Brad Guigar (born April 9, 1969) is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic ''Greystone Inn'' and its sequel ''Evil Inc.''

Early life

Brad Guigar was the eldest of five children and grew up in

Bad Axe, Michigan Bad Axe is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Huron County, Michigan, Huron County in the Thumb region of the Lower Peninsula. The population was 3,129 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, making it the largest co ...

. He attended

Alma College Alma College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Alma, Michigan. It enrolls approximately 1,400 students and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Alma College is affiliat ...

where he received a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

degree before he moved to

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio. It is located approximately south of Cleveland and south of Akron in Northeast Ohio. The city lies on the edge of Ohio's extensive Amish country, particularly in Holmes and ...

to work for the newspaper

The Repository ''The Repository'' is an American daily local newspaper serving the Canton, Ohio area. It is currently owned by Gannett. History Historically, the newspaper had strong Republican connections, most notably with President William McKinley, who was ...

as a

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

and

editorial cartoonist An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws editorial cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. Their cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or curren ...

. He left

and moved to

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County, Ohio, Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 C ...

and worked for the

Akron Beacon Journal The ''Akron Beacon Journal'' is a morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States. Owned by Gannett, it is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper's coverage focuses on local news. The Beacon J ...

. He formerly worked at the

Philadelphia Daily News ''Philadelphia Daily News'' is a tabloid newspaper that serves Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper is owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC, which also owns Philadelphia's other major newspaper ''The Philadelphia Inquirer''. The ''Dail ...

and is married with two children. Guigar wrote and illustrated ''The Everything Cartooning Book'' (2004), contributed to the book ''How To Make Webcomics'' (2008), wrote its sequel ''The Webcomics Handbook'' (2013), and maintains the site Webcomics.com.

Career

''Greystone Inn''

''Greystone Inn'' premiered on the Web on February 14, 2000. Later that year, the strip was added to the Keenspot line-up of webcomics. After updating daily for over five years, Guigar took his comics, including ''Greystone'' to Blank Label Comics. ''Greystone Inn'' appeared in the

, the

Turlock Journal The Turlock Journal is a newspaper in Turlock, California. It is owned by 209 Multimedia. The Journal was a daily newspaper until 2004, when it was reduced to twice-weekly publication. It has a paid circulation of approximately 4,000. The managi ...

, the

Stanford Daily ''The Stanford Daily'' is the student-run, independent daily newspaper serving Stanford University. ''The Daily'' is distributed throughout campus and the surrounding community of Palo Alto, California, United States. It has published since the U ...

and

The Maine Campus ''The Maine Campus'' is a weekly newspaper produced by the students of the University of Maine in the United States. It covers university and Town of Orono events, and has four sections: News, Opinion, Culture and Sports. It serves the 20,000 stu ...

. Selected ''Greystone Inn'' strips on graphic design also appeared in the '' Computer Arts'' magazine every issue. Guigar makes money off his syndications by offering ''Greystone Inn'' for syndication at a certain rate, with a lower rate offered for college papers. ''Greystone Inn'' has had a spin-off comic written and drawn by Brad Guigar named ''Mondays With Mel''. It featured an old comedian named Mel who had been introduced in ''Greystone Inn'' as an old friend of Argus's. It worked by Mel setting up a joke and then allowing the audience to provide punchlines with the best one being featured in the strip. Since Guigar left Keenspot, ''Mondays With Mel'' has been on hiatus and is no longer available online. In May 2005 Guigar ended Greystone Inn and began a spin-off,

Evil Inc. Brad Guigar (born April 9, 1969) is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic ''Greystone Inn'' and its sequel ''Evil Inc.'' Early life Brad Guigar was the eldest of five children and grew up in Bad Axe, Michigan. He att ...

, which focuses on a company of super-villains. Evil Inc. retains several Greystone Inn characters and has a similar style.

''Courting Disaster''

''Courting Disaster'' is a single panel cartoon about love, sex, and dating. It originally appeared every Friday in the

accompanying a sex advice column. In 2015 ''Courting Disaster'' was revived for occasional release as a Not Safe For Work comic available to certain Patreon subscribers.

''Phables''

''Phables'' was a comic strip about life in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

that appeared bi-weekly in the

from 2006 to 2009. In May 2007 the strip was named "Best Local Column" by the Philadelphia chapter of the

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

. Later in 2007, the strip was nominated for the

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for Best Digital Comic, eventually losing to

Steve Purcell Steven Ross Purcell (born October 1, 1961) is an American cartoonist, animator, game designer and voice actor. He is the creator of the media franchise ''Sam & Max'', for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007. The series has grown to i ...

Sam & Max ''Sam & Max'' is an American media franchise about Sam and Max, a pair of anthropomorphic vigilante private investigators. The characters, who occupy a universe that parodies American popular culture, were created by Steve Purcell in his yout ...

''Evil Inc.''

A spin-off from Guigar's previous project, ''

Greystone Inn Brad Guigar (born April 9, 1969) is an American cartoonist who is best known for his daily webcomic ''Greystone Inn'' and its sequel ''Evil Inc.'' Early life Brad Guigar was the eldest of five children and grew up in Bad Axe, Michigan. He att ...

'', ''Evil Inc.'' debuted on the web on June 22, 2005. The strip chronicles the schemes and adventures of the eponymous Evil Incorporated, a business run by supervillains. One of the launch strips for Blank Label Comics until becoming part of the Halfpixel lineup, it appeared daily in

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s until 2015. Artistically, Evil Inc. initially followed the form of most newspaper comics with black and white line-art style, shades of gray used sparingly. The Strip has since begun using color. Most strips are formed of a series of panels which use a multitude of

camera angle The camera angle marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles simultaneously. This will give a different experience and sometimes emotion. The diffe ...

s. The comic follows a strong story arc. In one, the corporation was bought, and subsequently brought to financial ruin, by the Legion of Justice (a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

of the

Justice League The Justice League (also known as The Justice League of America) are a team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The team first appeared in ''The Brave and the Bold'' #28 (March 1960). The team was conceived ...

and similar teams). However, the ruination of Evil, Inc. has also spelled doom for the Legion. Each strip maintains a self-contained joke, and the comic frequently parodies

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...

comics and often uses

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...

s. Saturday strips are usually unconnected to weekday strips (the strip does not update on Sundays) and include such themes as Evil Inc. character profiles called "Personnel Files" (which describe a specific Evil Inc. character, usually one featured in the previous week), customer service calls fielded by Lightning Lady (who answers the phone "Evil Inc., how may I harm you?", previously "How may I misdirect your call?"), or, recently, various characters approaching a door that has been altered to complement the sign next to it (for example, the December 4, 2010 strip shows a door labeled "Office of Bizarro"; in this strip, the doorknob is placed next to the door rather than on it). Evil Inc was nominated for the 2007

Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a ''The New York Times'' column on webco ...

in the category of Outstanding Superhero/Action Comic.

Webcomics.com

Webcomics.com is a paywalled website run by Guigar as a place for advice, discussing and job information relating to cartoons.

Charitable work

As a member of Alternative Brand Studios, Brad Guigar ran the AltBrand 2002 MDA Webcomic Telethon. It featured over 20 comic artists and raised $850. As a founding member of Blank Label Comics, Guigar also spearheaded the 2005 Webcomic Telethon for Hurricane Relief that raised an estimated $28,635 for the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...

response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

References

External links

''Greystone Inn''

''Courting Disaster''

''Evil Inc.''

''Phables''

The Webcomic Telethon for Hurricane Relief
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guigar, Brad American webcomic creators Alma College alumni Artists from Akron, Ohio Living people 1969 births People from Bad Axe, Michigan