Comic:Concession

From CGWiki

Concession

Artist:	Immelmann
Writer:	Immelmann, again
Characters:
Updates:	Tuesdays and Fridays
Began:	July 1, 2006
Ended:
Art style:
Rating:	Mature
Website	Website

Concession is a weekly comic based around employees at a movie theatre's concession stand. They fight, they love, they scheme against the government - and maybe, then, they'll get your order. The comic focus on the interactions between the employees, their experiences with customers, and will often take a break to parody a current (or classic) movie.

On November 8th, 2007, Concession moved from ComicGenesis onto it's own server.

1 Background
2 Black-and-White Tuesdays
3 The Cast
4 External Links

Background

Writer/artist Immelmann spent three years working at a concession stand, eventually quitting for fear of going absolutely insane. During that time, he filled a small notebook full of comical experiences that either did happen or should have happened. Initially planning for the comic to serve as an excuse to say to customers everything he couldn't in real life, Concession soon evolved on its own as the characters became more than just sarcastic, satirical tools.

Black-and-White Tuesdays

14 black-and-white comics were produced between September 5th and December 12th, appearing on Tuesdays and making the comic update twice a week. These comics introduced Roland, Joel's college room mate, and Thonnen, who was to become Roland's girlfriend.

The Cast

Concession features a wide array of different characters, ranging from the 'core' of the cast, featured most often (Joel, Artie, and Matt), to single-appearance customers.

Major Characters

Joel Calley - Male, black wolf. Very sarcastic, cynical, and sadistic. Despite a general loathing of everyone, he is frequently found with a wide variety of sexual partners.
Matt Gein - Male, brown striped cat. Very innocent and not too bright.
Angie Jansen - Female dinosaur. Somewhat slutty and dim-witted.
Artie Crowley - Male, white mouse. Artie is the stand supervisor and has rule over the other characters. He is the first character to receive substantial background information as it was revealed that he had brain cancer.
David Innitou - Male panda. He is the manager of the concession stand. Very short and rather irritable.
Rick Ribeiro - Male ring-tailed lemur. Angie's boyfriend, he is a very laid-back person and is a frequent drug-user.
Kate Ribeiro - Female ring-tailed lemur. Rick's sister, who lives with him and their father. She was jokingly described as a "sadistic, cold-hearted predator" by her brother.
Kelly den Adel - Female zebra. Not much is known about her.
Roland le Fay - Male pangolin. An art-major and Joel's room mate. Brutally honest in critiques, but otherwise tends to be shy.
Thonnen Turunen - Female dinosaur. Another art major and Roland's girlfriend. She and Angie are cousins. She is allegedly the last surviving member of an ancient, important blood line.
Aaron "Nicole" O'Connor - Male skunk. Nicole was first introduced in the third Concession comic as a randomly-generated character. He returned months later in a strip that revealed Joel's bisexuality. He is a very slim, feminine character.

Recurring Minor Characters

Chelsie Warner - Male sheep. A young, enigmatically-transvestite child who was left behind at the theatre by his parents. He is extremely violent.
Tim McNeil - Male raccoon. Tim is a priest for St. Marks, a local temple for The Church of the Shepard. Upon meeting Joel, he accused him of murdering Chelsie's parents. He is the current caretaker for Chelsie.
Kane Woods - Male salamander. Kane is a police officer who was called to the theatre to help deal with the lost child, Chelsie. He and Joel have a long history together, though very few details are known about it.
Raj Jansen - Female dinosaur. The new head of the Jansen tribe. In contrast to her kinder, more laid-back predecessor, she is rather ruthless in her methods. She places a lot of importance on the strength of the family blood line.

The Random Character Generator

One of the distinguishing features of Concession is its use of randomly-created furs to serve as customers or nameless passer-bys. Each character has its species, gender, sexuality, and religion rolled for it, and it is described beneath the comic, along with its name and a short bio.

The characters are created using a random-number generator and an Excel Spreadsheet, which lists the different types of gender, sexuality, religion, and species in numbered rows. 8 numbers are generated, 1-100, and are lined up with each column. Five of these numbers are reserved for species, which featured 113 different species, categorized by order and class.

Most randomly-generated characters have only one appearance, occasionally returning for a second appearance, although some are designed with multiple appearances in mind, as in the case of Kane and Tim. Nicole is the major exception - a character intended for a one-shot appearance who has returned to become an important and popular character.