Questionable Content

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 began in 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 now has over 880 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.^[5]

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.

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,^[6] 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)^[7] 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. The AnthroPCs are the only consistent signs of advanced technology in the series, save for Deathbot 9000^[8] and a Vespa scooter that transforms in a battle droid. 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, ^[9]

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."^[10] 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.

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."^[11] While QC is still seen as one of the main rock comic strips,^[12] 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."^[5] 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.^[13] The majority of QC strips are four panels in length and arranged in a column, one on top of another. Jacques rarely deviates from this pattern. 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.^[5]

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]

The webcomic boasts a rather ponderous and tight-knit online community, with communication between users on many fronts, including an online forum, an IRC server, and heavy use of the Gabbly chat client. The community has also created a wiki based on the happenings of these communications (see The Quiki).

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• Marten Reed is an indie rock fan and musician originally from California,^[14] where he also went to college. He lives with Faye, whom he was romantically interested in for many months, and is now in a romantic relationship with Dora.^[15] Marten is in a band named Deathmøle with friends Amir and Natasha.^[16] He works in the Smith College library.^[17]

Faye Whitaker works at Coffee of Doom with Dora and lives with Marten. Faye rarely uses contractions in her speech, except when drunk, when her Southern accent emerges.^[18] She moved up to Northampton from Savannah, Georgia two years after a mental breakdown resultant from witnessing her father's suicide.^[19] She moved in with Marten after she burned her apartment down while making toast.^[20] She has resumed therapy since moving to Northampton.^[21] She is known for a quick wit and a sharp tongue, usually used in affection.^[22]

Dora Bianchi is an ex-goth who owns and operates Coffee of Doom, the coffee shop where Faye, Raven and Penelope work and where Marten spends most of his time. She is in a romantic relationship with Marten. Unlike most of the main characters, she prefers metal to indie rock.^[23] 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).^[24]

Pintsize is an AnthroPC (an anthropomorphic PC) owned by Marten. He is essentially a small robot and companion to Marten. Pintsize is frequently used for comic relief, throw-away gags or to add punchlines to a strip. His eccentricities include a strange addiction to cake mix,^[25] parties with other AnthroPCs,^[26] gluing other people's hair to his face^[27] and poorly played pranks. At one point, he was almost taken by the government because of a highly-powered laser in his torso.^[28][29]

Raven Pritchard is an ex-goth friend of Dora's, and is a junior employee at Coffee of Doom. Despite her current status as the cute, hyper, ditzy one, she was 20 pounds heavier back in college and was very depressed. She dislikes her first name, Blodwyn (Welsh for 'White flower'), and prefers to be called Raven, her middle name.^[30]

Steve - Steve is Marten's best male friend. He dated Ellen on-and-off for a long period of time before being dumped. Steve leaned on Marten for emotional support after the breakup, and is currently starting to look for a new romantic interest.^[31]

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Meena is Steve's latest infatuation. She has a grim sense of humour that is most likely a side effect from working at a morgue.^[32] Meena most likely has feelings for Steve but does not appear to be as obsessive as Steve.

Penelope Gaines is the fifth and newest employee of Coffee of Doom.^[33] She is frequently compared to, and accused of being, Pizza Girl, the superhero-themed pizza delivery girl.^[34]

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.^[35] Ironically enough, Angus is also trying to pursue a romantic relationship with Faye. Faye does not seem to have mutual feelings and often responds violently to Angus' advances.^[36]

Tai is Marten's boss at the Smith Library. She is a student at Smith and a lesbian with a very active love life. She is a great fan of the romance novels of Jimbo, a former construction worker and one of Marten's drinking buddies. Tai's former employee is Marten's current Deathmøle bandmate, Natasha, who was fired after passing out topless on the Smith library copying machine.^[37] Natasha goes to Smith College with Tai and Ellen, and dates Amir Afridi, the third and final 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.

Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham. Hannelore is Marten and Faye's eccentric upstairs neighbor. She has a rather severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, is an insomniac, and counts things for a living.^[38] She also owns a Macintosh anthropomorphic PC named Winslow; he has befriended Pintsize. Hannelore has also demonstrated a raw, intuitive talent for playing drums, and expressed interest in joining Deathmøle.^[39][40] Hannelore currently lives in apartment 36.^[41]

Sven Bianchi is Dora's older brother. He is a musician/songwriter and has written several country music songs.^[42] Sven had a very active love and sex life, though he claims to have calmed down,^[43] despite Raven's advances.^[44]

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.^[45]

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^[46] QC was also used as part of a "create a comic" activity for kids at the New Haven public library in Connecticut.^[47]

• Questionable Content
• The Quiki - Wiki for the QC community
• The Questionable Content Forum
• IndieTits
• The AnthroPC Handbook
• Questionable Content LJ community
• Random Jeph Drawings
• Marten's Blog - has not been updated Since 19 February 2006.

• Version française officielle (official French version), since June 2005