El Goonish Shive -
El Goonish Shive is a comic about a group of teenagers who face both real life and bizarre, supernatural situations.
New comic! Today's News: Schedule stuff (will remove eventually to keep commentary light in future) Story comics should be Mon-Weds-Friday again, though the schedule is subject to change. EGSNP's return is To Be Announced, but it will be as soon as (healthily) possible. The delays are the result of losing someone close to me. Thank you very much to everyone who's been supportive, encouraged me to take my time, and just in general for reading the comic. Actual Comic Commentary Stuff! - Justin's first use of his flashy power boost spell - Second use (kicking the fire guy into a river) - But where mark? (Start of planning to find out if Rhoda and Catalina have magic) - Hope remembering Justin's mark (and Pandora being okay with Justin accidentally hurting someone by using it) I felt it was important for Grace to have a reaction to Sarah, and to clearly imply the reason why Sarah was taking it so personally (aside from, y'know, her good buddy Grace being there). I didn't want to dwell on it, however, and that's how we got not thinking about elephants. Justin has a cool, flashy spell! And very little reason to ever use it! Seriously, even if doing martial arts while working out, someone might see it, is he REALLY working his muscles properly if they're being magically boosted (and protected from being harmed by those boosts), and it wouldn't be at all safe to use in a friendly sparring match. If Justin's going to get new spells, it might take a plan, and some deliberate extra effort.
New comic! Today's News: I originally wrote a standard comedic "Sarah, the least powerful one there, is intimidating" response. Which works when paired with a lot of characters, but not Jay. Prior to realizing what she might have been asking someone to reveal about themselves, Jay only holds her tongue because of the social situation she's in. I ALSO originally wrote "oh carp" at the end of panel two, but that didn't feel right for Jay, either. She did say "holy carp forks" once when surprised by Grace (delivering pizza to their party), but for reasons that elude me, I'm fine with that. Seriously, "oh-carp" here feels out of character, whereas "holy carp forks" feels in-character, and I cannot tell you why. I'm going entirely by gut feelings on this. I'm guessing it's something to do with the context and flow of the latter, but I'm still not sure. Revenge of the shoulder the reckoning The day I finished working on this comic, my drawing shoulder was bothering me. Fortunately for me, I'd sketched it the day before, so I wasn't starting with anything close to a blank canvas with this ten panel page. Granted, as far as ten panel pages go, this one wasn't so bad in terms of amount to do. It's more like a seven panel page, really, in terms of what's shown. Now, if it was ten panels, and every panel averaged two characters per panel? THAT would've been a "what am I even doing to myself" situation. -- - Thursday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Possibly relevant Sarah thoughts after an apology to Elliot and Tedd (and here's the start of that apology) during the party for Ashley. Grace was more confused by "Smoke" than angry, even before she knew who Smoke was. She'd said "wait" when Jay bravely ran away because she'd wanted to talk to her, and possibly befriend her. Well, that, and panicked concern about potentially having just revealed she was part alien, which she was warned was a bigger deal than magic, but ALSO the potential befriending thing. Sarah, meanwhile, has basically pieced together that Grace had been with Sam, and clearly had some things to say about it. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Grace likes that movie - Yes they might be slightly familiar with Rhoda In which Jay just casually and unknowingly eliminates a whole mess of reasonable doubt about Rhoda's status as a magic user. To be clear, Jay SPECIFICALLY can change height. She did not get her magic hands on more potent size changing magic. No kitty magic I considered her also getting her magic hands on Catalina's cat magic, but Catalina is actually really good about hiding that, and she's only ever had one reason to (intentionally) use it in public (while being chased by foolish people). Jay happening to notice Rhoda giving in to the temptation and very briefly making herself taller to reach a high shelf in a store? Sure, I'll buy that. Rhoda's probably done it more than once. Heck, I'm much taller than Rhoda, and I'd be tempted to risk revealing I have magic to use such a spell. Jay happening to be around Catalina, who's used the magic a total of two times in public, the first time being by accident? Relevant canon EGSNP: - Pandora at the mall trying to find spell candidates (brief relevant EGSNP storyline prior to Escape From The Mall)Â - Start of actual EGSNP storyline in which Catalina gets magic - Accidental usage of kitty spell Note to self: Finally settle on a place to toss that EGSNP storyline into the main section. -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - The "gangly guy" (Camdin) - Start of Grace's talk with Sam (About ten pages before "Smoke") - Grace talking with Sam about Sarah (couple pages before "Smoke") - "Smoke" shows up - Strategic withdrawal potato - Jay surprise one (party for Ashley arc) - Jay surprise two (earlier this arc) - Jay failing to recognize Sam earlier this arc - That thing with the lights Grace can be pretty big brain, don't you know. Flashback panels Past me: "Should I redraw these older flashbacks? There's been some style adjustments since then..." Also past me: "You have HOW many things you want to get done before the weekend, AND that time consuming non-comic thing you've gotta do on Thursday?" Past me: "Why redraw what already worked once, I always say!" -- - Thursday EGSNP (technically Wednesday EGSNP because I accidentally posted it early)
New comic! Today's News: "I strongly disagree with your hopes and dreams, but seeing as that future is probably unavoidable for reasons that have nothing to do with you, WHEE MAGIC!" Confession: I originally imagined Tedd pointing out Jay's manner of speech, but no. Not only would Tedd not realize that so easily, but Jay is pulling an "act like a Vulcan from Star Trek to control your emotions" play. Susan's DONE that, and is the closest to Jay. SUSAN GETS TO POINT IT OUT. Justin was reminded of Vulcans, but the rest didn't occur to him. Also, he was trapped in the fog created by all those dialogue bubbles in panel two. In all seriousness, I decided to have the background fade out in panel two because it would have been annoyingly busy otherwise. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: A note on the previous page: Authorial intent was people reacting because Hope essentially compared Jay and Susan to Pandora and Blaike, the latter couple eventually marrying and having a kid. A mix of the implied "Jay likes Susan", and "I can't believe she just put that out there". Hope's reaction in the second-to-last panel was intended as her reaching the wrong conclusion. I didn't think that would be unclear, but the feedback I got said yes. Yes it was. Sort of I think panel two is snappier without that "sort of", but I also think the panel would be a FILTHY LIAR without that "sort of". There's plenty of people Grace wouldn't want to tell even if she felt there technically wouldn't be a problem. Like Rich and Larry. Say whatever you want about the progress either of them have made, Grace has heard them speculate about space aliens, and doesn't want that conversation. Segue! Tedd talking about this was always the plan, but I was having a little trouble settling on a natural way to get to it when the "Jay misinterprets Grace" thing happened, at which point it became super easy. Hooray for misinterpreting Grace! -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Blaike Hope, you made GRACE facepalm. GRACE! How did you even do that?! -- - Thursday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: There was a rewrite here, and it began ever so simply. Grace's original dialogue strayed from the actual point, which is that she wants the option to tell anyone about herself. It instead sounded like she just had a few other friends she wanted to tell. It ALSO sounded a bit like she was a rich person telling a poor person "yeah, but I'd like MORE riches." Naturally, I wanted to fix that. Thing is, once I'd done that, it felt natural for Jay to misinterpret it. Based on her own expectations, she's basically just hearing "I want to tell EVERYONE about EVERYTHING!" I THEN felt it was natural for Jay to accidentally say "Susan" in spite of originally having been interested in Tedd. Hope's amusement was ANOTHER thing I felt would naturally happen, which ALSO changes what's next, and... THE POINT IS, clarifying what Grace meant had a massive ripple effect, and an ironic part of that ripple effect was Jay not getting what she meant. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: Jay having a breakdown moment and confessing to something isn't intended as an Ace Attorney reference (particularly since it was something she herself hadn't realized / accepted yet). I enjoy me an epiphany happening under such circumstances. This did not stop me from listening to "Pursuit ~ Cornered" from the Ace Attorney soundtrack while working on it, however. The answer is yes I enjoy when the answer to weird questions can be yes. Well, some weird questions. Look, there's always going to be exceptions. Come to think of it, if we include all possible questions that could conceivably be asked, it's actually going to be the majority of weird questions that aren't enjoyable if the answer is yes. If we limit ourselves to weird silly questions that are fun and NOT TERRIBLE, however, I tend to enjoy when the answer is yes. Maybe. I haven't done the math. Anyway, yes, Hope can add a hole to the room for embarrassed people. -- - Thursday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - "Grace doesn't make friends. She collects Followers. I'm just one person in a crowd to Grace." - "I thought you were cool way before we were friends." - Jay unsure about Grace (next page) - Grace helping Jay when she was upset earlier - "I'm a terrible friend." (Grace happy Jay has magic) OH FORK FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT...!
New comic! Today's News: - "Behold! The realness of Tedd!" - The offer to introduce Jay to Tedd I felt Grace would be understanding of this for a whole bunch of reasons, but I ALSO felt that she would NOT be a happy squirrel cheerfully declaring "okie-dokie!" No, we to get to see the rare wonder of nature that is anger management Grace. Yeah, she mostly gets it, but she's not happy about it. Whose Dialogue is it Anyway? I was about to write this commentary when I felt I had to stop and go back to make panel two less confusing. Bishop was originally the left of panel two, which I felt looked better. The problem was, it's a flashback of her talking, but she's not the one with dialogue. While it HAD to have been Jay actually talking, it wasn't instantly apparent. Heck, *I* thought it looked like Bishop was the one saying stuff, and I'm the one who wrote it. Something like that shouldn't be a puzzle (even if an easy one), so I moved her to the right, and connected the dialogue balloons so no detective work was required to figure out who the heck was talking.
New comic! Today's News: Justin: Skillfully shifting the subject, and maybe, just MAYBE a little concerned about how much more secret information he just learned that he probably wasn't supposed to learn. Panel two is a friendly reminder that Pandora could be quite terrible, actually. And now, a whole lot of Bishop: - Introduction of Bishop - Silhouette of Bishop in a lineup showing height (two pages after previous reference) - Bishop again, talking to Arthur (voice only in one panel, actually shown on next page where it's implied Bishop had an unpleasant introduction to magic) - Comical flashback panel of Bishop rejecting Mr. Verres (taking over Arthur's job) - Flashback of Bishop overhearing Mr. Verres talk about giving Tedd alien tech (also present on one panel of next page tapping his shoulder) -- I THINK that's all the main story Bishop appearances? Probably? Maybe?! Arthur previously implied that Bishop did not have a nice introduction to magic, and now we know what that introduction was. Very little has changed from what I had in mind back in late 2021 and now. Mostly, I don't think the connection to Jay's incident was decided until later. -- - Thursday EGSNP (Next EGSNP after this NEXT Thursday)
New comic! Today's News: - Jay reacting to Hope talking about immortals and jobs One hundred percent unnecessary sass in that second panel, but I think we can cut Jay some slack, considering. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Hope did say she wanted to be friends It was at this point that I had to decide if Jay had broken hospitality, and much like a Game Master when a player does something INCREDIBLY FOOLISH, I stressed a bit over a desire to MAKE THEM PAY--er, face realistic consequences for their actions, or let them get away with it. Ultimately, however, it was a moot point. IÂ previously established that immortal hospitality was a "what the person believes" situation, and Hope wasn't going to think of Jay as having forfeited guest privileges after a light tap she herself felt was more than deserved. (I'm not saying that was a good feeling to have, just that she had it, and it affected the outcome.) Seemed appropriate for Jay to get a warning, however. -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Part nine, again, for convenience - The end of part nine, ALSO for convenience I underestimated how much text from part nine would wind up on this page. I'd expected a third of the page in order to draw attention to everything I felt was important, but not two-thirds. Part of the reason for this result is I wanted to strictly stick to Pandora's "journal", as part of what's being shown here is exactly what's being shared with everyone. Paraphrasing, beyond skipping over some things, would mess with that. ALL THAT SAID, this page was always going to end with "bonk". The only real difference it makes is making me feel self-conscious. "I've grown as a writer and editor, you have to believe meeeee~!" -- - Thursday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Past life journal-like reciting in Sister 3 (with the Emissary of Magic) - Again at the very end of Sister 3, implying the starting narration was Pandora's memories - Hope reciting Pandora earlier (listing additional things she should buy along with cards for her deck) -- Anyway, now for an endless loop in which you re-read Part Nine, read back to this point, and loop back 'round again. Anyway, the answer to how much information Hope shares is about to be "literally all of Pandora's narration from part nine". Which won't be repeated in it's entirety, but that would be a heck of a way to make the next few pages easy to write. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - The mental battle to unlock the memory - Twelve years ago... Part of me felt like there should be way more hesitancy, just in general, to enter Hope's home. Why? Because frankly, if Hope wasn't actually who she claimed to be, and this was a trap, IT WOULD BE ONE HECK OF A TRAP. Ultimately, I decided between Sarah, Tedd, and Susan feeling pretty confident about Hope (for various reasons, including the expectation of Pandora's return), the explanations already given, and the vow in particular, that it would be more annoying than on-point to devote any more time having anyone (Jay) be hesitant about entering. Basically, I decided once Sarah and Grace had gone in, that was that. Suspicion of the room was effectively dealt with while explaining the room. Given infinite panels and/or an animated version, however, Jay totally would have at least had a moment's hesitancy before crossing the threshold. -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: On this page, Grace is referencing secret bases from Pokémon. I don't recall ever actually playing around with the mechanic, but it makes me think of people having a bunch of furniture and plushies in caves, so here we are. Six? No. Four. I originally wrote six panels for this page, which basically left no room for really showing them in the, well, room, and ALSO wouldn't have left room for Hope's trivia about transformative pocket dimensions. Granted, we don't NEED that bit of trivia right now, but I wanted it out there. The two panels that didn't get included very naturally work at the start of the next page rather than the end of this one, and the decision to make that change came about from this line of thinking (previously written on socials): ---- A rule of thumb I'm considering is "find the note to end on". I often write pages that have multiple points that could be notes to end the comic / page on, but I keep adding panels because, hey, there could be more panels. But what if fewer panels, better visuals, and getting to bed on time? This is a bit different to the "panel accountant". The panel accountant is concerned with having the same amount of story progression in fewer panels. This rule of thumb is for determining where the potential end points for a page or strip are, and favoring the earliest satisfactory end point. Though I suppose the panel accountant could start keeping track of this, too. She's very smart, and oh no I'm anthropomorphizing again ---- The irony about the "in bed on time" part being that this page wound up being posted late, but hey, that can happen when you make a change like that and end up rewriting parts because of it. Still, it's a good rule of thumb, and should help in the future.
New comic! Today's News: The answer is no. I didn't want that to have to be something Hope did every time she granted temporary hospitality, but I did want the reveal to be a bit dramatic. Thanks to the power of silliness, we get both outcomes. Another Layer of Reality The first panel didn't originally have anything clarifying that it was another layer of reality, but then I started clarifying that in this very commentary, and thought "wait a minute. This actually matters. If I feel the need to clarify it here, it should DEFINITELY be in the comic." So I added the second-to-last word bubble in panel one, and slightly reworded the last bubble (basically just changing an "it" to "the entrance"). -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Zeus being helpful! - Susan going over the messages At one point, I was writing all this new stuff about immortals and hospitality, and why Hope's offer of hospitality should be taken seriously. Then part of my brain spoke up and said "immortal vows are already a thing. Just do that." And so we were saved from possibly an entire page of completely unnecessary exposition. It gave me determination I wanted to bring back Hope's home in this part of the story, and was thinking things like "how should Hope bring it up? What's a sensible reason for her to show it to them?" BUT THEN I watched an anime that I thought was boring compared to the manga, because in the manga, THINGS HAPPENED IN FUN WAYS. This got me thinking about how I should go about things in stories. So because I was disappointed in an anime, Hope got stage fright and ran through a wall. -- - Last Thursday EGSNP - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Hope previously appearing to go through a wall - "We can't just go through walls anymore" For the record, "be right ba" is not a typo. That "ba" is demonstrating something! "How to sound like a sheep?" ...Yes. Yes, that's it exactly. How to sound like a sheep. "Awesome! I'm gonna go eat a cookie!" -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Sarah successfully guessing (generally) "I would happily accept this job, but there's one thing I need to check first." (Later) "Sorry, it turns out my son is opposed to the kicking of puppies, and I must refuse helping you find the most adorable and innocent one there is." Also, the answer to Justin's question is probably yes, yes they do. In the comic. Please don't approach strange cloaked figures with pointy ears in the dark corners of taverns. I would've fallen asleep while inking When I decided to delay this page to a Monday after having settled on all the dialogue, it was about 4:30 on Thursday without a single thing actually sketched. There was just no way. I actually should avoid eight panel pages in general, but I really wanted all of this on one page. In retrospect, I could've made it work with two, but it exists now, so let's move on! -- - Last Thursday EGSNP - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: By the standards set by the main characters in this comic, that last panel is roughly equivalent to kicking a thousand puppies. -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Start of "is he looking in my head" sequence - Jay scaring AJ I very nearly had Grace not know there was going to be a meeting until it was actually happening, but I didn't really buy it would get that far without anyone mentioning it to her, so here we go.
New comic! Today's News: Schedule note: The next EGSNP will be Tuesday. I didn't get the rest I needed over the holidays due to external factors, and I've been trying to pretend that I did. That has really not gone well, and I need to actually catch up on sleep. Also, I think I can write the next bit better, but that goes hand-in-hand with the sleep thing. Actual commentary! - Susan going over why she concluded immortals can no longer go through walls - Justin wondering about Hope's cash - "Hey, um... Jill?" Justin's comment about twigs is in reference to a relatively common trope in which people are given things of no value that are magically disguised as valuables (the magic generally wearing off later, revealing the things of no value). I don't consider Jay's guess that Hope had a message for her grandfather all that logical given the interaction they had, but I also believe it's something she'd consider. Which is good, what with me putting it in the comic. -- - Thursday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: "Also, this is technically a reincarnation isekai story now. Sort of. It's debatable." (Please don't seriously debate it. It's a joke. Mostly.) I hadn't planned for this to be the start of part 12 when I finished the previous page, but I decided it's time to begin the end of this story arc! Huzzah! -- - Tuesday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - Phone Cheerleardra - She knew - "You absolutely should talk to her about magic." And so the final page of 2024 is one in which not a single cookie rains from the sky. Unless someone DID see this comic coming, in which case, holy carp, how did you do that?! Plans Planned since the beginning of this arc: Susan having that moment with Larry, and it escalating from there with appreciation of her talking about change. Not planned since the beginning of this arc: This specific reveal. I wanted Susan to excitedly text Elliot. Then I wanted Elliot to view the text as Cheerleadra, as I thought that would be neat. But I also wanted Elliot to be having fun on Friday night, so out with Ashley, but then it made sense for the Cheerleadra form to not look like Cheerleadra (which Elliot can do). And THAT'S when the thought of "Liz should be there" came up. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to do this reveal. Then I thought of how many gosh dang things I want to have happen in this comic, and the fact that, canonically, Liz had already figured it out. After that, it barely felt like a choice. -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: - The page before Larry is shown Elliot and Susan's show (provides context of Larry calling Sarah a "fake geek" behind her back) - The actual page of Larry being shown the show by Tensaided - Susan starts talking about change - The majority of Susan talking about change (next page) - Larry recommending the show to people - Her impact on Rich Many thanks to everyone who has made it possible for me to say "I know that feel" in regard to this page.
New comic! Today's News: My announced plan had been for there to be an EGSNP tomorrow, but my weekend was a lot more stressful than I anticipated, and I've decided to listen to the many nice people telling me I can take more time off for the holidays if I need it. Thank you for that, by the way. I really appreciate it. I really don't want to take off the remainder of the year, however, so my intent is for things to resume on Friday. It's possible something could complicate that, but I'm going to make like weather forecaster and say, all things being equal, FRIDAY, darn it. Now for this page's actual commentary: I debated whether to have two panels of silence before "bwuh", or three. Three seemed to imply a SLIGHTLY longer pause then I wanted, so I went with two. I assume someone somewhere is upset I didn't have a full page of silent Susans before "bwuh". Behold my normal human writing: My original approach to Larry bringing this up was a convoluted mess along the lines of L: "Hey, that's an interesting deck." S: "I didn't actually design it myself. Tensaided made it." L: "I know of the one called Tensaided. He introduced me to your review show." S: "Oh." And so on. Putting aside the awkwardness (made more awkward by Susan not even knowing if Larry knows Tensaided), it felt redundant. Decks have been commented on already, and we don't need that again in the story. It made way more sense for this to be something that Larry wanted to say, but had to work up the nerve to say before Susan left AFTER their match was over. Commenting on the deck would likely be more of a first game thing, and it was awkward besides. After the match was also the simplest way to do this scene, but I got hung up on other details that kept the obvious from being, well, obvious. -- - Saturday EGSNP
New comic! Today's News: EDIT: Regarding the next page being Monday, this is because I want to write something better, I'm behind on sleep, and something personal has come up that demands my time. My apologies for this delay. Meanwhile, I'm taking Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off from posting next week so I won't be working Christmas Eve or Day. (I wasn't originally taking Tuesday off, but I had a heck of a weekend). ---- - Why Susan is thinking about this ("I want to talk to you forever") Susan has some issues with physical contact, but she doesn't WANT to have issues with physical contact. She might not imagine herself directly involved in "things", but cuddles? Cuddles are goals. What exactly are we subverting, here? The subversion in this page is a little weird as it's less a subversion of expectations for Susan, and more a subversion of just general expectations for most people? And it sort of presents it as a joke, and yet this is pretty sincere? I'm just saying, the actual big romantic moment in a romance isn't the smooch. It's when the characters are totally honest and open with themselves and each other. -- Tuesday EGSNP
You can subscribe to this RSS to get more information