The Guild Expands Into the World of Comics
The Guild, the comedy webseries created by Felicia Day about a group of World of Warcraft-style online gamers who have trouble adapting to the outside world, has found its fair share of success on the Internet since its inception, including an award-winning first season which directly led to subsequent installments becoming a staple of Xbox Live Marketplace. In 2009, the series released a music video, “Do You Want to Date My Avatar,” which quickly climbed into the top ten on Apple’s iTunes Chart. While it may seem odd for a concept that has accomplished as much as The Guild has on the World Wide Web, Day has taken her creation even further by writing a successful three-issue comic book for Dark Horse.
“I waited a year to even agree to do a comic because I needed to figure out the best way to not interfere with my webseries storyline,” she explained to Comics Alliance in January 2010. “So I decided to go back and do a semi-origin story, in a sense. It’s the journey of Codex before her life as Codex, and how she gets into playing. It’s kind of a love letter to online video games. That’s something Dark Horse Senior Managing Editor Scott Allie said when I finished writing it.”
Codex is the online moniker for The Guild’s main protagonist, Cyd Sherman. A shy, reclusive loner with little self-esteem, Cyd’s life evolves during the webseries thanks to the multitude of screwball-comedy situations in which she finds herself embroiled. In the comic book, meanwhile, her life instead spirals downward as she has difficulty dealing with chronic depression while outside forces likewise cause her to retreat even further from the real world.
“I keep fantasizing about an apocalypse,” she tells her therapist. “That could really get me motivated. I’ve seen a lot of Internet articles on two-headed calves being born.”
A violinist for a local orchestra, Cyd has a boyfriend, Trevor, who was in the same orchestra before leaving to start a rock band. It is far from a two-way relationship, however, as Trevor is more intent on using her to hang posters for his band and collect tickets at the door for their concerts. In fact, it’s while hanging a poster at a local store that Cyd discovers the online role-playing game that is so central to the webseries. And as Trevor continues to trivialize her importance—going so far as to claim that the songs she wrote for the band are actually his—Cyd soon finds herself being drawn into the game.
“When you’re a kid you’re allowed to play around being different people,” she comments. “Find yourself. But when do you get to reinvent yourself as an adult? In high school I did Goth, hippie and hip-hop. For about ten minutes each. But after college no one is like, ‘Hey, Cyd is dressed like a Fifties waitress, so cute!’ But with this game I bought, the first thing you do is invent yourself. From scratch. You can be whoever you want.”
Comic books are traditionally more visual than wordy, especially in relation to the growing webseries medium which is often limited financially and thus more dialogue driven. In fact, a key element to the success of The Guild as a webseries has been its tight, well-written scripts. Fortunately The Guild comic book finds enough common ground between these two storytelling devices as it is filled with both lush online landscapes containing vibrant images as well as Felicia Day’s trademark verbal wit.
“The world is constantly throwing me for a loop,” Cyd remarks at one point. “I think that’s why I like playing the game. The rules are clear. I mean, literally. They’re printed up in a book.”
“When you add them, you can see if they’re online and contact them,” she later comments about the fellow gamers she meets. “If only life had that transparency.”
While one does not need to have seen the webseries in order to enjoy the comic book, astute fans of The Guild will no doubt find additional enjoyment as small tidbits of backstory information from the former—including the eventual break-up of Cyd and Trevor as well as what happens to his prize cello—become more fully developed in the narrative of the latter. And while the real life versions of guild members Bladezz, Clara, Tinkerballa, Vork and Zaboo are only seen fleetingly, the initial meeting of their online personas and eventual formation into the Knights of Good is equally rewarding.
“I definitely would look forward to exploring other things in the format,” Felicia Day told Comics Alliance regarding her experience of adapting The Guild into comic book form. “The thing about the Internet is that it’s opened the door to stories to be told in so many different formats, like webseries, or comics, or TV, or movies. They’re all sort of on the same footing, in a sense, because they’re things that can be consumed on the computer. It’s sort of evening the playing field in terms of where people can see a story and enjoy it.”
The Guild comic book begins with one of the webseries’ signature staples: Codex recording an entry into her personal video blog. “Hi webcam!” she cheerfully exclaims. “Guess we’re gonna be friends for a while. Until I stop being a screw up. Like I said—a while.”
Hopefully the same can be said of The Guild, whether it’s in the form of a webseries, comic book or some other configuration—that Felicia Day’s creation will be with us for “a while” as well. In the screwball comedy sense, Codex can continue to screw up for as long as she wants.
Anthony Letizia (June 7, 2010)
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