User:Zz9pzza/GU Comics

GU Comics is a single panel webcomic written and drawn by Woody Hearn. Published five times a week on its own web site, it features comics based on various online video games such as World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Dark Age of Camelot, PlanetSide, Star Wars: Galaxies, and so on. It also comments on gaming community news. The comic also features the adventures of Hearn and his fictional roommate, Ted, and often parodies contemporary social, political, and personal issues related to the online and general video game world. Driven as it is by happenings in the video game world, continuity of the story line is not important, but it does have a few recurring themes. Strips are usually presented in a large format and in full color. The first strip was published on July 10, 2000.

Characters
GU is not a long-term storyline-based comic, instead featuring single, stand-alone comics or short, three-to-four-comic storylines. However, there are several characters, based off of real-life persons or characters in various online video games (called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game], or MMORPGs), that do make regular appearances in the comic. These characters include:


 * Woody- a fictionalized version of Woody Hearn himself, almost always drawn with his characteristic orange ballcap. (introduced: September 1, 2000)


 * Ted Prescott- The fictional roommate of Woody who has often been described as Wood’s id given form. He is notorious for his obsession with all things game-related, as well as his conflicts with a sleep-deprivation-created hallucinatory monkey that he swears is real. (introduced: September 1, 2000)


 * Vhah- Woody’s Everquest character, a barbarian warrior who is used to portray the many aspects of the game from the character’s perspective (introduced: July 10, 2000, strip 1, but not named till much later)


 * Toast- Probably one of the most famous of GU’s characters, Toast is a troll from Dark Age of Camelot who is most known for uttering his catch-phrase “Toast Smish” as he breaks something, whether intentional or not (introduced: July 3, 2003)


 * Monkey- The product of Ted’s sleep-deprived imagination, Monkey is often the scapegoat which Ted blames for the many gaming-caused sleep-deprivation oddities of behavior he engages in (introduced: December 30, 2003)


 * The Zapper- While not a character in the traditional sense, the Zapper is the central figure in a series of comics which feature failed games and even entire development companies, flying into a giant bug zapper in the form of insects (introduced: August 31, 2004)


 * The Gamer Girls- A pair of female gamers used when Woody wants to provide a slightly different perspective on current events in gaming. (introduced: March 9, 2000)


 * Iggy McStickson- The stick figure character which replaces a standard comic in times of technical difficulty, sickness, or other such problems (introduced: October 1, 2000)


 * Frank- When the perspective is a mob's point of view from any of the games Woody depicts, the characters name almost always is Frank.


 * ED-209- Woody's cat, who pops up every once in a while to wreak havoc and pursue cat like activities, such as the destruction of the human race. (introduced: October 13, 2004)


 * Caesar- Woody's dog, forming a sketchy alliance with the cat, only to bring about the sure doom of all bipedal animals and eats socks. (introduced: January 18, 2006)

Events and Activities
GU Comics has featured costume contests for its readers for Halloween, unofficial gatherings at various conventions, gaming trade shows, and the Texas Renaissance Festival. Woody Hearn was one of a group of EverQuest community leaders who were instrumental in the Sony Online Entertainment Community Summit in which a great deal of the changes initiated in Everquest and, later, EverQuest II were hammered out. In addition, Hearn has been invited to review the development of and write NDA-friendly reviews of various games, including Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. This has often been the first glimpse at upcoming games for many players, who respect Hearn’s opinion as it is considered to be fair and relatively unbiased. In addition, GU Comics was among the many game-based webcomics who took on anti-videogame campaigner and lawyer Jack Thompson through a combination of parodies in several comics, and raising awareness within the gaming community of the activities of Mr. Thompson.