May 25, 2017
I'm pretty sure I've told this anecdote before, but since these last two comics are about it, I'll tell it again, but now with a new layer. Danny, Brad, and Jeb are loosely based on myself and two of my friends from college, they are supercharged caricatures of certain aspects of their real-world equivalent's personality in order to better mold them into the three basic comedy archetypes, the schemer, the fool, and the innocent. Later on when I wanted to add a female character I was inspired by one of my favorite comedies, Seinfeld.
Seinfeld probably more than any other sitcom I can think of adheres to the schemer, fool, and innocent archetypes with George, Kramer, and Jerry respectively. After the first episode the network told them they needed a female character, they came up with Elaine, who unlike the other three main characters isn't based on one person in particular, but an amalgam of various women Seinfeld dated. Now my Elayne isn't based on anyone I dated, but she is based on an amalgam of various girls I knew growing up.
Often times when a girl character is added to a show, or comic, but especially webcomic, she has the tendency to be the worst, least developed character. Often times she exists only to be the love pursuit of the main character. I had no intention on that happening. To this day I have yet to make an explicit romantic pairing with any of the characters of Kickass McAwesome. Then there's Gwen.
Gwen, unlike Elayne is based of one person in particular, my now wife, Christina. I told Christina that I wanted to add a character loosely based on her, so I could do storylines about Danny growing as a freelance artist, and going to conventions, like I was with Christina. I gave Christina a choice of either having Elayne transition into a character more based on her, or for her to design a completely new character. Thus Christina designed Gwen. However when Gwen was first introduced into the comic Christina and I weren't even going out, in fact she had a boyfriend at the time. So like Elayne before her, even though Gwen and Danny spent a lot of time together in the comics, I had no intentions of adding Gwen to be a romantic pursuit for Danny. But then Christina and I were going out, and now we're married. To have Danny and Gwen be an item in the comic would no longer be seen as some sad creepy version of creator wish fulfillment that several female characters are. So are Danny and Gwen going out? I don't know, but it's highly implied.