The Wisdom of Dan Shive · 7:49am Sep 5th, 2015
art by Dan Shive
There above is the picture that started it all. As I answered in an interview with the Author Support group years ago, when asked what inspired me to write:
In general? An active imagination. I’ve always been a storyteller, from my earliest childhood memories. I’ve had stories in my head that I wanted to tell, and I’ve explored various mediums for telling these stories -- art, writing and even running roleplaying games.
As for Fallout: Equestria in particular, the inception of the idea was from an artwork by Dan Shive called “Pony Vegas”. It was a wonderful piece, playing on my twin loves of Friendship is Magic and the Fallout series of games. But at the same time, it didn’t make sense within the context of the show. My imagination immediately started trying to figure out how you could make the combination make sense, and the story began to take form.
So, needless to say, I owe quite a bit to Dan Shive for this particular artwork. But this is by far not the only work of his that I have found inspiring. And considering his unique role in the start of this community, I felt it would be appropriate to share a bit more of his work.
Dan Shive is the creator of an online webcomic called El Goonish Shive, a brilliant comic following the adventures and friendships of a group of high school students touched and surrounded by magic and the strange in world filled with barely-hidden supernatural wonder. El Goonish Shive sports some impressive and evolving world-building, and the comic excels in foreshadowing and character design. Dan Shive supplements the main comic with additional artwork, side stories and single strips.
But aside from just giving us good storytelling and fun characters through his comic, Dan Shive also gives us a lot to think about and grow on. For example, his classic comic below is one that I have often passed along to people who are dealing with critics. It is absolutely excellent advice, some of the best I've seen on the subject:
(The biggest difficulty, of course, is that there are at least several hundred million folks on the internet who fall into category four, and most of them believe they should fall into category three. Hint: if someone doesn't have to file taxes for their income as a critic, they aren't a professional. They're just another yahoo on the internet with an opinion and an inflated sense of ego.) 
Dan Shive has routinely offered up wisdom in regards to dealing with aspects of internet culture and similar problems...
...sometimes addressing the concerns of fans directly in his side comics. (It is the third panel above that I consider worth particular note.)
(It is the third panel above that I consider worth particular note.)
Likewise, his comics usually come with a follow-up post. These posts are often used just for humor, or to provide helpful links back to earlier related story strips or other foreshadowing. But sometimes, particularly for the side strips, the commentary provides particularly useful nuggets of advise or insight, such as this simple and straightforward tidbit which followed a strip dealing with the option of disabling user comments on your site:
Some people view disabling comments as censorship, but it's really not. Nobody is obligated to provide space for others to say stuff. They can say whatever they want about whatever, but you don't have to provide the podium. Censorship would be more like if they were commenting on their own site and someone tried to somehow silence them.
However, by far, the most noteworthy and admirable aspect of Dan Shive's work is the way his comic tackles issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. In a comic full of magical martial arts, mystical mayhem and body transformation shenanigans, El Goonish Shive manages to have a deep and mature conversation about one of the most profound struggles of our modern age, especially for young people today.
This comic will open your eyes if you let it, and has a lot more to teach than you would expect.
If I couldn't already love your blog more Kkat, you bring my favourite Web comic artist into the picture!
I've been following EGS since 2003, and Dan has consistently shown himself to be of the highest quality. Sure, he hit a bump with his update schedule a few years ago but he remained communicative during his writer's block.
His storytelling, exploration of sexuality and identity has been of the highest order while remaining an engaging and entertaining story.
The fact that my favourite Web comic artist of all time may have inspired one of my favourite novels of all time... Damn. My mind is honestly kinda blown.
On a side note, Dr. Germahn said someone about need you to try this new Sparkle Cola recipe...
Oh EGS. Nice to see that I can't escape it. I feel I should add that I started watching MLP because of his RariTedd Sketch and the comment one of the characters (Either Sarah or Grace) makes about a ship filled with magic ponies.
Well, now I've found ships filled with magic ponies beings shipped.
maybe after I'm done with my own fallout equestria story I'll write post apocalyptic with applejack and rainbow dash, It will be called "the adventures of Applejack: The fallout." As a tribute to the art that started it all.
I do find it funny though some random fan art created an entire fanbase, now that's human inspiration for ya.
Really inspiring! And wow, I wish I'd had these comic strips when trying to help out friends before! I'll definitely need to check out that comic at some point. The one where she points out that his email is obviously a waste of her time and deletes it is also an eye-opener for me. I always kinda knew the point behind that comic, but it really helps drive it home.
Always a fan of these blogs, btw, even if I never comment. Have a great day!
Really, the most important criticism is from people who are competent in your field.
And marketing, if you're trying to make money. Because, you know, that's their thing.
3370535 The problem with that criteria is that everyone who criticizes believes themselves to be competent in your field. (re: Dunning–Kruger effect) If they are competent enough to be making a living off of their advice or analysis, then they are worth listening to... even if they are rude. If not, then don't blindly presume competence at critique. At least require them to show themselves competent at being civilized people. Their behavior should be the yardstick, not their ego.
I read Dan Shive's comic. Had no idea he had such a big role in creating FoE!
Everything on the internet seems to be connected in some way.
I recently started reading El Goonish Shive after I got to it through Tvtropes, then stopped reading on August 14 because I must have closed the tab on my phone or something. I only got through a year and a bit's worth of comics after probably a week or so of reading (upgrading to Windows 10 messed up my internet history), but it was entertaining enough. That said, the fact that it gets way better, both in art style and everything else is apparent from this post. So, yeah, fortunately I found my place again(I at least had a page of history when I searched to go on, even though I don't really remember the last few pages) and will be continuing to read through the massive archive.
Huh. Dan Shive inspired Fallout: Equestria? Small world. Very neat to learn of the link between one of my favorite webcomics and one of my favorite pieces of pony fiction.
You forgot to mention that El Goonish Shive is made of 60% crazy. It's all good crazy, but it's still way too much crazy for many people. (Consult your doctor before taking EGS!)
I've been reading that forever. I even bought the first two printed volumes.
I agree with this statement wholeheartedly, Kkat. As an LGBT rights supporter, I have friends from all corners of the spectrum, including transgender friends. The biggest problem facing people like them today is Leave it to Beaver-esque societal norms and the whole "it's against God" defense. As a Christian myself, I believe in God. However, I do not believe in the interpretations thrown around by xenophobes such as Westboro. News flash: Jesus loves EVERYONE, not just select people.
...I apologize for my little rant there, Kkat. But you get the point. We need to grow past our prejudices and become a more open-minded and kind nation to LGBTs.
3370535 Well, I do disagree that only those that are 'professionals' in a field can offer criticism worth listening to. The best line I've heard to explain it is something like "While only another trained chef can truly judge the skill with which a dish is prepared, you don't have to be a chef to know if it tastes disgusting." There are some thing you do need to be fairly competent in a field to really critique, but others really are obvious and open to anyone.
But yes, still no reason to be a jerkass about it and act like you know better then the creator. It's why when I review something, I don't really get into the technical writing aspects cause.. I am a horrible writer. I focus on just the story itself and what I think about the details of the narrative.
Also,
I knew that was the pic that started it all, had no idea it was from someone like that. Wow...
3370644 Now I do agree with you in, but not quite (Will not get into a battle here, so I'll keep it brief and to the point) The biggest problem the LGBT community has when it comes to transgenders is the LGBT community. I've heard many times when someone goes around the transgender community looking to understand it, they get shut down whenever they ask around, and are told to educate themselves. I don't know why this is a thing, but because so many transgenders are unwilling to educate the people seeking to understand, they are often leave others with a frustrated opinion.
Religious bigotry is a problem, but it's one we can see, and look down on.
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It is good then that nobody is saying that, especially not me. To make that claim would be to ignore the vitally important first panel of that guide: "average polite person". Being a professional doesn't give you exclusivity on having useful input any more than an inability to behave yourself guarantees that you don't.
But we are talking very basic "price of admission" here, on the same level as at least attempting competent grammar and punctuation. If you act like a rude jerk, or if your comments read like they belong in a Your Grammar Sucks video, then no artist should pay attention to you. Nobody should. You haven't earned the privilege of being listened to yet. This holds true for anyone, but is especially true for a critic. Even the best expert, if they can't figure out how to be civil, deserves only begrudging consideration.
The wisdom indeed, Egs has been a constant in my life of reading since high school. Questionable content and Sluggy freelance (only thing I have be reading for longer because holy hell it is in it's 18th year)
I've read the comic, been awhile since I checked it though
When i heard/saw the words dan shive, there's only person it could be, and glad not to be mistaken on that. But yeah, there is a lot of wisdom in the comic given. And very much a kinder note amongst it all.
Love that Comic xD great stuff in that one
Well Dan Shive certainly gives a lot of good advice and food for thought underneath his comic pages where he blogs. I have to say it's refreshing to read a comic that makes you think as well as entertains and gives you additional thoughts and ideas underneath the comic.
I used to read EGS. Then I realised spending so much time out of every day on webcomics was unhealthy and dumped everything I was reading.
Seems I've missed a bit, though I remember the strip on critics. Small world is small.
It's also good to see you touching on LGBT topics. It's something I don't see a lot of from popular authors.
hi hi
It is like my old Econ teacher used to say. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not all opinions are equal.
I don't get that fourth one. So she's saying she'd rather live in a bubble than outside of one? And isn't deleting a personal email before reading it because you don't like the title essentially judging a book by its cover?
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I think the implication is, given that human beings have a necessarily finite amount of time, and are presented with a nigh infinite amount of things to spend that time doing, people have to make executive decisions about how that finite resource is spent; and that listening to every crackpot that sends an email is not a worthwhile expenditure of time.
As for judging a book by its cover. It is certainly true that it is unfair to judge the quality of an entire book based on its cover alone, but it is definitely legitimate to judge whether or not there is probable cause to investigate a work of literature further based on a fragment of the work, whether it is the cover, synopsis, title, or general themes.
For some perspective, as of this posting there have been 1,713,357 books published so far this year alone. To read all of those books in 365 days, you would have to read 3.25 books per minute, and this is not counting the need for sleep, or engaging in any other activity.
It is not physically possible, to say nothing of desirable, to read everything so it is necessary to filter what one reads. The burden of convincing someone to read anything therefore lies largely on the author, who must prove to the reader that the body of work is going to be worth their time. And while it is generally wise to try to find information that might challenge one's own potential biases, reading unsolicited rants from belligerent jerk bags is, I would argue, a poor way to go about finding those challenging viewpoints.
3370704 Sorry, came out wrong and kind of missed a point, my bad. But yes, either way the important thing is to not be a complete jerk about trying to give feedback. To know the line between criticism, and constructive criticism.
Been following EGS for years...... YEARS, (it's amazing to see how Dan's art has progressed) and while I'd like to say that I was astounded to find out that the creator of probably my favorite web-comic inspired FO:E, I
d unfortunately knew that already.
But for anyone here who has not read EGS, I highly recommend it. Again, the art and story is rough at the beginning (he was just starting out, give him a break), it progressively gets better. Seriously, go read it.
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It may be slightly judging a book by its cover, but I think that saying gets overused when it comes to things like this. The subject line of the email opens with "Sorry to burst your bubble", which is already a condescending tone of voice to open an email with. Most true, professional critics, (and even the non-professionals who just want to be helpful) aren't going to open a worthwhile email like that. An email that is condescending is also likely to be filled with very opinionated, and possibly even objectively wrong statements or critique about whatever the email is about. Even if the content of the email is objectively right, there is no need to be that condescending, and messages like that are typically seen as nothing more than discouragement to the creator.
Could it be an honest mistake on the part of the person sending the email (for instance, maybe they didn't mean to come off condescending)? Quite possibly... but not probably. 99% of the time, the above analysis will apply. Avoiding the discouragement that comes with such a thing is preferable to missing the 1% (and I truly think it's not even that much) of the time where it was a mistake. Besides, if the creator is truly making a mistake that the email is pointing out, it's very likely that some other critic has already, or will in the future, point it out to the creator in a much nicer way.
"Judging a book by it's cover" is not always a bad thing. There's a reason we developed the ability to judge things so swiftly.
Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not saying that judging a book by it's cover is always a good thing, either. Or even usually a good thing. Just that I don't think it applies in this particular situation.
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Yeah, that's kind of what I gathered from there as well. Personally if I'd been in her position, I probably would have read at least some of what he had to say, and then try to educate him on the differences between between first wave (real) feminism and third wave feminism (which is more so in line to what he's referring to), but that's just me talking. However, sometimes, ignoring people is the best route to take, especially if your time is limited, and it sounds as condescending and just overall dickish like what he wrote.
3372336 I have no idea why you're getting downvotes when your assessment is pretty dead accurate.
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Well the problem there lies in that most people don't know the difference, and simply criticize without giving any proper feedback on how to improve. It happens a lot, and I've witnessed it quite a bit on this site in particular. For example, a friend of mine posted a fic a while back, and managed to gather almost ten dislikes within the first day it was posted. Now he and I both knew it was no master piece, and he even expected dislikes from the beginning, but the problem was that hardly anyone left any feedback whatsoever, and the few that did simply wrote comments akin to "this story sucks" or "take this crap down, no one wants to read it".
But I suppose that's why this site has entire groups dedicated to reviewing and critiquing fics, but I also think it's rather sad that in some (not all of course, but some) cases it's the only way to get a fair shake as far as constructive criticism goes. That's my two cents on the subject anyway, didn't mean to butt in.
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To revive what might be a dead discussion now (hopefully no one is upset by this) on the critic vs. average person thing, I think a better difference can be derived from the difference between a review and a critique.
A review of a story is something that I feel any average person can do. You go over a story that you (hopefully!) read, citing what you thought was good, and what you thought was bad about the story. Reviews don't need to be specific, and don't (in my experience) normally point out a specific consistent error. They usually fall more along the lines of "I liked/dislike this story, and here's why."
A critique, on the other hand, or at least a constructive critique, usually falls more along the lines of "this is what you did wrong according to common practices and generally accepted standards, and here's how you can fix it." A critique normally encompasses a review, and enhances it by not only pointing out what was wrong, but why it was wrong (e.g. "It goes against normal standards and doesn't make your story unique enough for this to be acceptable" or "It breaks the flow of your story for the average reader, ruining the immersion"), and (usually) how this can be fixed or avoided in the future.
A further difference is that a good, constructive critique is almost always polite, as everyone above keeps pointing out. Reviews are sometimes polite, but not always. The reason this is is because a constructive critique is almost always written from the viewpoint of "I want to help this author/artist/musician/programmer/[insert your creative work here] improve", and not "This work sucks, and I need to let them know!"
On the professional vs. average user debate, I don't necessary think you should always listen to a "professional" critic, either, though no one is saying that, of course. (I just want to elaborate on why.) Just because they file taxes for it, doesn't mean that they are necessarily correct. Now, I'm not saying ignore those, by any means. In fact, what I'd like to point out is that whether you should listen to someone or not is more based on two things. "Do they know what they are talking about" and "Is their 'knowledge' or 'advice' heavily biased by opinions, or is it based in past experience and results from similar works?" With a paid critic... you do normally get the first one. The other is a little harder to pin, though you often get that one as well (hence why they are preferable to the average user. With a professional, you can usually research their past critiques, or even find reviews about them (suddenly, this got meta) that point out their own leanings. Then it's up to you to decide if you agree with them.
It's easily possible that someone who isn't a paid critic can fulfill both of the requirements for knowing what they are talking about, and not having their opinions being too unnecessarily biased. But since you have less of a guarantee, this falls more on your shoulders, as the creator, to judge whether you should listen to them or not. Hence the debates on whether you should listen to the average internet user. I think the average user's input, especially if they are trying to give a polite, constructive critique, is worth listening to just as much as a professionals, but you need to be careful about which user's you listen to. The problem here falls into the pit where a new creator, not having necessarily been exposed to a large number of reviews/critiques in their field, go one of two paths. They listen to /every/ user who sends them feedback, because by damn every piece of feedback is worth something! Alternatively, they ignore most pieces of feedback (especially negative feedback) because surely none of those people know what they are talking about! My work is brilliant!
On the other hand, an experience creator, having created a few works (or perhaps one really large work), will have probably dealt with several "critics", and can use their experience to "separate the wheat from the chaff", as it were.
To wrap up my convoluted argument, I think one should listen to the average internet user... but only once they are experienced enough that they can make the distinction between someone who is genuinely trying to help and knows what they are talking about, and someone who is simply out to make them feel bad or discourage them because they disagree with their work.
But, as always, a creator should always listen to their audience as the final say on everything.
After all, it is your audience for whom you create. Not the professional critic, and not the "average" critic. If your audience is saying they don't like something, you should listen to them! Unless you have a very good reason to ignore it, of course. But it had better be dang good! 
The comic looks interesting, I'll have to check out more of his stuff.
I knew about the original artwork, but I hadn't bothered to see what else the artist made and now I'm regretting it.
oh wow... I used to read El Goonish Shive (from way back in the begining). I eventually fell out of the habit of reading webcomics entirely... I did always love that comic, though.
I know of the picture that inspired you to start writing FoE, but I genuinely did not recognise it as being Shive's work.
huh... small world.
Wow, I hadn't known that Dan's work was the inspiration for Fo:E. As others have said, what a small world indeed!
And now I thank you, dear Kkat, for introducing me to Egs. I spent last week on reading it and can honestly say that I absolutely adore it. Huge thanks, hugs and kisses.
This is still the supreme bit of wisdom I've gotten from Dan Shive
i.imgur.com/EZaHmts.jpg