Questionable Content

Questionable Content
Questionable Content
	A recent Questionable Content strip. A sample QC strip
Author(s)	Jeph Jacques
Website	questionablecontent.net
Current status/schedule	Updates every weekday
Launch date	2003-08-01
Genre(s)	Humor/Slice-of-Life

Questionable Content (abbreviated QC or Q.C.) is a slice-of-life webcomic written and drawn by Jeph Jacques. The plot centers on Marten Reed, an indie rock aficionado, his anthropomorphic PC (AnthroPC) named Pintsize, and his somewhat troubled and mysterious roommate Faye. Other characters include Marten's friend Steve, Faye's ex-goth boss Dora and her good-natured yet vacuous co-worker Raven.

The comic launched on August 1 2003, originally updating two times a week. At issue #16, Jacques announced that he would start updating Questionable Content three times a week.^[1] In September 2004, Jacques left his day job to begin updating Monday through Friday,^[2] and kept this schedule even after a knife accident that sliced an artery in his drawing hand in 2005.^[3] He currently makes his living exclusively from QC merchandising and advertising,^[4] making QC one of the few self sufficient webcomics. The comic has been notably used in a New Haven, Connecticut youth literacy program sponsored in part by Yale University.^[5] As of June 9, 2007, QC has over 900 comics available through the archives.

The storytelling style ranges between romantic melodrama, sitcom, humor about indie rock music, and sexual or scatological humor. The artistic style has notably changed over the course of the comic due to Jacques constantly refining and improving his drawing methods.^[6]

Each individual strip is usually accompanied by blog-like entries from Jeph Jacques touching on various topics, including: explanations of inspirations for the accompanying strip, updates on Jacques' life, developments in merchandising and shipment progression, up and coming appearances at conventions, and brief reviews of new music albums or video games, among other things.

Setting

Questionable Content takes place in Northampton, Massachusetts; the most frequent setting locales include Marten and Faye's shared apartment, Coffee of Doom (the fictional coffeeshop Dora owns), and Smith College's (jokingly referred to by its students as "Smif College") Williston Library,^[7] where Marten is employed. The comic is mostly realistic, and action primarily focuses on banter between the characters, with slowly-progressing plot developments. Due to the emphasis on inter-character dialogue, Jacques rarely uses thought bubbles in the comic.

The comic appears to be set in modern times, though the presence of anthropomorphic robots with individual personalities (called "AnthroPC's" within the comic)^[8] implies some sort of futuristic technology. How far into the future QC is placed (if it is set in the future at all) has never been explicitly stated. All music references in the comic are current at the time of each individual strip's publishing. The AnthroPCs are the only consistent signs of advanced technology in the series, save for Deathbot 9000^[9] and a Vespa scooter that transforms into a battle droid.^[10] Major advances in the International Space Station and defense technology are also implied in the Made From Cows? strip when Hannelore revealed that she was born and raised on a space station and has held conversations with orbital defense satellites. QC's author Jeph Jacques remarked,

Something people do not often realize is that the world in which QC takes place is considerably stranger than our own. You'd think that with all the little talking robots running around everywhere that this would be obvious, but I am consistently surprised at how often people take it for granted.
— Jeph Jacques, ^[11]

The duration of the strip is somewhat ambiguous; on January 13, 2006, Jeph Jacques stated on a QC fan community on Livejournal that he has "never sat down and exactly tabulated," but he suspects the total amount of elapsed QC time at that point was "no more than six months."^[12] It is possible to track individual days within the QC strips, but frequent off-panel (and often indeterminable) lapses in QC time between strips make the entire history of QC difficult to gauge.

Jacques occasionally invites other webcomic creators to do stand-alone strips for QC. The guest comics count towards the total amount of strips on the QC website, but do not seem to be considered canonical, since none of the events in the guest strips are ever referred to again when Jacques resumes authorship. Jacques also breaks from normal continuity every Thanksgiving with an "OMG Turkeys" strip, featuring pictures of turkeys commenting on the current events of the strip.

Storytelling and artistic style

Both the methods of storytelling and the artistic style of the strip have changed considerably since its inception. At the beginning, the strip was seen mainly as a rock and roll or indie music strip, with Faye and Marten "dropping indie buzzwords left and right."^[13] While QC is still seen as one of the main rock comic strips,^[14] the story has come to focus more on the character development and humor of the strip.^[4] Jacques informed interviewers that he makes sure every individual QC strip "has at least one thing in it that someone who does not know anything about obscure band x would find funny."^[6] The one consistent aspect of QC's storytelling from the beginning of the comic up to the present day is Jacques' use of the third-person objective perspective of narration. Jacques has also been cited in his blog entries to loathe breaking the fourth wall and using inside jokes.

The strip's art was initially seen as mediocre for a webcomic, but as the strip developed, Jeph Jacques has come to be seen as one of the better webcomic artists working today.^[15] The majority of QC strips are four panels in length and arranged in a column, one on top of another. Jacques rarely deviated from this pattern until recently. Near the end of July 2007, Jeph began experimenting with different panel arrangements, including split panels, sometimes splitting a single panel into two, sometimes even three separate panels. This became prevalent during the 'Hannalore's Mom' story arc as it allowed Jeph to tell more of the story with each comic. After this story arc concluded, he continued using the style as the comic's official forums show a lot of positive feedback on this style change . Jacques spoke on the evolution of his art in an interview at Comixpedia:

The art is constantly changing, as anybody who reads the comic for more than two weeks could probably tell you. I'm always trying different things with the artwork- it's been a goal from day one to continually improve my drawing ability, and I think it's finally beginning to get to the point where I'm halfway decent at it. It's basically survival of the fittest- changes that I think fit in with the overall look I'm going for stick around and get refined, and changes that do not fit in get phased out, sometimes in the course of three or four strips, sometimes over a much longer span of time. I'm trying to get better at using different "camera angles" in each panel and doing more involved backgrounds, both of which are really just a matter of being patient and taking my time with the artwork. There's still tons of room for improvement, and always will be, but I think I'm at least making progress.^[6]

Jacques uses a Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet to draw and Photoshop to color his strips. He cites Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes and the webcomic Scary Go Round as his main influences.^[4]

Questionable Content was used along with Penny Arcade, Fetus-X and American Elf as an example of comics using the web to create "an explosion of diverse genres and styles" in Scott McCloud's 2006 book Making Comics.^[16]

Main characters

Marten. Marten.	Marten Reed is QC's main character, and the first to be introduced at the strip's beginning. He is an indie rock fan and musician originally from California,^[17] where he also attended college. Marten lives with Faye, whom he was romantically interested in for many months, but is now in a romantic relationship with Dora.^[18] Marten is in a band named Deathmøle with friends Amir, Natasha, and Hannelore.^[19]^[20] He works in the Smith College library.^[21]
Faye. Faye.	Faye Whitaker works at Coffee of Doom with Dora and lives with Marten. She moved up to Northampton from Savannah, Georgia two years after a mental breakdown resultant from witnessing her father's suicide, and moved in with Marten after she burned her apartment down while making toast.^[22]^[23] She has resumed therapy since moving to Northampton.^[24] Faye is known for a quick wit and a sharp tongue, usually used in affection.^[25]
Dora. Dora.	Dora Bianchi is an ex-goth who owns and operates Coffee of Doom, the coffee shop where Faye, Raven, & Penelope work. Dora is in a romantic relationship with Marten. Unlike most of the main characters, she prefers metal to indie rock.^[26]^[27] Dora does graphic and web design in her spare time, and she has a pet cat named Mieville who becomes jealous of most other males in her life, except Marten.
File:Pintsize.png	Pintsize is an AnthroPC (an anthropomorphic PC) owned by Marten. He is a companion to Marten and frequently used for comic relief, throw-away gags or to add punchlines to a strip. His eccentricities include a strange addiction to cake mix,^[28] parties with other AnthroPCs,^[29] gluing other people's hair to his face^[30] and poorly played pranks. At one point, he was almost taken by the government because of a highly-powered laser in his torso.^[31]^[32] Pintsize was the second character introduced at QC's beginning.
File:Raven.png	Raven Pritchard is also an ex-goth friend of Dora's, and a junior employee at Coffee of Doom. Although she is energetic and happy now, Dora claims that Raven was 20 pounds heavier in college and very depressed.^[33] Raven dislikes her first name, Blodwyn (Welsh for 'White flower'), and prefers to be called Raven, her middle name.^[34]
File:Steveqc.png	Steve - Steve is one of Marten's close friends. He dated Ellen on-and-off for a long period of time, and is now pursuing Meena.^[35]
File:Hanneloreqc.png	Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham is Marten and Faye's eccentric upstairs neighbor, usually called "Hanners" for short. She has a rather severe case of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, is an insomniac, and counts things for a living.^[36] She owns a Macintosh anthropomorphic computer named Winslow; he has befriended Pintsize. Hannelore has a raw, intuitive talent for playing drums and has joined Deathmøle.^[37]

Secondary Characters

Penelope Gaines is the fifth and newest employee of Coffee of Doom.^[38] She is frequently compared to, and accused of being, Pizza Girl, the superhero-themed pizza delivery girl.^[39]
Angus McPhee, often called "Argument Guy" by Coffee of Doom employees, is a regular customer at the coffee shop; he comes in for the sole purpose of arguing with Faye.^[40] Angus has tried making advances at Faye to which she has responded violently.^[41]
Tai is Marten's student boss at the Smith College library. She is a lesbian with a very active love life, and a great fan of Jimbo's romance novels.
Natasha, Tai's former employee and Marten's current Deathmøle bandmate, was fired after passing out topless on the Smith library copying machine.^[42] Natasha attends Smith with Tai and Ellen and dates Amir Afridi, the founding member of Deathmøle.
Ellen is Natasha's roommate and Steve's ex-girlfriend. Ellen and Natasha live in the same apartment complex as Marten, Faye, and Hannelore.
Sven Bianchi is Dora's older brother. He is a musician/songwriter and has written several country music songs. Sven had a very active love and sex life, though he claims to have calmed down, despite Raven's advances.^[43]^[44]^[45]
Amanda Whitaker is Faye's lesbian younger sister. She has dropped out of college and moved in with her mother.
Mrs. Whitaker is Faye and Amanda's mother. She is very protective of her daughters, and has not remarried since her husband, David, committed suicide.
Veronica Reed is Marten's mother. She is divorced from Marten's father, who subsequently revealed himself to be homosexual. Veronica was once a famous fetish model, and now works as a professional dominatrix under the name "Veronica Vance." Her Vance persona is something of an idol of Dora's.^[46]
Meena is Steve's latest romantic interest. She has a grim sense of humour, works at a morgue, and shares an apartment with her ex-boyfriend Dave.^[47] ^[48]
Beatrice Chatham is Hannelore's mother. She is a very wealthy corporate businesswoman and expressed difficulty connecting with her daughter due their lack of common interests, other than a taste for dry martinis.^[49]