Line #47 Trivia/ElGoonishShive


1	* AscendedFanon:
2	** In [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-02-02 one of the Q&A strips]], Dan acknowledges [[http://elgoonishshive.wikia.com/wiki/El_Goonish_Shive_Timeline a fan-made timeline]] and declares in the commentary that he considers it canon. He has linked to it [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2011-09-16 twice]] [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2011-09-27 since]].
3	** Originally, Catalina's hairstyle was meant simply to be cat-like, and while Dan figured it would be somehow possible as a hairstyle in reality, he didn't quite know how it would work. [[http://june-11-2003.deviantart.com/art/Catalina-85845783 A bit of fan art]], however, helped with that.
4	** According to Dan, this is why Carol wound up related to Sarah as part of a RetCon.
5	** Good Tom's [[MySignificanceSenseIsTingling ability to sense]] [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2027 when a puppy is in danger]], while initially a throwaway joke, was speculated to be the result of Pandora's magic marks. Dan eventually canonised it [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=494 in an NP strip]].
6	* AuthorsSavingThrow:
7	** While discussing the particulars of Ellen's beam spells, Dan states that she is unable to copy enchanted forms ... before realizing (within the same day be posted the comic) that he had fucked up since Ellen ''had'' copied Nanase's enchanted angel form before. Backpedaling, the next comic he admits his mistake but stands firm that while Ellen can copy enchanted forms and even mix those forms with her own enchantments, she cannot scan and paste them, meaning she cannot mix an enchanted form with itself to multiply the effects, nor can she give those enchanted forms to other people.
8	** Diane's first appearance ended with her labeling Justin a "defective male" for being gay, thus depriving her as a GoldDigger for any benefit to spending time with him. She was initially meant to be a minor character, so when she starts getting a larger, more sympathetic role in the story, many readers felt that the line was too unpleasant to just slide under the rug. Shive himself recognized it as something he never should have had her say if she was going to become important later on, and eventually had her actually reflect on it [[spoiler:while realizing how low an opinion most of the school has of her. Diane's inner child harshly berates her on what she said to Justin, and while an excuse is given that a boy she liked ended up being gay making it a sore subject for her at the time, she realizes that [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse does not give her a pass for her abhorrent behavior]] and that she owes Justin an apology]].
9	* CreatorBacklash: Dan shows a lot of remorse for the quality of the early comics. Since he started adding rants to old comics, this came especially clear. For example, he denies the canonicality of some characters from an older high school newspaper comic of his in the EGS universe. He also shows regret creating Susan as a StrawFeminist ([[CharacterDevelopment she got better, though]]).
10	* CreatorsFavorite: Dan stated his favorite character is Susan, which he found quite ironic as she was originally created to be an unlikable StrawFeminist he could tear apart…but then CharacterDevelopment happened. He's also expressed a fondness for Grace.
11	* FlipFlopOfGod: Originally Dan was very against referring to the Aberrations as [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampires]], since he envisioned them as have different origins and designs than most vampires, with the only similarities being that they were once human, they eat people, and they ''may'' have similar powers like hypnotism and immortality. He even had Susan go out of her way to refer to the first Aberration she met as a "not-vampire" and explain in detail she he wasn't a vampire even if he seemed similar to one. Eventually though, Dan realized he shot himself in the foot trying too hard to differentiate the Aberrations from Vampires to the point where that's all fans ''could'' associate them with, and decided in-canon that everyone just refers to them as [[InsistentTerminology Vampires]] even if they are still technically something completely different.
12	* IJustWriteTheThing: According to the commentaries, Dan originally intended Susan as an unlikeable StrawFeminist, but she almost seemed to develop into a more complex character by herself.
13	* ReferencedBy:
14	** ''Fanfic/YourAlicornIsInAnotherCastle'': The Demonic Duck is used as a distraction in "Convectional Errors".
15	** In ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'', [[HeroesRUs S.A.V.E.U.S.]] is [[http://eheroes.smackjeeves.com/comics/1891160/first-things-first/ located]] on the same floor as "Sciuridae Labs".
16	** ''Webcomic/SquareRootOfMinusGarfield'': [[http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=219 Gracefield]] has Grace asking Tedd which animal's form would best for combat and Tedd pointing to his cat who is revealed to be Garfield here instead of Jeremy as it is in the [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2002-05-13 original strip]].
17	** In ''Webcomic/TheWotch'', a handpuppet of Grace can be seen in a {{filler}} comic.
18	* ScheduleSlip: For a very long time, Dan was all over the place, barely squeezing out two strips a week. Grace's birthday party was one of the worst. He eventually started falling into "No set schedule, but frequent updates," but eventually started updating every weekday (sometimes skipping Wednesday if it's a bad week). Updates have since shifted to Monday/Wednesday/Friday for several years and NP was moved to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, and they have stayed pretty much on schedule since.
19	* ShrugOfGod: Some things have been left ambiguous. In the case of Grace's ethnicity, Dan has said that he'll never make a direct clarification, one of the stated reasons being that fans have posted theories they're happy with and he'd rather not say if they're wrong. Questioned directly in comic by Nanase ([[ItMakesSenseInContext who was at the time transformed into Grace, who isn't actually present]]. Tedd tells her "Mixed, Very Mixed" and it's unclear if he's refering to her Human Form's ethnicity, or the fact that she technically has 4 parents: A dead human girl (who she looks near identical to in human form), a Lespuko, an Uryuom, and a regular squirrel.
20	* TechnologyMarchesOn:
21	** [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-06-26 One strip]] from 2003 has Ellen take a nap on top of a large TV set in Susan's house. This would be much harder to do on a flat-screen TV like the ones that started becoming more common a few years later, as acknowledged in Shive's commentary.
22	** At Grace's birthday party (written in 2005), Sarah brings a camera, and mentions that it has a 512 Mb memory card. Ten years later, finding a retailer selling one that was less than 8GB would be a challenge.
23	** In [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2007-10-20 a strip from 2007]], Susan complains that Ellen texting her costs both of them money, which would be much less of a concern with the advent of unlimited plans (not to mention the flip phone she's using).
24	* ThrowItIn: Originally, Dan came up with the Giant Flying Turtle Shell as NoodleIncident to get Mr. Verres out of the room so Tedd and Arthur could talk alone. After writing the comic, Dan came up with what the creature would look like, and then decided what it wanted to talk to Mr. Verres about, and then, well... suddenly, [[https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-099 this]] became the cliffhanger that Balance Part 3 ended on.
25	* TributeToFido: Guineas is based on a friend's guinea pig.
26	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
27	** In another world, Creator/DougWalker and Dan Shive might have [[http://danshive.blogspot.com/2010/01/nostalgic-tale.html collaborated on a webcomic]].
28	** After big storylines, Shive often does a few strips detailing the planning process. After Painted Black, he noted that originally it was going to be Vlad hunting Grace instead of Hedge, leaving a trail of corpses across the countryside. Considering that the arc is ''already'' one of the least favorite among the fandom due to CerebusSyndrome, you can understand why he didn't want to make it even darker.
29	** Dan frequently refers to what could have happened had he done the uniforms plot as a briefer standalone arc instead of a [[TwoLinesNoWaiting B-plot]] that ultimately lasted five years.
30	* WordOfGod: Dan Shive keeps up a lot of running commentary, including behind the scenes decisions not directly reflected in the comic, with occasional comics devoted to Q&A. While he avoids the forum, apparently because of repetitive, predictable complaining when he was active there, he has been answering questions via [[http://www.formspring.me/DanShive formspring]], although he seems to be very selective about which questions he answers. He [[http://twitter.com/#!/dantheshive tweets]] liberally about El Goonish Shive, often using the hashtag #EGS, and answered questions from the Ask Me Anything button on his / the comic's [[http://danshive.tumblr.com/ tumblr]] show up regularly in his posts.

Context Trivia / ElGoonishShive