GU Comics

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GU Comics
GU Comics: "Ding!" 2000-09-20
Author(s)	Woody Hearn
Website	http://www.gucomics.com/ RSS web feed
Current status / schedule	5 Days a Week, Noon PST
Launch date	2000-07-10
Genre(s)	Gaming

GU Comics is a single panel webcomic written, drawn, and colored by William Woodfin "Woody" Hearn Jr. 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 Controversy
5 Events and Public Appearances
6 Interviews
7 References
8 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. As of April 9th, 2007 the format of the comic was shifted from 300x465 to 600x450. Along with the format shift the logo, and comic type sub-text was removed from the strip.

[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.

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. GU's current art style can charitably be described as little more than enormous, misshapen heads yelling at unknown entities off-panel.

[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 Gamer Girls (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] 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]

[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] GU Comics has been featured in many online webzines and print media, including Gamespy,^[9] Joystiq,^[10] GamePolitics.com,^[11]^[12] 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]