kukuruyo

First of, thanks to those who took the time to answer to my post about the possible futures for Gamergate life (if you haven’t read it, it’s here) . I have received many dozens of answers in different social medias, reddit, patreon, my website, etc, that have ranged from people who want me to just keep doing the comics exactly as i do now, without speaking about anything beyond games journalism, to people who want to see Vivian everywhere and speaking about everything (and of course, porn). People who want a new comic, others who want a rebrand of the present one, people who want Viv as protagonist and others who want her as just a secondary one. But there has been some clear results from the answers:

First, there has been a lot of people who has misunderstood what i wrote XD. This may be because english is not my first language, but a big ammount of people seem to think that i want to stop doing Gamergate life. That’s not the case, i’ll keep doing GG life pages regardless of what i decide. My doubts where because i want to do organized comic pages about Social issues not directly related to GG in a way that everyone can understand, and mixing it with GG life has it’s problems.

Secondly, there seem to be no one who dislikes the idea of using Vivian to speak about social issues beyond gaming. What’s more, a vast majority of people want Vivian and Lilian to be the protagonists even if i do a new separate comic, instead of making them just pop up as secondaries.

There seem to be a little more division about if doing a new comic or expanding GG life, but even so the majority seems to prefer GG life rebranded and expanded to cover new topics.

Only a few people prefer for GG life to stick only to games journalism. Some people have expressed that they would like to see Monster girls used to satirice racial issues; which i already do in my Monster girls on tour comic, though i could take it one step further in this one. Surprisingly, i have had no one telling me i should just stop doing GG life because it’s shit; something i expected at least a few people to do XD.

So, the way i think i can do this, is to indeed expand GG life by making a few, big, introductory pages to make clear that new topics will be included, and then keep doing pages of a few panels, some of them about GG stuff, some of them about social issues, etc. But also create a separate folder in my website where i include all the Social issues ones only, to show to people who don’t know what GG is.

The best idea that comes to my mind right now is to make a few “story” pages where Vivian decides to go to University to study something; for example, she wants to be a game dev, or a journalist to change the gaming media from within or something like that. Lilian would also go because Vivian pokes her about doing her own Social justice games if she want social justice in games, or something along those lines (this are just ideas, i may change my mind if i think of something better or someone gives me a cool idea). K’sara would also go for no aparent reason because she’s a monster girl; i can use her for absurd humor jokes regarding race, lesbianism, her revealing clothes or making her angry when feminists say she must be protected cause she’s a woman and stuff. Then at university they would find a few particular characters that i would use for the different topics i want to tackle (like, a tumblr feminist, a self flagelating white male hipster, a black woman who dislikes identity politics or a Milo style gay, for example). There would be just a few pages to introduce all that and then i would use those characters for comic strips in the line of GG life. And of course i would use Viv and Lil for the gamergate related ones.

As for the name. Some people has given some ideas, but almost all of them are related to gaming, like “Gamer girls” or “Gamers at large”, and as i said, this would be to expand to several topics beyond gaming. Some other names are things like “triggered sjw’s” or “socjus” or “Outrage culture gone wild”. I have thought about a few ones like “Perpetualy offended”. But if it’s gona be an expansion of GG life maybe it’s better if the name it’s derived from it? Something like “Gamergate’s life at university”? I’ll have to think about it, and of course i would like to read ideas.

Don’t expect this to be out any time soon though. First i’ll have to make designs for the new characters. I know GG has a whole set of characters like Freya, and characters like Taytweets are a no brainer to include, but i’ll need to create characters that fit the topics outside gaming journalism, and also the SJW characters. I’ll also have to think about those first introductory pages. And right now i’ve to finish a 15 page comic for a magazine before the end of August, so this may take some time to see the light. In the meantime i’ll keep doing normal GG life pages when something relevant happens.

I’ll be posting images of sketches and ideas i have so people can give their opinions. I’m open to ideas about the introductory pages or characters, and you can also leave a comment with a possible name.

Those who follow me already know that I do a webcomic called Gamergate life. This comic was born almost 2 years ago as my way of supporting the Gamergate movement, a group that fights for ethics in games journalism and against censorship and political correctness in the gaming medium. At first they were just quick comic strips I did as a kind of morale booster, but somehow they became popular, so I kept doing it, making references to happenings of the moment. The structure of these comics has always been:

A journalist/sjw dev/media says or does something stupid -> I make a quick 2-3 panel comic about it, both to laugh at it and to spread info about it while the news are still hot (because it’s when collective action, if any, can be born) -> some weeks later almost only those in gamergate remember it, because the topics are usually those who only matter to gamers worried about this stuff. Most people are not gamers, and many who are don’t really know about any of what’s happening or they are casuals who don’t really care much about it.

And that’s cool. Gamergate life has always been a comic for Gamergate supporters. But sometimes I want to do pages about topics that are not directly related to gamergate, but they’re also not unconnected, like feminism, social justice, campus outraged students, etc; and I want to do them in a way that everyone can understand, not just gamers. Those are all topics that usually Gamergate supporters find related to their interests, and you can find them commented in the hashtag, Kotakuinaction, etc, but even so, many times it feels like a stretch to do a Gamergate life page about them, and if I do there’s always someone who comes to me with the “that has nothing to do with gamergate”.

So far I’ve kinda “solved” the issue by doing those pages without the “gamergate life” name and introducing my Monster girls on tour character K’sara to differentiate them, like in this one:

But doing a separated single page without adding it to one of my comic folders causes that the page will be very hard to find in the future in my website, and it will not be connected to other similar comic pages; and if I add it to the Gamergate life folder, they feel very random when you get to them, and I still get the “that has nothing to do with gamergate” comments. Also when someone who doesn’t know about GG or gaming finds those pages and turn to the next one, they find a GG page and they don’t understand what’s happening.

So I’ve been for some months thinking if to begin a new comic series, similar to GG life, but about social justice/feminist bullshit; kind of a “social justice life”. I don’t have yet a very specific idea about how it would be, but something along the lines that several characters, like Vivian, K’sara and someone new, arrive to a University to begin their studies, only to find they’ll have to live in a dormitory/campus filled by sjws. So we would have Vivian acting as the long time gamer, and Lilian as the sjw gamer, with some other particular sjw characters around, having conflicts about happenings or relevant topics related to social issues. I would also extend the format to 1-6 panels, since the 2-3 many times has proved too small to convey all the necessary info and as consequence there has been too much text on screen. Of course I would keep doing GG life for topics directly related to it.

The thing is that I’m unsure as to how well this would work. I don’t know how much ok Gamergate people would be with using Vivian for a comic that’s not directly related to GG, or if people would be confused by having two different comics, both about similar issues and with Vivian, in the same website, but in different folders. I don’t know how many people will still think those pages are part of GG life and still come at me with “this has nothing to do with gg” or if they will create misunderstanding like “gamergate is saying this, because look at this comic with Vivian on it” if I do a page about, I don’t know, the mizzou protests or whatever. I don’t even know if people would be interested in reading comics like that and i will have just to forgot about it and reestructure my comics again after a few months.

Maybe people would prefer if I just “upgrade” GG life by introducing some of those changes to it, like broadening the topics, new chars and more panels, though that would still not solve the problem of non-gamers finding a page about feminism and when they go to the next one, it’s about a game journalist comment; or the problem of complains about not being related to GG. Another option is to do two separated comics, but also introduce the “social justice life” pages in the folder for Gamergate life, so i can link the SJW one to people who don’t know about GG but is interested on those social issues.

Or maybe someone has a better idea as to how to develop this or a different kind of comic to make. Or maybe people prefer that I just do GG life as I’ve always do with no changes or new comic.  I’ve been thinking about this for a while but I can’t really decide, so, what do you think? I’m interested on reading opinions to reach a conclusion.

Edit note: I’m seeing in several places that people think i want to stop doing Gamergate life. That’s not the case. Pages about GG life will still come in. My doubts are about how to do comic pages about social justice/feminism/outrage culture in an organized way.