Last week, I — M-95 — learned that TV Tropes has it\'s own designated liveblog section! Isn\'t that nifty? Now, there is this one webcomic I heard good things about which apparently has a lot of content. So I decided to to a liveblog of it, to make it more convenient for myself. The webcomic in question is none other than Gunnerkrigg Court![](\"https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/external_link.gif\")
[Trope Page] by Tom Siddell!
Now, I must concede that I\'m new to the world of plot-driven webcomics. I\'ve only read one other before, and it\'s what introduced me to Gunnerkrigg to begin with. I\'ve tried to avoid reading anything about the comic\'s plot to avoid spoilers. See, the page on this site for JigsawPuzzlePlot.Webcomics makes this comment about Gunnerkrigg Court:
Sounds like a trainwreck of a read. However, that\'s my jam! The only plot-driven webcomic I\'ve read up till now is Girl Genius, which is such a spoiler-ridden mess that when a character I wasn\'t familiar with was name-dropped, I googled their name and instantly got hit in the face with a massive spoiler. Apparently Gunnerkrigg Court is even crazier than Girl Genius in terms of wild plot twists. What I take from this is that binge-reading Gunnerkrigg Court is the webcomic equivalent of eating the \"Old 96er\" from The Great Outdoors. In that case, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
As for how much I plan to update this liveblog: I have zero schedule for this thing. Gunnerkrigg time is free time, and free time must make sacrifices to university time and family time every so often.
Let\'s start - I\'m practically going into this blind, and I\'ve learned my lesson from the last plot-driven webcomic to avoid fan wikis like the plague until I know what\'s going on. Thankfully the comic\'s archives are split into chapters, which is good for going back to things. The first page of the comic (I\'m going to link to pages like \"[Ch#].[p#]\" — so the first page is 1.1) is just a title page with the comic\'s main character. The artstyle is a bit blocky for my taste but apparently the art evolves quickly.
Next up (1.2), our main character (or is she?) introduces us to a school named Gunnerkrigg Court, along with a \"second shadow\" she appears to have gained. She goes on (1.3-5) to describe her shadow friend - dubbed \"Shadow 2\" - and how it plans to escape the court with her help. Given those lights on the bridge, I guess the staff know full well that Shadow 2 exists and want him to stay here.
She unfortunately isn\'t allowed off school grounds (1.6), and given our heroine\'s \"sensible solution\" to this little problem, I can already see why Girl Genius gave Gunnerkrigg Court a shout-out. Well, that and the plot twists. She intends to build a robot, but realized that she doesn\'t know how. Luckily the staff are bad at hiding things with labels (1.7).
So our heroine creates (1.9) our third character: a walking robot! He takes on the task of walking across the bridge with bravado (1.11), carrying our shadow friend with him. There\'s a creepy bird (1.13), and soon enough Shadow 2 reunites with all his shadow-creature friends (1.14).
Back at school, one of the staff makes the first mention of our heroine\'s name (1.15): \"Miss Carver\". Cool, now I don\'t have to awkwardly not call her by name. A white-haired lady gives a first-hand introduction to how Gunnerkrigg\'s school system works (1.16); it\'s apparently located in the United Kingdom, it\'s divided into four houses, and . . . wait, this is just Harry Potter, isn\'t it? OK it\'s not exactly like Harry Potter. I\'ll admit this exposition dump is worded weirdly, but the gist of it is: there are 4 houses, and each house gets 2 classes a year, with one class dubbed \"North\" and another dubbed \"South\". This means that \"her\" (I assume Miss Carver\'s) class is Anatomy, which is the \"North\" class of the \"Queslett\" house.
And . . . that\'s the end of Chapter 1 of Gunnerkrigg Court, fellas! Kinda abrupt in my opinion. Tune in for the next time I post here!
