El Goonish Shive: A Worthwhile Web Comic

The Web-based comic "El Goonish Shive," or EGS to its fans, is, like many Web comics, centered around a group of friends and their misadventures. But it is there that EGS departs from the standard formula and descends into a world all its own.

The author, Dan Shive, has created a universe (several actually) where science, fantasy, and real life meld together and form the world of EGS. But of all the web comics available, why should the reader spend his time with this one? Well there are many reasons but chief among them is the story, the art, and the characters.

The story is extremely creative, occasionally bordering on just plain weird. What begins as a typical joke strip about 2 friends quickly evolves into one that includes genetically-altered polymorphic heroes and villains. Now, I realize that this may sound far fetched and it does require a bit of disbelief suspension, the author does a tremendous job of introducing these impossibilities at a pace that does not lead the reader to feel like the story's basis of reality is spinning out of control.

The artwork at the start of the series is somewhat primitive looking. Like all works in progress, the author's character design and overall skill has evolved. And now, each character has grown into themselves and each is complete with their own set of individual expressions and physical characteristics. It's not all positive though; if I had to say something negative about the art it would be that there is often a lack of background which gives the reader a feeling that the characters are "just there" and not in any particular setting - although in recent issues, this seems to have been overcome.

The characters themselves are well developed; each with their own quirks and personal frustrations. The main character list varies from a ball-busting feminist to a polymorphic squirrel-girl, a martial arts expert and a perverted too-young-to be-a-mad scientist. And while the characters are believable (yes, even the unbelievable ones), the dialog does sometimes come off like a cartoon with only 1 voice actor for all the characters. By this I mean that the verbal patters, word choice, and general sentence structure is very similar among all the characters.

"El Goonish Shive is on my highly recommended list for all these reasons and more.