Little Gamers

Little Gamers
Author(s) Christian Fundin, Pontus Madsen
Website http://www.little-gamers.com/
Current status / schedule Weekdays (3 times/week)
Launch date 2000-12-01
Genre(s) Video games

Little Gamers (sometimes shortened as LG) is a webcomic made by Christian Fundin (founder, illustrator) and Pontus Madsen (writer, illustrator). It began on December 1, 2000.

The creators, Madsen (left) and Fundin (right)

The cartoon series revolves around Christian, Pontus (mainly known as Mr. Madsen) and a friend of theirs called Marcus; their friends, girlfriends, life events, and mostly, video games. Special strips are sometimes released during certain news events (e.g. September 11th, US and European elections, Pope Benedict XVI), etc. On occasion, a small storyline is introduced, mostly using fictional characters. Also, there are some occasions where the cartoons are drawn (and started) by other webcomic artists. There was also a short-lived Little Gamers Macguardians Edition (in German) with a Mac-Theme.

The characters are drawn, as described in their second comic, to be "bastard children of Hello Kitty and Bomberman." Arguably, Little Gamers, together with Megatokyo and other webcomics, helped immensely in popularizing the use of leet speak.

This comic and its authors poke fun at people who poke fun at them. About the comic and its storylines, Pontus Madsen says: "I personally don't see LG as a webcomic, since we have no '2 months ahead of schedule in comics and storylines'.. I see it more as a blog, about what happens in our lives, and exaggerated to be a bit more fun than cnn. I don't see Penny Arcade as a comic anymore either, I see that as a 'blog' too, which unlike LG has something drawn to illustrate the posts - LG is the otherway around."

List of characters

  • Mr. (Pontus) Madsen is the main protagonist of the strip together with Christian. He is known for his usage of leet speak and his obsession with a huge collection of pr0n. He's part Danish. He's 27, likes pr0n and Final Fantasy, and dislikes Christian.
  • Christian (Fundin), An incarnation of the creator, hates the word wench. He's 25, loves playing Tekken Tag Tournament, Caroline, and of course Final Fantasy. Dislikes having too little time and too many ideas.
  • Marcus (Olofsson) loves inflatable dolls. It seems like Marcus will never have a real girlfriend in the comic, mainly because he's the one who gets all the action in real life. The inflatable dolls are some sort of running gag in the comic. Quoting Christian, "the jokes about Marcus' girlfriends never gets old". He's 26, likes skateboarding, thinking about girls (real ones) and playing Final Fantasy. Dislikes getting his ass kicked in Soulcalibur.
  • Joel, one of the creator's friends, he's from San Diego. Loves cooking, listening to music and talking. Currently single. He's 25, and likes all joy-giving things.
  • MC Browneye, a gentle man who likes long walks on the beach and watch the sunset. He's in his late 20s.
  • Hippie Dude, Some hippie guy who appears every once in a while. He's vegetarian.
  • The Cute Ninjas are some stageworking ninjas that appear occasionally. Deadly, but, as their name implies, cute. No one really knows where they come from.
  • NES & PS are described as "the love couple of little gamers." They're... A Nintendo Entertainment System and a PlayStation. In love.
  • Nette and Caroline, the guy's girlfriends. Caroline is Christian's girlfriend, and Nette is Mr. Madsen's girlfriend. They seem to have a nice relationship. They're friends.
  • Machall Boyd, a politically interested character who debates with Mr. Madsen (mostly about George W. Bush). These are drawn by Pontus Madsen in a different style. Represents Matt Boyd, co-creator of Mac Hall.

Collections

In 2005, Little Gamers published its first collection of comics in book form. As of February 2008, four collections of comics have been published.[1]

Little Gamers book #1

Released in 2005, this was the first Little Gamers book. It contains comics one to three hundred. Like books Two and Three it is printed in Sweden. So far the book has been printed in two editions and is one hundred and twenty-four pages.

Forewords

Book One features five forewords by

  • Naku - frequent contributor to the Little Gamers blog.
  • Barry T. Smith - writer of InkTank
  • Tim Buckley - creator of the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del
  • Matt Boyd - co-creator of the webcomic Mac Hall.
  • Weebl & Bob - two main characters from the flash cartoon series of the same name written by Jonti Picking and Chris Vick.

Two page end special

Each Little Gamers book features two pages at the end of the book following the album like thanks page. Book one's two-page special features a collage of all the characters, as well as several key props such as an Apple Macbook, from the comic at varying sizes.

Spelling errors

Each Little Gamers book is called to contain a certain percentage of spelling corrections from the original comic published online. This is a running gag in the comic, as Madsen often misspells words as English is his second language. Book One claims to have 50% less spelling errors.

Cover

Book One features the "extra super duper poop-brown™" cover.

Disclaimer

Book One features the disclaimer "Any content resembling any real or fictional persons is purely coincidental. Yes."

Little Gamers book #2

Released in 2006, this is the second Little Gamers book. It contains comics three hundred to six hundred. Like books One and Three it is printed in Sweden. It is one hundred and twenty-four pages, like Book One.

Forewords

Book Two contains four forewords by

Two page end special

Book Two features two end specials.

  • The first features a collage of photos of entitled "Little Gamers History 2000–2005", mainly made up of pictures from the creators trip to the USA in 2005.
  • The second features a collection of seventeen haikus written by Little Gamers' readers as the creators wished to involve their audience in the production of their second book.

Spelling errors

Like Book One, Book Two is claimed to have a reduced amount of spelling errors from the original online versions of the comics. This edition contains 63% less errors.

Cover

Book Two features the "extra super duper pink sock™" cover.

Disclaimer

Book Two's disclaimer is "Pontus may look like Dave Grohl but he isn't as cool."

Little Gamers book #3

Released in February 2007, this is the third Little Gamers book. It contains comics six hundred to nine hundred. This is the first Little Gamers book with all the comics in colour. Pontus Madsen redrew most of the comics for colour.

Forewords

Book Three features forewords by

Two page end special

Unlike the two previous Little Gamers books, this features two end specials. The first of these is two issues of hand drawn comics produced in response to an issue arising at the Comixpedia as to why Pontus Madsen and Christian Fundin made Little Gamers. The second two-page special is a collection of Little Gamers readers' mugshots organised by continent.

Dictionary

Book Three features, unlike previous Little Gamers books a small one page dictionary at the end of the book to define vocabulary feature in the book. The included words are predominantly internet slang, including words such as "lol", "stfu" and "omg".

Spelling errors

In accordance with the staple set by the previous two books, Book Three is claimed to feature fewer spelling mistakes. This time it is claimed there are 82% fewer spelling errors.

Cover

Book Three features the "Extra super duper camo" cover.

Disclaimer

Book Three features the disclaimer "This disclaimer will end up on Wikipedia (You! Wikipedia guy, we can see you!)"

Reception

As described by 1UP.com, Little Gamers is "critically lambasted but rabidly popular comics," comparable to "million-selling, mass-market [video] games that no one actually seems to like."[2]

Spinoffs

On 20 February 2008 the demo to the Little Gamers Xbox 360 video game was released on Xbox Live Marketplace. The game is by Loïc Dansart and created in XNA Game Studio 2.0.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Little Gamers Book 4". 2008-01-01. Archived from the original on 2008-02-06. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
  2. ↑ Will Strip for Games, 1UP.com
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