El Goonish Shive started out as not-very-well-written-or-drawn, with the gender-change stuff coming across as fetishy (in a PG kinda way) more than anything... but I checked in with it from time to time because it was at least readable, compared to a lot of other webcomics out there, even if it dragged a lot... the "birthday party" arc covers one single evening but took over a year in real-time to tell.
But, and this was really gradual, somewhere along the line it became, well, good. The artwork went from awkward and amateurish to downright pleasant to look at, and the characters got a lot more nuanced and developed — most notably Susan, who started as a one-dimensional Straw Feminist, but developed into one of the most complex and sympathetic characters in the comic.
The gender-change shtick got a lot more nuanced as well; what started out as a fetish thing got more about character exploring — the moment I noticed that it was growing out of the "fetish" stage was with Justin during the birthday party arc. He was clearly the most uncomfortable about the temporary gender change, and it was during the party he basically said he kinda wished he was comfortable being a girl, because then nobody would care that he was crushing on boys. But he knew he would never like having a female body because it wasn't him. He was a gay guy, not a straight girl.
That was when I discovered that the comic was becoming something more than just PG-rated fetish fuel. Too many other webcomics I could mention would have treated Justin becoming a girl as a solution, of the "yay, I'm a girl, now I can sex up all the men I want" kind (which, to be fair, was his reaction in a previous filler comic that was since Ret-Conned) but this reaction felt a lot more real, and this was when I discovered that the comic was actually trying to say something about gender and sexuality.
It wasn't perfect, but it kept improving. When Tedd discovers that he's genderfluid, and becomes first all shocked that "there's a name for it" and afterwards all happy and giddy because now he knows... followed by a more solemn and almost depressed reaction when he realises his father won't understand his situation and that he doesn't want to tell him... I was stunned at the emotion put into the comic. This was pretty powerful stuff, especially for a comic so fundamentally light-hearted as EGS.
Is it the best webcomic ever? No. But it is at least a serious contender for "Most Improved Webcomic."
Most Improved Webcomic
El Goonish Shive started out as not-very-well-written-or-drawn, with the gender-change stuff coming across as fetishy (in a PG kinda way) more than anything... but I checked in with it from time to time because it was at least readable, compared to a lot of other webcomics out there, even if it dragged a lot... the "birthday party" arc covers one single evening but took over a year in real-time to tell.
But, and this was really gradual, somewhere along the line it became, well, good. The artwork went from awkward and amateurish to downright pleasant to look at, and the characters got a lot more nuanced and developed — most notably Susan, who started as a one-dimensional Straw Feminist, but developed into one of the most complex and sympathetic characters in the comic.
The gender-change shtick got a lot more nuanced as well; what started out as a fetish thing got more about character exploring — the moment I noticed that it was growing out of the "fetish" stage was with Justin during the birthday party arc. He was clearly the most uncomfortable about the temporary gender change, and it was during the party he basically said he kinda wished he was comfortable being a girl, because then nobody would care that he was crushing on boys. But he knew he would never like having a female body because it wasn't him. He was a gay guy, not a straight girl.
That was when I discovered that the comic was becoming something more than just PG-rated fetish fuel. Too many other webcomics I could mention would have treated Justin becoming a girl as a solution, of the "yay, I'm a girl, now I can sex up all the men I want" kind (which, to be fair, was his reaction in a previous filler comic that was since Ret-Conned) but this reaction felt a lot more real, and this was when I discovered that the comic was actually trying to say something about gender and sexuality.
It wasn't perfect, but it kept improving. When Tedd discovers that he's genderfluid, and becomes first all shocked that "there's a name for it" and afterwards all happy and giddy because now he knows... followed by a more solemn and almost depressed reaction when he realises his father won't understand his situation and that he doesn't want to tell him... I was stunned at the emotion put into the comic. This was pretty powerful stuff, especially for a comic so fundamentally light-hearted as EGS.
Is it the best webcomic ever? No. But it is at least a serious contender for "Most Improved Webcomic."