Girl Genius
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Girl Genius |
| Abbreviation(s): | GG |
| Creator: | Phil & Kaja Foglio |
| Date(s): | 2001-ongoing |
| Medium: | comic (print and web) |
| Country of Origin: | United States |
| External Links: | Girl Genius |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Girl Genius is a gaslamp fantasy (which shares elements of the Steampunk genre) comic by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio about a world ruled by mad scientists.
The creators support fanfic about their work.[1]
From a 2010 Interview
Kaja Foglio:
KF: ‘‘We had folders full of drawings, and I was trying to go through his stuff and file everything to make sure I had copies, so I could find them again when a convention wanted incidental art. I was looking at all this stuff, and there were these cats in top hats with monocles and walking sticks, and dirigibles – a very strong thread of what we would call steampunk now, although we didn’t call it that at the time. I was like, ‘Look at this awesome Victorian, Jules Verne stuff! You should do more of this!’
‘‘Americans really like to know how things work. They enjoy science, and they enjoy machinery. Abraham Lincoln patented a device to lift boats over shoals, and back then to patent anything mechanical you had to make a model. So his idea of a hot time (no kidding!) was to take his kids through the Hall of Patents, where they’ve got thousands of little models that actually work. These days, more and more the idea behind industrial design is for the mechanisms to be hidden, resulting in a ‘magic box.’ The iPod is like the ultimate expression of that: it has no visible moving parts! People like steampunk because it gives them a feeling of smartness and control, that they’ve got a handle on things: ‘OK, the fuel goes in there, and I see the pistons move like this…’ ”
Phil Foglio:
PF: ‘‘We started publishing the Girl Genius comics in 2001, and as an independent comic went, we were relatively successful: printing around ten thousand copies, selling around six thousand of those through our distributor Diamond. (The rest we sold at conventions and over our website.) It was a critical success and a good commercial success. The biggest problem was regulating our cash flow. Doing periodical comics cost us close to $20,000 a year. Like I said, we made a profit, but it was still a squeeze when the time came to pay the printer. But our most obvious problem was the state of the comics industry. Simply put, every year there are fewer and fewer comic book shops, and actual sales of comics have been spiraling downwards non-stop. The comics industry has been officially dying ever since I got into the field in the early ’80s.’’ [2]
Fandom
The fandom has produced the Girl Genius wiki.
Fanworks
Fanfic
- Sowing Discord, Archived version, by phoenixyfriend and Purrs, a social media fic in which Baron Wulfenbach gains access to a GG fan discord, and uses this to try and sway events to his advantage.
- Well Met, Archived version, by khilari and Persephone_Kore, a pre-canon divergence AU.
Fanart
- Girl Genius 4th sketch / Color 01, Archived version by bluessaurus, 2014 -- depicting Agatha and Gil.
- No Longer a Wish (art), Archived version by ZJ_Timekeeper, 2015 -- depicting Tarvek.
- Tarvek and Gil, Archived version by Arikishan, 2017. Translation from Ukranian to English: "Still not King" (left), and "You don't have to be the king to rule" (right).
- Zeetha (Girl Genius), Archived version by eiphen, 2013.
Other
- Agatha Heterodyne cosplay, Archived version by Evilkelsits, 2010.
Links and Resources
- Girl Genius entry at Wikipedia (canon resource)
- list of fannish resources and communities at the Girl Genius website
- Othar Tryggvassen twitter account, a twitter account run in-character
References
- ^ Statement about GG fanfic community fan_constructs at the creators' website. (Accessed 7 May 2011)
- ^ from an interview for "Locus Online" -- Phil & Kaja Foglio: Gaslamp Fantasies, Archived version, September 17, 2010