| Least I Could Do | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Ryan Sohmer and Lar de Souza |
| Website | http://www.leasticoulddo.com |
| Current status / schedule | Monday through Sunday |
| Launch date | February 10, 2003[1] |
| Publisher(s) | Blind Ferret Entertainment |
| Genre(s) | Comedy/Adult/Slice-of-life |
Least I Could Do (LICD) is a humor webcomic by Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza (also the creators of the fantasy webcomic Looking for Group), which debuted on February 10, 2003.The original artist for the strip was Trevor Adams, who was with Least I Could Do for about six months. Adams was followed by Chad W.M. Porter, who drew the strip for two years. Least I Could Do is produced by Blind Ferret Entertainment, which owns the rights to the strip.[2] The primary theme of the strip is sexuality, especially the promiscuity of the primary character, Rayne Summers, who is loosely based upon Sohmer himself.[2]
The strip updates every day.[3] Sunday features Least I Could Do: Beginnings, a strip following Rayne at age 8 with storylines unrelated to the main strip. Story lines tend to last for only a few strips, but some have gone several weeks. Storylines have also included parodies of characters, such as those from The Lord of the Rings, X-Men, G.I. Joe, and Justice League (with Rayne respectively as Aragorn, Wolverine, Flint, and Batman) each taking place when Rayne is either struck unconscious, falls asleep or blacks out.
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Blind Ferret Entertainment, which owns the rights to Least I Could Do, was founded by Sohmer and Randy Waxman. Blind Ferret Entertainment is an independent web, print, film, television production and marketing company that works to develop, market, and distribute projects that reach out to targeted audiences. Besides Least I Could Do, Blind Ferret has linked itself with comics Ctrl+Alt+Del, VG Cats, Cyanide and Happiness, Looking For Group, Girls With Slingshots, Goblins, and 8-Bit Theater. Blind Ferret Entertainment also helped to create Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series.
The original artist for the strip was Trevor Adams, who drew the strip from its debut until July 18, 2003, later moving on to create his own comic Gemini Paradox. Chad Porter took over on July 28, 2004. In late 2004, I Have My Moments, a full color book featuring the first year of LICD with Porter as the artist, was published.
In early 2005, the strip underwent a major change with the introduction of a new character, Noel, Rayne's friend. Noel was often given roles that previously would have gone to the character John Gold, whose frequency in the strip had been reduced. Rayne soon became a business executive on falsified credentials, with the intent of sleeping with the CEO of IDS Enterprises, Marcy McKean.
Least I Could Do "3.0" launched on August 15, 2005 with the departure of Porter as the artist. Lar deSouza, a long time friend of Sohmer and his artistic partner on the daily comic In Other News, took over as the artist. The comic and website have been undergoing some major changes as a result.
December 2005 marked the publication of My Will Be Done, the complete 2nd year collection featuring Chad Porter's final strips for the comic. It also included a mini-comic drawn by Lar, depicting the origins of Bra-Man. In July 2006 the first Bra-Man comic was released.
In November 2006, Because I Can, the 3rd year collection, and the first to feature current artist Lar deSouza was published.
In the July 9th, 2007 strip, the cast opened a "letter" from the writer and artist which stated that from that moment on, they would age normally rather than remain a perpetual age 24 or so. Since then, the strip's characters have enacted major life changes: notably, Noel moved in with and later married his girlfriend, and Rayne, in a plot arc beginning in September, experimented with monogamy.
In 2010, Sohmer announced that deSouza will be re-drawing the original strips done by Trevor Adams in the current artistic style.[4]
Though the primary character is Rayne, there are a large number of supporting characters, and the strip will sometimes go for up to a week without a strip featuring Rayne. These usually involve large story arcs involving the other characters, though Least I Could Do still specializes in the one strip joke.
Rayne Summers is the protagonist of the "Least I Could Do" universe, and based on the author of the comic strip, Ryan Sohmer. He is a shallow, childish, and sexually driven 24-year-old (now 27) with an underdeveloped emotional intelligence as well as a severe superiority complex. He is prone to elaborate schemes and pranks, often involving his closest friends, and has a boundless energy level enhanced by his passion for Red Bull and Cadbury creme eggs. Despite his overwhelming ego and sex drive, Rayne is fiercely loyal to his friends (though he messes with them constantly). He demonstrated extreme nobility at times, such as when he defended his gay proctologist from a homophobic woman, or when he surprised a lonely Mick by buying him a pet dog. On that subject, Rayne seems to love animals, particularly cats, as he is seen in numerous strips with his pet cat Baby lying on his chest or being otherwise affectionate. He has discovered a homosexual look-alike that he has dubbed Gayne.
Previously, he was a newspaper columnist, but after hearing about Marcy McKean, the attractive millionaire CEO of IDS Enterprises, he became determined to have sex with her. With a little help from his friend Mick, Rayne was able to falsify his resume and landed a high-paying job as an executive of IDS Enterprises. Despite his questionable motives in joining the company and seeming lack of qualifications, it is evident that Rayne's employment has had a positive effect on IDS, as Marcy states that Rayne is the reason the company has been generating record profits. Rayne has been involved in several notable incidents while at IDS, which range from intervening to stop a workers strike to traveling to a Porn company in LA to assist them with their HD cameras (and, unofficially, their production values).
Despite having not a family on his own, Rayne is shown in several strips as keeping in touch with his still living parents, and sharing a joyful sibling rivalry with his older brother Eric, a surgeon who is as much of a womanizer and child as he is himself. Eric's behavior often comes into conflict with his job, as he is often very inconsiderate to his patients, causing him to be sued for malpractice at least once. Furthermore, in a 2006 storyline, Rayne and Eric found out to have a sister they never knew about, and a little niece, named Ashley.[5] Despite his usual zany indifference about his new sibling, Rayne takes a liking to his niece, Ashley. Despite a rocky start,[6] he eventually comes to care about her as a surrogate father, with Ashley considering him her favourite Unca, and starting to take on several traits of his personality, like a liking for fantasy[7] and a willingness to be her Unca's accomplice in his ill-conceived plans. In turn Rayne starts to take very seriously his role as a parental figure, taking over for his sister in Ashley's education and standing against her when she proposes to cure Ashley's attention deficit with Ritalin,[8] an arrangement Ashley seems to like and is upheld up to the current strip.
The same story sheds a light over some positive sides of his personality: apparently older Rayne (shown to him by Keira Knightley in one A Christmas Carol themed vision) is destined to be a CEO on his own, rich enough to have a personal skyscraper, modelled on Minas Tirith with an heliport (his helicopter was taken away for using Sidewinder missiles in the neighbourhood), but never married. Instead, he takes his niece Ashley and her unknown, off panel husband, who he's stated to love as a son, acting as a surrogate grandfather for his grandnephews, surprisingly similar to the kid Rayne of the Beginning comic. Older Rayne is apparently fated to retain every quirk of his current personality, including an unhealty fixation for fantasy, but his success has not gotten to his head, and keeps using his fortune to benefit his trusted friends. Instead of eliciting a change in him, like happened to Ebenezer Scrooge, despite the initial shock of his apparent loneliness, Rayne comes to term with the possibility of being never able to have a family on his own, reassured about the affection of his friends and niece. Since Noel's child Logan was born, he has shown, however a remarkably jealous side over the idea of losing his friend to an infant, though he does show a great deal of love for his godson on occasion.
Rayne's religion isn't specified, but it's assumed he's an atheist. He has been seen going out of his way to offend every religion possible, and has said, "I wish I believed in God so I'd have someone to thank." In spite of this, he often compares himself to Jesus, and a running joke in the strip is to spoof moments from the Bible, insinuating he has at least some theological knowledge. He often uses "Jebas" as an expletive in lieu of Jesus.
Noel is Rayne's best friend, a later addition to the strip, first appearing on January 5, 2005. Before showing up on the comic, he had been dating an overweight woman (instead of that woman's attractive friend, whom he was actually interested in) for five years, during which he had become alienated from his friends. When Noel came back, he was readily welcomed back by Issa and Rob, but Rayne was marginally harder to win over. Rayne had Noel read a verbal contract promising that if Noel were to disappear again for a woman, he would make sure that she was at least semi-attractive, and that Rayne was entitled to mock him endlessly for having gone out with a fat woman.
Noel's appearance greatly reduced John Gold's importance in the strip. Noel's first appearances, in fact, lined up with a period in author Ryan Sohmer's life where he was becoming increasingly more distant from the real-life friend that the John Gold character was based on. Sohmer says in the liner notes for the "My Will Be Done" book that he did not feel that he could continue writing the John Gold character in the same way, but the Rayne character itself needed a comedic foil. Therefore Sohmer felt it was time to introduce a new character based on another one of his real-life friends, and the character of Noel was created.
In his early appearances in the strip, Noel usually performed duties as Rayne's wingman, and although he does not always appear to approve of Rayne's promiscuity and attitudes, he is markedly less critical of it than John. Many of the comic’s strips feature Rayne and Noel walking through a park, where the two characters will discuss topics such as Rayne's recent escapades, current politics, or modern culture. Noel will usually end the strip with a sly one-liner that illustrates the flaws in Rayne's logic.
Noel's nights out with Rayne slowed when he met a woman called Kate during a venture into Speed-Dating. They hit it off, then began dating, and eventually moved in together. Subsequent strips showed Noel discussing ideas of proposing with Rayne, asking Kate's Father's permission for her hand, and ring shopping. After much preparation, Noel proposed to Kate with an elaborate set-up that involved Rayne posing as a cab driver. She accepted. Shortly before the engagement was confirmed, Rayne began bullying his friends into letting him pay their fares for a Caribbean cruise. It was revealed that this was not only intended as another cast vacation (with Mick and Noel's girlfriends attending), but also as the setting for Noel and Kate's wedding. A few years later it became clear that Noel and Kate were trying for a baby after Rayne found Noel in a pregnancy test isle and promptly panicked. They later did, in fact, have a child whom they named Logan after Rayne's prompting, allowing for him to call the child 'The Wolverine'. Rayne was named Logan's godfather after he stole a truck and managed to rush Kate and Noel to the hospital after they were snowed in on a cast vacation. He listed them as character witnesses and is, apparently, considered a 'flight risk'.
Melissa "Issa" Allie is one of Rayne's few female platonic friends. An extremely gorgeous redhead with a voluptuous figure and natural yellow eyes, Rayne continually makes sexual advances on her which she continually rejects. Despite this, it sometimes seems as though she has a slight subconscious crush on him. When she introduced her friends to her farmer-boyfriend, Huck, his resemblance to Rayne was noted by the crew. John and Mick went so far as to suggest that she was dating him because he looked like Rayne, suggesting a subconscious interest in him. However, the character of Huck has not appeared since that arc so the status of the relationship is unknown. Despite her attractiveness and continual disgust at some of their antics, Issa still manages to play the voice of reason and fits in with Rayne and the rest of the boys. However, she is not above manipulating her male friends, such as offering to try on underwear at Victoria's Secret for Rayne, in exchange for him accompanying her to the mall.
Issa also voiced an attraction to Rayne's brother Eric when Eric came to visit, so much so that she was willing to be part of a bet between Rayne and Eric, However, Issa's attraction to Eric could more easily be explained because Eric is a doctor (and Issa has been trying to find a rich boyfriend since the early days of the strip). Issa works as a clerk at a gas station, Esco. When Chad was drawing the strip, filler strips frequently involved her in revealing clothing, or jokes about readers' attraction to her.
Issa has known Rayne since at least his teenage years, offering him advice after the relationship that started his womanizing streak, showing her to be one of Rayne's oldest friends, save for John Gold; consequently, it also means that she, of all the female characters, holds the record for holding out against Rayne's advances (Eric alludes it's up to 2 decades in the July 1st 2005 strip, but was optioned for an extra 10 years back in '02, as said in the same strip).
It should be noted that it is Noel and Issa who usually spend the most time with Rayne. The two are always caught up in Rayne's antics, whether it is shopping for a new car or new furniture, or getting dragged on a whirlwind trip to New York City. Issa is afraid of spiders, as first shown during a storyline interruption, and later in a normal comic strip when she sees a spider on Rayne's neck, and promptly freaks out.
In a recent arc, Rayne got her a job at IDS as a replacement for a staff member on maternity leave, although it remains to be seen if this is a permanent post. It is now known that she and Michael Von Huntington are in a relationship. When informed, Rayne did not initially take the news well, but later gave his blessing, under the rule that if Michael were ever to hurt Issa, Rayne would personally make him regret it. (#3 on the Cast Poster)
Mick Alfa is an overweight and socially awkward friend of Rayne's, whom he often uses as a wingman. Rayne often enlists Mick in elaborate (and occasionally bizarre) charades to help him get laid, such as having Mick pretend to be retarded to make himself look compassionate and dressing him up as a Nun named "Sister Likestacos" for the same reason. Rayne also makes Mick the target of frequent bestiality jokes, going so far as getting him a goat's phone number. Despite this, Mick and Rayne are good friends. Mick helped Rayne secure his job at IDS by pretending to be a NASA representative. He also seems to be fairly comfortable with his body, often making light of his weight and bad luck with women. Mick himself is a TV program director. While Mick strikes out more often than not, he has had a greater number of steady relationships than Rayne, Noel and John combined. To Rayne's great shock, he was able to hook up with a Swedish exchange student whom Rayne and John had spent two weeks chasing after, and has been dating Tamara, a young college co-ed for two years. Mick also has a dark side, though it only seems to show when he gets to enjoy Rayne injuring or otherwise making a fool of himself—such as when Rayne drank a large quantity of Red Bull, in the hopes that if one would give him wings, 12 would be like having a jet pack. He also had no qualms of shooting Rayne's unconscious body with a Nerf gun after he went crazy after trying to give up sleep. Like Rayne's love for Cadbury Cream Eggs and Red Bull, Mick has a passion for something else: potato chips. Recently, it has been revealed that Mick's father was murdered by his mother's lover (the gardener), whereupon his mother went to prison and she became a lesbian. (#7 on the Cast Poster). In July 2011 it was revealed that Mick will be marrying Tamara (Tammy) after a six year long relationship.[9]
John Gold is Rayne's childhood friend and roommate, who often acts as his foil. He continually expresses a resigned discontent with Rayne's promiscuity. John is looking for a wife, which has been shown to lead him into being somewhat needy and over-hasty in relationships. He is a grade school teacher, and has on two occasions romanced Rebecca, a recently-divorced single mother of a child in his class. Another brief relationship of John's was with a woman named Hannah, who became a major part of his life and even moved in with him. However, the relationship proceeded too quickly for Rayne's liking. Hannah, in turn, didn't care for Rayne, and when she issued an ultimatum forcing John to decide between her and Rayne, John demonstrated extreme loyalty and chose his longtime friend, a choice Rayne found disappointing as he states "Best friends come and go. But sex... SEX IS FOREVER!".
John's temptations are represented by a small Darth Vader (#23 on the Cast Poster), in a parody of the shoulder devil cliché. This Darth Vader character frequently appears, not only to tempt him, but also to voice the darker thoughts that John represses. John's Darth Vader has even had a brief relationship with Rebecca's own "shoulder devil" cliché, Jeannie.
John's friendship with Rayne has once again become a focal point of the story, as it has been introduced that Rayne does not see John as someone he can depend on. At the end of the "To Be a Hero" arc, after a near death experience while trying to save a couple from a car crash, Rayne speaks with Issa and she remarks that he is far more shaken up than his other brushes with death. Rayne goes on to say that "John wasn't there. He's never there." John had stayed in their car, didn't come out to help Rayne at all, and is only shown out of the car after the paramedics had arrived on the scene.
One notable storyline beginning on January 21, 2008, reveals that Rayne is deeply hurt by the growing distance in their friendship, noting that he tried to include John in many of the previous storylines and sees his pranks as "the only time we've spent together in the past two years." It is revealed through flashbacks that John and Rayne first met on the first day of elementary school when Rayne (unsuccessfully) defended John from bullies. It seems that John is slowly working his way back into the group and regaining a bit of his old sense of humor. In 2008's Valentine's Date storyline John was allowed to make a retaliatory prank against Rayne using the contest. In response to Rayne changing his e-mail signature to 'Heil Hitler', John selected a lovely German woman to win a date with Rayne, and then tricked him into a Nazi uniform before Rayne, oblivious to what he was wearing, met her. Since this storyline's completion, John has once again become slightly more active in the comic although still not to the extent he was at the start of the comic. This can be seen in the more recent 'Nigeria' story arc. ' In 2011, he has been featured more prominently since the birth of Noel's child.(#8 on the Cast Poster)'
Least I Could Do books are published by Blind Ferret Entertainment. As of 2009, there were six Least I Could Do collections published,[3] which round up the two years that the comic was drawn by Chad and the three years of deSouza's work. The second book includes a mini-comic drawn by Lar that explains the origins of Bra-Man. They have also printed the first edition of Bra-Man, a spin-off comic based on Rayne's drunken alter-ego and a book of Least I Could Do: Beginnings which tells stories about Rayne's childhood along with his friends and family.
Since February 2004, Least I Could Do has had a yearly event in which fans can submit themselves to be to 'dates' for one of the strips characters, both primary and secondary. The selection process is shown in the comic, with the cast sorting through letter, often with Rayne attempting to be the selected dated. Upon the decision, the fan is drawn into the strip sharing a date with the cast member of their choice. If one supporting cast members are selected, the date storyline often involves Rayne attempting to sabotage things, primarily out of jealousy for not being selected. The Valentine's storyline runs for roughly a week's time. In recent years, three of the five primary characters (Issa, Noel & Mick) are now officially in committed relationships, which leaves into question whether or not the contest will be run differently and if said characters can still be selected by fans.
Starting in 2006, Sohmer and DeSouza began a comic-fantasy webcomic called Looking For Group. Characters from Looking for Group have appeared in the background of a May 7, 2008 Least I could Do strip. Richard the Warlock and his rabbit also appeared during the CRISIS Arc on April 6, 2009 and incinerated a future version of Rayne. Krunch Bloodrage also appeared in the same arc, fighting Rayne's Audibot in the background of the April 10th 2009 strip.
In July 2006, the first "Bra-Man" comic was released. The 24 page comic showcases the adventures of Bra-Man, Rayne Summers' alter-ego. Bra-Man #1 was written by Ryan Sohmer, drawn by Lar deSouza, and coloured by Marc Brunet.
On November 9, 2008, Sohmer and DeSouza announced that a new strip would appear on Sundays, thus having a strip every day of the week.[10] Sohmer Said "For quite some time now, Lar and I have been toying with the idea of going to a 7 day a week schedule with LICD. While other creators seem to be cutting back on their output lately, we wanted to do more."
But not wanting to do just another normal strip, Sohmer and DeSouza decided to start up Beginnings, a Sunday-only strip on the website with storylines separate to the rest of the comic based around Rayne's childhood, specifically at 8 years old. Beginnings is similar in both format and artistic style to Calvin & Hobbes, which has been occasionally referenced in LICD, including Calvin's sled (with a stuffed tiger clearly visible) running over Noel and Rayne offering Calvin money to run him over again.
Blind Ferret Entertainment and Teletoon had a development deal for an animated version of Least I Could Do; however, Blind Ferret opted out of the deal because it believed they would have to surrender too much creative control.[2] Following the collapse of that deal, Sohmer entered into negotiations with an American network for a potential development deal.[2] Blind Ferret also produced a short trailer for a potential "Least I Could Do" web series in 2006 but no series followed. In response to the failed Teletoon deal, Sohmer subsequently created a Kickstarter project, asking fans for donations to produce a television pilot consistent with the original vision for an animated series. The project garnered over $100,000 in donations.[11]