Check, Please! (webcomic)

Check, Please!

Banner for Check, Please! Year One, featuring protagonist Eric
Author(s) Ngozi Ukazu
Website http://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/
Current status / schedule Ongoing
Launch date 8 August 2013
Genre(s) Sports, LGBT

Check, Please! is a 2013 webcomic written and illustrated by Ngozi Ukazu. The webcomic follows gay vlogger and ice hockey skater Eric "Bitty" Bittle as he has to deal with hockey culture in college. Ukazu provides fans of Check, Please! a variety of extra content through her Tumblr and a dedicated Twitter account; establishing a piece of transmedia storytelling to expand on worldbuilding. A large fan base has accumulated around Check, Please!, and when Ukazu set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund the physical release of a first volume of the webcomic, she reached her goal with ease.

Content

The plot of Check, Please! follows Eric "Bitty" Bittle, vlogger and freshman student at the fictional Samwell University. Formerly a figure skating champion, Eric landed a scholarship through a co-ed ice hockey game. The character joins the team, which is composed of a group of four guys: a cocky man named Shitty, the inseparable friends Ransom and Holster, and stern team captain Jack.[1] Meanwhile, Eric has to navigate his own sexuality as he has a crush on Jack and later enters a secret relationship with him. The webcomic follows the four years Eric and his teammates spend in Samwell University in "real-time", and the plot focuses on events such as coming out, school stress, and graduation.[2]

The story of Check, Please! is told through Eric's narration, though the webcomic features short intermissions titled "Hockey Shit with Ransom and Holster", in which characters explain the rules and terminology of hockey in a humorous manner. Each page of Check, Please! can be in a different art style, depending on what Ukazu sees fit. Ukazu provides a variety of extra content through her Tumblr, answering readers' questions to the characters of the webcomic through short response comics.[1] Check, Please! pages are aligned horizontally, as to imitate the look of online videos appropriate for Eric's vlogs.[3]

Ukazu makes use of transmedia storytelling by creating a Twitter account for her character Eric. Between updates, "Eric" writes tweets to fans of his vlog, an element Ukazu uses to interact with her readers and expand the narrative of the webcomic.[3]

Development

"Sports media is entirely about creating these narratives around athletes and their teams, which is why sports can be such fertile ground for transformative works in fandom."

—Ngozi Ukazu[3]

Check, Please! is written and drawn by Ngozi Ukazu, a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Ukazu can't skate, but has shown to have a large amount of knowledge on hockey and hockey culture. She credits this to three months of research she did at Yale, as she was writing screenplay Hardy, starring a hockey player who falls in love with his best friend.[2] Ukazu describes Check, Please! as somewhat of a reaction to Hardy, as her screenplay was rather depressing. Hardy featured themes of "addiction, externalized and internalized homophobia, the anxiety of graduating and feelings of failure." Ukazu described Check, Please!-protagonist Eric as "born to balance that out," and she suggested that Check, Please! conceived out of the question of whether "someone like Bitty [can] survive in a world like Hardy's?"[3]

Ukazu's ice hockey stories are inspired by narratives built around hockey players such as Jonathan Toews, Sidney Crosby, and Patrick Kane. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw of The Daily Dot described Ukazu's relationship with her webcomic as though Ukazu herself is part of the fandom. Ukazu draws short comic strips that were described by Baker-Whitelaw as "fanfiction of her own creation," and Ukazu's constant interactions with fans of the webcomic on Tumblr accentuates this.[3]

In 2015, Ukazu launched a Kickstarter campaign in order to publish a first volume for the webcomic. Due of its large fan base, Check, Please! quickly reached its initial goal of $15,000 USD, eventually making $74,000 USD.[4][5] A second Kickstarter campaign was launched September 2016, raising nearly $400,000 on a $32,500 goal.[6]

Reception

Chloe Goodwin of The Rocky Mountain Collegian described the story of Check, Please! as "addictive" and praised Ukazu as an "extraordinary artist". Goodwin mainly applauded Uzaku for her worldbuilding, describing the setting of Check, Please! as "a vast detailed universe."[1] Writing for The A.V. Club, Caitlin Rosberg described Check, Please! as a "passion project", praising "the clear care and love that goes into every page of content." Rosberg particularly enjoyed Ukazu's characterization, stating that each character has his own motivation and character quirks, even if they're all supposed to be "bros".[4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Goodwin, Chloe (2014-02-17). "Webcomic Spotlight: "Check Please!"". The Rocky Mountain Collegian.
  2. 1 2 Lawson, Emma (2016-04-06). "Baking, Bros And Beyonce: Should You Be Reading 'Check, Please'?". Comics Alliance.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia (2015-05-19). "How a webcomic about hockey players became a cult favorite on Tumblr". The Daily Dot.
  4. 1 2 Hennum, Shea; O'Neill, Tim; Rosberg, Caitlin; Sava, Oliver (2015-11-24). "Self-published Check, Please! shows the value of a passion project". The A.V. Club.
  5. ↑ Fitzsimons, Kate (2015-06-05). "More To Come 153: Ngozi Ukazu of Check Please Interview". Publishers Weekly.
  6. ↑ Burt, Kayti (2016-10-24). "Check, Please! – The Queer Hockey Bros Webcomic You Should Be Reading". Den of Geek.
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