphold the rules of the forum, called "Easy Ways", to a fault. The intention seems to be to promote an environment of intelligent discussion without conflict, but, at times, this strict adherence to the rules ostracizes those readers who fail or refuse to comply.

[edit] Controversy

SOE Boycott - In May of 2004, GU Comics became the center of attention when Woody Hearn posted a comic satirizing the Omens of War expansion for Everquest. In the attendant forum writeup, he called for a boycott by Everquest players against the Omens of War expansion in an effort to force Sony Online Entertainment, who produces Everquest, to correct the numerous issues players had with the game rather than release another expansion so quickly on the heels of the previous one. The call to boycott was rescinded after SOE held a summit to address player concerns, improve (internal and external) communication, and begin correcting issues within the game^[6]^[7]^[8]

Jack Thompson Controversy - GU Comics, serving in interests of advocacy and political commentary, has repeatedly satirized the anti-videogame activities of Florida lawyer Jack Thompson.[11][12][13] Hearn, who does not deny heavy bias in the matter, is prone to answering what he perceives to be illogical, unfounded extremes on Thompson's part with partisan commentary of his own.^[9].

Papal Gaming Criticism Controversy - On January 29, 2007, in response to statements made by Pope Benedict XVI that attributed many modern social problems to visual media, especially video games, GU Comics featured a comic satirizing the comments.^[10]

[edit] Events and Public Appearances

GU Comics has featured costume contests for its readers for Halloween, unofficial gatherings at various conventions, gaming trade shows, and the Texas Renaissance Festival. In addition, Hearn has been invited to review the development of and write NDA-friendly reviews of various games, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.^[4] This has often been the first glimpse at upcoming games for many players, who respect Hearn’s opinion as it is considered to be fair and relatively unbiased. GU Comics has been featured in many online webzines and print media, including Gamespy,^[11] Joystiq,^[12] GamePolitics.com,^[9]^[10] MMORPG.Com,^[13] MMORPGamer,^[14] Computer Games Magazine,^[15] Der Spielekurier,^[16] and the film Avatars Offline.^[17] Several GUComics relevant to World of Warcraft^[3] were referenced in the official Community News^[18] of World of Warcraft Europe.

Hearn has been invited to visit the studios of Sony Online Entertainment, Sigil Games, Mythic Entertainment, and NetDevil, was a yearly press attendee at E3,^[19] was invited as a guest of honor to Blizzard Entertainment's BlizzCon^[20] to serve on a panel with the creators of Penny Arcade^[21] and PvP,^[22] and is a yearly participant/guest of honor ConnectiCon.^[23]