Magic! Magical Science! Teenagers!

Greetings, dreamers!

This week I am going to talk about another great webcomic, and with one of the most amazing and inclusive casts, along with Questionable Content! And only slightly under half QC's length!

Let's talk about

El Goonish Shive (EGS for short), created by Dan shive, is a webcomic about... an increasingly large group of teens in the city of Moperville. And they fight crime and they have a pretty normal life.

Minus the aliens. And the magic. And the shapeshifting.

Actually... maybe not so normal.

Ok, for realsies now.

It was bloody hard to find a decent image. Dan, your comic has too many good moments!

It's about a group of teenagers, yes. It's about exploration of MANY different things. From friendship to sexuality (and asexuality), through emotions and many more interesting topics. All of it coated in humour, fantasy and sprinkled with sci fi for good measure.

Once again, it is an old running comic (started in 2002), and the improvements have been many and great. From how the story is handled, to character development, including comic layout and dialogue.

This comic is an IMPRESSIVE example of gradual improvement.

Humble beginnings as a school newspaper comic strip, if I remember correctly

EGS has a wide, varied and interesting cast, with each character having interesting and deep personalities.

Minor spoiler ahead for a plot thread inserted early in the comic's run ahead.

A magic beam is introduced early in the comic that changes a person's gender. While this was introduced as the author was much younger, and the author has stated they would do things differently if the start were to be rewritten, this early plot thread has evolved in the 12 years of the comic's run, leading to the comic discussing in an interesting and respectful way topics such as sexuality and transgender issues.

And humour. Glorious, fantastic humour.

 In general, the comic is great, even if starts a bit... difficult.

Great characters, great stories that I am afraid to go into because SPOILERS and this is one of those works that you really need to explore yourself.

If you like Questionable Content, like going on archive binges, love comics that include characters all over the gender spectrum, are a Trekkie, are a Star Wars fan, like comics about fantasy in a modern setting, like sci fi...

Actually, this comic seems like it'd be for everyone so just go ahead and give it a try!

For comics with similarly awesome cast and length, once again I recommend Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Keep on dreaming!

enistoja