El Goonish Shive
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| El Goonish Shive
<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: 6; text-align: center;"> | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Dan Shive |
| Website | http://www.elgoonishshive.com/ RSS
<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff; white-space: nowrap;">Update schedule</th><td>Monday-Saturday (story comics Monday, Wednesday, Friday; newspaper Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday)</td></tr><tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff; white-space: nowrap;">Launch date</th><td>January 21 2002 [1]</td></tr><tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff; white-space: nowrap;">Genre</th><td>Fantasy/Sci-fi</td></tr> |
El Goonish Shive (EGS for short) is a webcomic by Dan Shive, launched on January 21 2002, that depicts the lives of a group of friends in their junior year of high school. These lives contain transformation guns, alternate universes and a shape-shifting half-squirrel girl. EGS is not a simple gag strip; the characters are complex and believable presentation is attempted despite a setting where, for instance, females can use Hammerspace.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
El Goonish Shive storylines are usually long and involved. They rarely result in things returning to the way they were, but are coherent with each other. The chronology of the strip has advanced by a few weeks in four years of production.
Much of the plot is divided into story arcs, while stories of no or little importance for the main stories are narrated outside of the main context of EGS in El Goonish Shive: Newspaper. The most important story arcs are:
- Introductions (January 21, 2002 - January 27, 2002), in which Elliot, Tedd and Sarah first appear and Hammerspace is explained.
- Shade, introducing Grace.
- Relations, in which
- Tedd finds out that Grace “likes” him,
- Justin and Nanase are introduced,
- Sarah tells Elliot that she loves him and
- Nanase breaks up with Elliot.
- Catnip, in which the transformation gun is shown for the first time and Grace’s personality expanded.
- Sister, where Susan is introduced, Ellen is created and a goo is ultimately defeated.
- Night Out, which involves a humorous night at the movies in which Tedd and Grace have switched bodies, as well as a serious event in which Nanase realizes she is a lesbian.
- Painted Black, in which Elliot is abducted by Damien and rescued by Grace, Ellen and Nanase.
- Grace’s Birthday Party, showing the celebration of Grace’s 18th birthday, a party for which the main characters switch genders. This is the most recent story arc, which concluded on September 29, 2006. It included a sub-story, Second Life, regarding the magically induced dreams which were shared by Ellen and Kaoli over the week between the end of Painted Black and the day of the birthday party.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Main characters
[edit] Elliot
Elliot Daniel Dunkel (a play on the author's name, Daniel Elliot Shive) was once an average seventeen year-old boy and student of “anime-style” martial arts. Since the beginning of the comic, Elliot has been transformed into both an anthro-cat [2] and a female, [3], gained the ability to resume both forms at will thanks to a confluence of technology and magic, had a female duplicate (Ellen Dunkel) split off himself, fought a monstrous blob of goo and been beaten up by an anthro-hedgehog. A level-headed character, Elliot is often the comic’s straight man.
Elliot's best friend is Tedd, who he met when Elliot saved Tedd from a bully back in elementary school. Elliot has a knight in shining armor complex, meaning he feels compelled to help those in need, especially women, even if he doesn't particularly like that person. When this resulted in him saving Tedd, Elliot thought Tedd was a girl. While their friendship has always been and remains platonic in nature, the two often wind up in compromising situations, particularly if one or both of them is female at the time.
[edit] Tedd
Tedd Drew 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, which he uses in his spare time for his own enjoyment.
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 judged him, particularly Susan, to re-evaluate their perceptions.
[edit] Ellen
Ellen Danielle 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 into an identity of her own. Elliot considers her his sister, as she now is legally; Tedd considers her a “hot female Elliot”; but how she considers herself remains uncertain, and she did not settle on a self-identity for a long time. Although the origin and function of the Dewitchery Diamond, the object that created her, is unclear, she remains alive and well.
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” - in fact causing her to experience living the life of a female alternate of Elliot in another dimension, and 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 making the decision to act as though she were purely 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.
[edit] Sarah
Sarah, at the beginning of EGS Elliot’s best friend, has been his girlfriend since the Relations storyline. She is artistic and arguably the most normal character, with no special abilities other than access to Hammerspace, which is available to currently female characters in EGS. Sarah is usually level-headed, considering the number of bizarre experiences she has had, and she rarely loses her temper. She once had an incident involving Tedd transforming her into a catgirl, since which she has been extremely cautious about transformations involving herself.
[edit] Grace
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, 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, 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 (since 'Sciuridae' is the family of rodents which includes the squirrels, the name can be seen as a pun on the common species name 'gray squirrel' - though Grace herself appears closer to a red squirrel in her altered forms). The traits she displays most often are innocence and cuteness. She has been Tedd’s girlfriend since the Relations storyline.
[edit] Nanase
Nanase Kitsune is Elliot's ex-girlfriend and Tedd’s cousin. She is another student of “anime-style” martial arts and was initially presented as the best student at the school Elliot and she attend, but it was later revealed that Elliot is holding back out of fear of hurting others (there have been no solid conclusions yet on who 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 (she actually owns a cell phone, but in her words, "where's the fun in that?". Nanase dresses provocatively when she can get away with it, as her family makes her dress conservatively in eyeshot. However, she disdains manipulative use of her looks, and her habit of choosing the good over the popular has hurt her social status at school.
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 except Tedd now know that, but Nanase is unaware of that and still considers her sexual orientation a secret. 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.
[edit] Justin
Justin Tolkiberry is also a student of anime martial arts, though of lesser skill than Nanase and Elliot, and friends with the two. He works part-time in a comic book and trading card games store. Justin is gay and, before he found out that Nanase was a lesbian, he teasingly suggested that she might be one. Justin’s last name is a reference to J. R. R. Tolkien and Gene Roddenberry, and he has a geeky obsession with The Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. He's also a fan of the card game Magical Gatherings, which is remarkably similar to Magic: The Gathering.
In Grace’s Birthday Party, Justin’s unrequited feelings for Elliot have begun to be addressed.
[edit] Susan
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 and met Nanase in Paris, 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.
[edit] Secondary characters
- Greg – Creator and instructor of “Anime-Style Martial Arts” and teacher of Elliot, Justin and Nanase in that discipline.
- Dr. Germahn – A “stereotypical German scientist” who pops in to provide “scientific” explanations.
- Amanda – Dr. Germahn's busty and gullible lab assistant and often an unwilling volunteer in his weird experiments, often involving shrinking.
- Mr. Verres – Tedd’s father and a secret agent of the government, tasked with covering up alien and supernatural activity.
- Mr. and Mrs. Dunkel – Elliot’s parents and, by extension, Ellen’s parents.
- Jeremy – “The Creature Nature Never Intended,” Jeremy is Tedd’s pet resembling a cat/hedgehog hybrid, brought home by Mr. Verres.
- Brownie – Elliot and Ellen’s pet kitten.
- Principal Verrückt – Principal of Moperville North High School, who believes that the school’s problems can be solved through murals and has introduced school uniforms. He originally appeared resembling Adolf Hitler due to his hairpiece, but changed that later.
- TC (theater clerk) – Also known as “Da Playah”, a generic gawky teenage male who vastly overestimates his own appeal to the opposite sex.
- Tony – A football player who often picks on Tedd. Grace believes he has a repressed attraction to Tedd.
- Melissa – Justin’s former lifelong best friend, and the person to whom Justin first revealed his homosexuality, after their first and only date. She accidentally let his secret slip to all of Moperville South HS. After that, her and Justin’s friendship dissolved. Ever since, she has attempted to win him back.
- Noah – Androgynous male friend of Melissa.
- Liz – Disgruntled teenager, hooked on nicotine, doesn't care much about anything.
- William and Gillian – An Uryuom couple who asked Mr. Verres to help improve their morphing device, leading to the transformation gun.
- Lord Tedd – Tedd’s seemingly evil counterpart from the Alpha Dimension.
- General Shade Tail – The Alpha Dimension counterpart of Grace, and Lord Tedd’s right-hand lieutenant. Has a different, male, human genome.
- Nioi – An anthro-skunk (‘nioi’ being a Japanese word for ‘scent’) from the Alpha Dimension, at the service of Lord Tedd, but apparently well-intentioned toward the main characters.
- Kaoli – A young anthro-skunk (‘kaori’ is another Japanese word for ‘scent’) who was split off Nioi by the Dewitchery Diamond.
- Dr. Sciuridae – Former employee of the company that produced Grace and her brothers. During Grace’s creation, he replaced the genome of the intended human donor with that of his deceased daughter.
- Guineas - One of Grace’s three “brothers”, Guineas is the oldest of the group. He is half guinea pig and half human, but appears to be incapable of human speech.
- Hedge - Another one of Grace’s “brothers”, Hedge is the second oldest of the group. He is one quarter hedgehog and three quarters human. While in human form, he has blonde spikey hair and sunglasses.
- Vlad – The last of Grace’s “brothers”, Vlad has parents of several species, most notably birds and bats. A physically and emotionally tortured character, he found transforming between human and animal forms to be physically painful. Towards the end of the Painted Black story arc, Ellen permanently turned him into a human female, Vladia. Since transforming, Vladia's personality has gone from "tortured" to simply "shy and somewhat reclusive".
- Damien – A pyrokinetic villain with a god complex who attempted to use Grace and her brothers in his plot to rule Earth, but destroyed himself while fighting Grace.
- “The Immortals” – Two obscure beings who are secretly watching Elliot.
- “Mastermind” – A shadowy ghost who, apparently, seeks to arrange his own resurrection that would have something to do with Elliot or himself (it's not totally clear) being hit by a Female Variant #5 beam. He is probably the cause of Ellens “birth”, as he calls himself her father (Tedd shot Elliot with the transformationgun using Female Variant #5, he doesn't know the real reason why he shot Elliot, it was probably due to “Mastermind”, hereafter the gun breaks down, later Ellen-Elliot touches a magic diamond and Ellen is splitt off).
- Mr. Bleuel – The El Goonish Shive universe’s counterpart of Darren Bleuel, a disgruntled physics teacher at Moperville South. He is particularly annoyed by Nanase's insistence on breaking the laws of physics by hovering on school property.
- Demonic Duck – A duck that looks like a demon and is sometimes summoned by the other characters to create a distraction, often called upon by using the sentence: "Hey, is that a demonic duck of some sort?" Member of the local Distraction Union.
- Dan – Daniel Shive’s anthropomorphic squirrel avatar.
- Minion – Dan’s minion, according to Dan they get paid more than administrative assistants,
as Minion first proposed to be called Administrative Assistant. - Writer’s Block – A visualisation of the author’s writer’s block.
- Writer’s Sphere – Opposite to Writer’s Block (too many ideas), appears in a filler. The Writer's Block's worst fear.
- Lisa – Amanda’s roommate and friend and Dr. Germahn’s attorney. She has been hinted to be a lesbian and may have a crush on Amanda, which the other girl remains entirely unaware of despite Lisa's fairly obvious manipulations.
- Alice - Dr. Germahn's receptionist and niece.
- Matt and Rat – Characters from Dan Shive’s previous (non-web) comic strip.
- Matthew William Cohen – Student Body President of Moperville North, who appears to have developed a distant fascination with Susan after her outburst following the announcement of the new school dress code. He is named after Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, and Billy West. Also delivers pizza.
- The Goo – A pile of goo that Tedd apparently brought to life in science only to be destroyed again by Ellen in Sister. Later, it was revealed that it was actually animated by one of Lord Tedd's Demon Nuclei, sent to kill Tedd, as opposed to being accidentally vivified by Tedd.
[edit] Locations
- Moperville North HS – Primary location of the story surrounding the crew. Elliot, Tedd, Sarah and Susan attend this school. This is also where the Goo attacked Ellen toward the end of the Sister story arc. The school is run by Principal Verrückt.
- Moperville South HS – The other high school of Moperville, attended by Nanase and Justin. After Grace’s 18th birthday, Grace and Ellen will also be attending here.
- Anime-Style Martial Arts Dojo – School of martial arts owned by Greg, and attended by Elliot, Nanase, and Justin, and others that Dan hasn't shown yet (because of self-proclaimed laziness...).
- PTTALUTASF – The government’s “Paranormal Things That Are Of Little Use To Anyone Storage Facility”, a nearly unsecured, low priority building that houses the Dewitchery Diamond. (The Acronym used in the comic, although wrong, is PTTAPUTASF.)
- Salty Crackers Comic Shop – Comic shop in which Justin works. Apparently based on Graham Cracker Comics, a greater Chicago area chain.
- Video Rental Store – Store in Moperville that employs Susan.
- The Nest – Nickname of the government facility where Grace and her brothers were born. Until the death of Damien, it was occupied by him, Hedge, Vlad and Guineas.
- Tedd’s House – Home to Tedd, Grace and Mr. Verres. Contains a storage locker filled with top-secret information about concpiracies and paranormal phenomenon, and of course Tedd's basement lab where are forged things that nature never intended.
[edit] Technology and Artifacts
- Transformation Gun (sometimes abbreviated to TF-gun) – Device that changes the molecular makeup of a person, used by Tedd. It is an Uryuom device, and is also known as a Cosmetic Morph Device (CMD).
- Unlike normal transformation tools found on the Uryuom homeworld, the gun Tedd uses for development uses object oriented programming, banned by religious law there when combined with CMDs, which enables the gun to have clone forms, or forms that can make any two people look exactly the same.
- Transformations usually use how a person originally looks as a basis, meaning two people zapped with the female form won't look identical afterwards, but two people zapped with a clone form would. A clone form of particular note is the Claire form, which was made so Grace could leave the house without being identified. Anyone trasformed into the Claire form will become a dark-skinned girl with asian eyes and green hair, and will look exactly the same as anyone else transformed with the Claire form.
- The clone forms are important in that Tedd was first given a transformation gun by two uryuoms desiring human forms. An uryuom is normally unable to look completely human when transformed by a CMD, but a clone form could pull it off. It took Tedd a few years to get to the point where he could program decent clone forms, and practiced by trying to make clone forms of celebrities. At least one celebrity he made a clone form of was Gillian Anderson.
- CMD's have two dials, one for forms and one for variants. The variant dial has six parts to it, ranged from 0 to 5. Variant 0 is the equivilant of a safety, as the gun will not fire when set to variant 0. All the other variants can be variations of the form. For example, when a cat form is selected with the form dial, having variant #1 selected may result in a half-cat person with fur of a single color, while variant #2 might result in spots, variant #3 stripes, etc.
- Transformations are not permanent, and after a period of time, the transformed will return to their base form, ie they'll change back to normal. Time transformed can range for a few hours to a month. There is a normal form on the gun that returns a person to their base form early. The only currently known way to make a change permanent is to be in a female form and become pregnant while transformed. Becoming pregnant will make the transformed state the base form, which means the normal form won't be able to undo it - at least not 'till the pregnancy has been completed or terminated.
- CMDs have a number of safeties in place that prevent transforming under dangerous conditions. CMDs will have no affect on someone who is pregnant or too weak physically to handle the transformation.
- Known forms programmed into Tedd’s gun are Normal (undoes transformations), Cat, Hedgehog, Dog, Chipmunk, Mouse, Raccoon, Jeremy, Fox, Squirrel, Female, Male, and clone forms of Tedd, Grace, Claire, and Gillian Anderson. With Sarah's consent, Tedd has scanned the necessary data to create a Sarah clone form, but has not done so. The data was scanned to be used in the event of an emergency in order to help Sarah feel comfortable with being transformed for Grace's birthday party.
- Changing genders will 'add heterosexuality' to the original gender, meaning that if a heterosexual women becomes a man, she will be bisexual, having her previous feelings for men as well as new feelings for women. This means a homosexual person who changes genders will still remain attracted to the same sex as before.
- Transformation Gun Tester – Machine to test the TF-gun’s function. [4][5]
- Transformation Gun Modifier – A point and click computer program designed by Tedd that modifies the gun’s effect.
- Transformation Belt – A belt, designed by Tedd, which incorporates Transformation Gun technology but lacks the tranquilizer effect, making transformations much more painful to the user. Only capable of changing the wearer to and from an anthro-cat form.
- Scanner – A device that scans a person’s body and generates a “clone form”. Anybody hit with the ray from the TF-gun set to a person’s clone form would be transformed to look exactly like that person.
- Dewitchery Diamond – A magical object which “separates” a curse from a cursed person by creating a still-cursed duplicate of the original. The duplicate is capable of spreading the curse to others.
- Tedd’s Glasses – Glasses given to Tedd by his father, enhanced with a variety of features including X-ray vision, telescoping, heat-vision and video-recording. The X-ray vision feature has been removed by Tedd.
- Uryuom Suits – Suits created by the Uryuoms that can conform to any possible body shape.
- Radio Watches – Watches with integrated walky-talkies invented by Dr. Germahn with the sole purpose of being “cool stuff to play with”.
[edit] Aliens
- Uryuoms are an alien race that inhabit Earth. The word “Uryuom” translates to “Alien” in English. Humans somehow do not notice Uryuoms when they wear clothes with slogans like “Human” or “Homo sapiens”, despite the Uryuoms’ two antennae and large, black eyes. Uryuoms can teach a language to someone by simply rubbing their antennae on the said person’s forehead. They can alter their appearance in minor ways, but need the aid of a cosmetic morphing device like a TF-gun for larger changes. Once they have taken on a form, Uryuoms can morph back to their “base” form and access their new form at will. Uryuoms have no gender, but most of those on Earth choose one as part of their identity in order to better fit in among humans. To reproduce, Uyruoms create an egg from an unnamed substance from their body and inject DNA into it. An egg will accept DNA from more than just two parents, and will even accept DNA from other species, e. g. humans.
- Uryuomoco is a fictional alien language, actually an application of a substitution cipher to English.
- Seyunolus are created when Uyruom eggs are used to house multiple DNA sources. “Seyunolu” translates to “Chimera”. If no Uryuom DNA is used, then the resulting child will have some characteristics of an Uryuom, but won’t be a true Uryuom. Uryuom and Lespuko traits tend to remain dormant, while traits from other parents are mixed fairly evenly. An absence of Uryuom DNA in a fertlized egg results in a “Roaisol Seyunolu”, or “Lesser Chimera”. An egg with some Uryuom DNA results in a “Tulougol Seyunolu”, or “Greater Chimera”. All types of Seyunolu can shapeshift into a pure form of any of their parents unless the transformation is overly complex, possibly from too many parents. Vlad, for instance, could not transform and nearly died when he attempted to do so. Tulougol Seyunolus are unique in that they can “remember” other forms into which they are unnaturally forced, such as by means of a TF gun, and can transform back into these forms or hybrid versions of their various forms later.[6]
- Lespukos are genetically related to Uyruoms. They’re similar in a number of ways, primarily through their shape-shifting abilities. Lespukos are apparently predators, and they can use their powers to grow horns and claws during combat which they can later retract, making them appear either extremely ferocious or extremely docile depending on the situation. When a Lespuko is a parent in the creation of a Greater Chimera, the resulting offspring could potentially transform with extreme efficiency and be able to combine forms and exert great power. When Lespuko Seyunolus combine forms into legion forms, they can specify every detail that they wish to use, while all other Seyunolus and Uryuoms can only focus on generalities. “Lespuko” translates to “Rockape”. They live apart from the Uryuoms and are less evolved but stronger than the latter.
[edit] Author
The author of El Goonish Shive is Daniel Elliot Shive (born February 18, 1983). Shive occasionally draws himself in the comic outside of continuity. His first avatar was a female anthropomorphic squirrel, designed as a mix of the cast’s characteristics (for instance, her hair color was a mathematical average of the characters’ hair colors), not including Susan, who was not considered a main character at the time.
The design for the avatar was not originally intended to be used as Dan's avatar. The original drawing was just Dan having some fun with the idea of merging his main characters, but when the time came to represent himself in the comic, he decided to use that design.
After the Sister story arc ended, he switched to a male version and now uses both. The excuse given for this change, and for the avatar being female in the first place, was that any major story arc would affect the nature of the avatar. Since Sister had a transgender transformation basis, the avatar would also be transgendered.
[edit] Keenspot
El Goonish Shive has a small but vibrant forum-based internet community, which contributes relatively large amounts of fanart and discussion on the comic. Dan Shive regularly participates in these discussions with his fans, and often releases information about the storyline and world in which it is set which is never revealed in the comic itself, as well as discussing storyline decisions and alternate paths he might have taken with the comic.
[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
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