Girly

Girly
Author(s) Josh Lesnick
Website http://girlyyy.com/
Current status / schedule Completed
Launch date April, 2003[1]
End date September 16, 2010[2]
Genre(s) Romantic Comedy

Girly is a webcomic created by Josh Lesnick which generally centers around the romantic relationship between two girls named Otra and Winter, as well as other citizens of the city of Cute-Town. It ran from April 2003 and finished on September 16, 2010.

On October 15, 2005 Girly became a part of the Dayfree Press collective, and on June 28, 2006 the first Girly print collection was published via Radio Comix.[3]

Contents

Plot summary

The webcomic serves as a sequel to Lesnick's previous work, CuteWendy. It tells the tale of Otra, a fashion designer who feels something missing in her life until she meets Winter, the daughter of Wendy and Other Girl from CuteWendy, who declares Otra her sidekick. After a few adventures, Otra becomes attracted to Winter and the two become a couple going on adventures together.

History of Girly

Girly launched in April 2003, originally intended as a sequel/retelling of one of Lesnick's previous works called CuteWendy, and originally was not intended to run for more than 50 strips.[4] However, Lesnick became enamored with the characters, with the comic reaching 764 chapters by its end.[5]

Girly is Lesnick's longest running comic in terms of panels completed, as well as his most popular, with over 10,000 more regular readers than his previous popular work, Wendy, had at its peak, and around 16,500 unique hits per update. This readership has allowed him to become one of the few professional webcartoonists.

Lesnick originally hosted Girly on KeenSpot. In November 2004, he moved Girly over to wendy.dreamhost.com, where it has remained since. On October 15, 2005, Girly became part of the Dayfree Press collective of webcomics which includes such other strips as Dinosaur Comics and Questionable Content.

On May 16, 2004, Lesnick created a LiveJournal community for the comic, and as of September 2006 it has over 600 members and 525 watchers.[6] On November 10, 2004, a LiveJournal feed was created for the strip (link), and is currently one of the most popular feeds on the LiveJournal site, ranked within the Top 50 for number of subscribers.[7]

On June 28, 2006, the very first print collection of Girly strips was published by Radio Comix and is available via Amazon.com and selected comic stores.

On August 23, 2006, Lesnick announced that fundraising efforts for the comic had been successful that he would attempt to support himself wholly via the comic.[8]

Most recently in March, 2008 Lesnick announced that for every one hundred dollars donated he would do an extra page, as an attempt for fund raising.[9]

The final chapter was posted on September 16, 2010.

Girly's style

Girly's style is line-based and monochrome, using a vertical format. The original style of line drawing is akin to a manga-style but with more abstractions, giving it a sketched, freehand sort of look. The line art has evolved a great deal as time has passed, and no longer bears a great resemblance to most manga, however; recent works are somewhat reminiscent of some of John Kricfalusi's work. The art of the strip has shown a steady trend away from thin, pencil-like lines towards a much more variable, ink-brush look.

After a short hiatus, on August 4, 2007, in Girly #504, the art of the strip transitioned to a much more prominent use of color.

Along with absurdity and playing with stereotypes, Girly has a strong vein of sexual humor.

Various overhead shots show that Cute-Town has a skyline very similar to Dallas, Texas.[10] In comic #398, the Alt Text to the comic said the author took the skyline of Dallas, and added smiley faces and a kitten. However, the interior of Cute-Town is said by the author to resemble Austin, Texas.

Main characters

Girly revolves around the main characters Otra and Winter (and often the cat as well). Occasionally the story will move to a small sub-story centered around one of the secondary characters but will eventually be tied back into one of the main characters again.

Secondary characters

Books

Now that the series is complete, Josh is developing a complete collection of all four Girly books. The collection will include the Cutewendy book (precursor to Girly) and various other special features.[14]

Previously, there were four books available through Josh's independent company Studio Zoe:[15]

  1. Cutewendy: Collection of Perfection, 1st ed. by Keenspot Entertainment ISBN 0-9722350-1-9 (published August 1, 2002)
  2. Cutewendy, 2nd ed. by Studio Zoe ISBN 0-9791417-0-2 (published July 4, 2007)
  3. Girly Volume 1 by Studio Zoe and Radio Comix ISBN 0-9786385-0-6 (published June 28, 2006)
  4. Girly Volume 2 by Studio Zoe ISBN 0-9791417-1-0 (published July 4, 2007)

References

  1. ^ Girly: #1
  2. ^ Girly #764
  3. ^ The Radio Comix Store
  4. ^ Mia MacHatton, Slippery, Shiny, and Definitely Sexy: Josh Lesnick, Sequential Tart vol 7 no. 3, March 2004
  5. ^ More than 700 strips
  6. ^ LiveJournal community profile page
  7. ^ LiveJournal syndicated feeds list
  8. ^ Another webcomic (Girly) reaches a $$$ goal, Comixpedia, Thursday August 24, 2006
  9. ^ 100 Dollars for a page fund raiser (See bottom)
  10. ^ Overhead view of Cute-Town resembling Dallas, Texas.
  11. ^ Girly #577: Otra's current age is given in the Alt-text.
  12. ^ Girly #576: Winter gives her age.
  13. ^ http://girlyyy.com/go/583
  14. ^ "Girly: The Complete Collection by Josh Lesnick". https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/superhappy/girly-the-complete-collection. Retrieved 20 March 2011. 
  15. ^ "The Girly Store". http://guapadesign.com/. Retrieved March 13, 2007. 

External links