Comic:Gee
From CGWiki
Gee is a webcomic written and drawn by J.J. Doughty and hosted by ComicGenesis. The comic chronicles the lives and adventures of a group of friends as they contend with identity crises and other more cosmic issues.
| Gee | |
|---|---|
| |
| Artist: | J.J. Doughty |
| Writer: | J.J. Doughty |
| Characters: | Cubehead, Ham, Io |
| Updates: | Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with bonus and filler on other days |
| Began: | September 11, 2008 |
| Ended: | |
| Art style: | minimalist comic strip |
| Rating: | Web-14 |
| Website | Website |
Contents |
Plot
Ham and Cubehead are typical twentysomething slackers. Cubehead is a former trust-fund kid who spends most of his time in front of the TV. Ham works at the warehouse of an online auction site where he has been known to engage in random acts of destruction. Io is Cubehead's sometime girlfriend who likes him despite the fact that he leads an isolated life and has been content to do so. His contentment ends when, moved to depression by a television commercial, he grumbles that he'd like to throw his life away. His words are overheard by the wrong set of ears, and his "wish" is granted with unexpected consequences for all involved.
Chapters
Ch. 1 : "Taken for a Cube" 1 Cubehead unleashes a world of trouble when he grumbles that he'd like to throw his life away. In an instant he disappears, sending Ham and Io into a panic.
Characters
Major characters
| Character | Age | Appearance | Bio/description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cubehead | 25 | Blond hair, wraparound shades | The son of a millionaire entrepeneur/adventurer, Quentin Hedberg, Jr. has been known as Cubehead for as long as he can remember. He spends most of his time on his easy chair in front of the TV, nursing beer from a frosty mug. |
| Ham | 25 | Black flattop hair | Hamilton Fisher has been Cubehead's sidekick since high school, where he beat up the rich kid simply for being a rich kid. He works in the warehouse of an online auction site. |
| Io | 23 | blonde hair | Cubehead's sometime girlfriend. The daughter of an astronomer, Io was named for a moon of Jupiter, like her siblings Callisto, Eurpoa, and Ganymede. |
| Quinn | 25 | black hair | When Cubehead escapes purgatory, Quinn appears. |
Minor characters
| Character | Age | Appearance | Bio/description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Dent | 45 | Black hair, balding | Ham's boss. Mike likes Ham despite his short fuse and tolerates his antics because they amuse him. |
| Hank | ? | A floating group of lights | Administrator of purgatory. |
| Jason Desiato | 32 | brown hair, Ray-Bans | Mike's business partner, Ham's boss, Code monkey for highwayrobbery.com |
Background
Gee was originally created in 1986. It was published as a DIY zine for about four years, after which single strips were distributed sporadically. In the mid 90s it was resurrected, again in print form, on the comics page of a music zine titled Local Lixx. When that publication folded, Gee went back into hibernation until co-creator J.J. Doughty was inspired to bring it back once more for purposes of entering the Baltimore City Paper comics contest in 2006. The entry did not win, but was published among the runners-up and provided the motivation to continue. J.J. continued to write and draw strips and distribute them independently until 2008. At that time, while reading the webcomic Venus Envy, J.J. was inspired to move Gee to ComicGenesis, the host for that strip. Gee was relaunched on ComicGenesis on September 11, 2008.
The comic's title is a reference to a now-forgotten television commercial that aired in the mid-eighties when the strip was created. The commercial was an advertisement for GTE, and it's tagline was, "Gee! No, GTE." The premise of the first Gee strip was a parody of that commercial, with the above tag followed by a depiction of the spokesman being struck by a flying anvil with the words, "No, Gee!" The phrase stood out as perfectly ambiguous and was chosen as the title. The title was originally intended for that one strip only, but the familiar Gee logo of the name in three-dimensional block letters began to appear in all of the strips until its original title The Other Half was changed to Gee.
The strip's basic style is black and white, four panels, and typically minimalist. The panel size is intended to be viewed with no scrolling necessary when maximized on most browsers. Backgrounds are largely eschewed in favor of a focus on character action, and shading is normally not used. The fourth wall is only broken in bonus and filler strips, which are non-canonical. These may also include direct references to the artist by the main characters often centered on a percieved lack of talent on the part of the artist. The strip presents a balance between comedic and dramatic sequences while visually recalling the look of a gag-a-day daily newspaper comic strip.
Links
- [[1]] Gee
