Shaenon K. Garrity
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Shaenon K. Garrity is an American
webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...
creator and
science-fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...
author best known for her webcomics '' Narbonic'' and '' Skin Horse''. She collaborated with various artists to write webcomics for the Modern Tales-family of webcomic subscription services in the early 2000s, and write columns for various comics journals. Since 2003, Garrity has done freelance editing for
Viz Media Viz Media, LLC is an American entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California, focused on publishing manga, and distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series. The company was founded in 1986 as Viz, ...
on various
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
translations.


Early life

Garrity was born in
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
in 1978. She enjoyed drawing and writing at a young age, and she began drawing comics in high school. As a youth correspondent, Garrity drew a comic strip for the kids' section of the '' Cleveland Plain Dealer''. She studied English at
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
, where she ran a comic strip in the
college newspaper A student publication is a media outlet such as a newspaper, magazine, television show, or radio station produced by students at an educational institution. These publications typically cover local and school-related news, but they may also repo ...
. Once out of college, Garrity worked as a front-desk secretary at
Viz Media Viz Media, LLC is an American entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California, focused on publishing manga, and distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series. The company was founded in 1986 as Viz, ...
for three years while simultaneously creating ''Narbonic''.


Webcomics

Shaenon Garrity conceived her daily webcomic '' Narbonic'' in college, after watching the science-fiction films '' City of Lost Children'' and '' Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie'' back-to-back. She began posting her webcomic, about the evil
mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as "mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insanity, insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabas ...
Helen Narbon and her minions, shortly after moving to
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
in July 2000. She initially advertised her webcomic to her family, friends, and her old
Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
group, and she submitted her website to major
search engines Search engines, including web search engines, selection-based search engines, metasearch engines, desktop search tools, and web portals and vertical market websites have a search facility for online databases. By content/topic Gene ...
. She also submitted ''Narbonic'' to the webcomic portal
Keenspot Keenspot is a webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published i ...
, but it was rejected. Garrity had no plans to profit from her work, but she was curious how far her readership would grow. ''Narbonic'' audience grew slowly during its first year, but shot up significantly in 2001, hitting Garrity with steep
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
charges. ''Narbonic'' was part of the launch line-up of Joey Manley's webcomic subscription website Modern Tales in March 2002, and it remained the most popular feature on the website until she moved it to Webcomics Nation in 2006. In the following years, Garrity began several webcomics on Manley's subscription services. When the platform Girlamatic launched, Manley and Lea Hernandez suggested she do a ''Narbonic'' spin-off featuring a child version of the character Mell, one of Helen Narbon's minions. Garrity initially collaborated with artist Vera Brosgol to write the webcomic ''Li'l Mell'' for Girlamatic, and this webcomic later had a rotating roster of artists. For the platform Graphic Smash, Garrity collaborated with artists Robert Stevenson and
Roger Langridge Roger Langridge (born 14 February 1967) is a New Zealand comics writer, artist and letterer, currently living in Britain. Biography Langridge originally came to public prominence most notably with the '' Judge Dredd Megazine'' series ''The St ...
to write ''More Fun'', and, for Serializer, Garrity worked with Tom Hart to write ''TrunkTown''. After the launch of Webcomics Nation, Garrity wrote ''Smithson'', drawn by Brian Moore and Roger Langridge. Garrity became content editor for Modern Tales in 2006. She revived the long-form webcomic section of the website and worked on implementing Project Wonderful. Garrity concluded ''Narbonic'' on December 31, 2006, and Garrity began a commentated "director's cut" of the webcomic online a few years later. During ''Narbonic'' run, Garrity was contacted by ''Narbonic'' reader Jeffrey Wells, who was writing a story that shared some elements with Garrity's webcomic. In 2008, Garrity and Wells launched the daily webcomic '' Skin Horse''. Telling the story of a top secret government agency that handles non-humans as armed social workers, ''Skin Horse'' was the most popular webcomic on Webcomics Nation until it was moved to its own website and
GoComics GoComics is a website launched in 2005 by the digital entertainment provider Uclick. It was originally created as a distribution portal for comic strips on mobile phones. However, in 2006, the site was redesigned and expanded to include online st ...
. The first volumes of ''Skin Horse'' were published by a
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
artist group, the Couscous Comics collective. ''Skin Horse'' concluded in 2022, and the last of its twelve print volumes was published. In 2010, Garrity brought back ''Li'l Mell'' with a new storyline, this time collaborating with artist Cameron Nielson.


Other work

Garrity began volunteering at the Cartoon Art Museum in 2000, and she continued to work there throughout her webcomic career. Shortly after being laid off by Viz Media in 2003, Garrity began doing freelance editing work for the company. She edited ''
One Piece ''One Piece'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as he explores the Grand Line in search of the myt ...
'', ''
YuYu Hakusho is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi. It tells the story of Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who is struck and killed by a car while saving a child's life. After several tests presented to him ...
'', ''
Ultimate Muscle is a Japanese manga series created by the duo Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada, known as Yudetamago. It follows Suguru Kinniku, a superhero who must win a wrestling tournament to retain the title of prince of Planet Kinniku. ...
'', '' Knights of the Zodiac'', and ''
Tenchi Muyo! is a Japanese anime, light novel and manga franchise. The original series began with a six-episode Original video animation, OVA called . This original series was created by Masaki Kajishima and directed by Hiroki Hayashi, and it was rel ...
'' for the English-language '' Shonen Jump'' magazine, and wrote reviews for the ''
Animerica ''Animerica'' was a monthly magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), ...
'' magazine. Garrity wrote for
Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...
in the mid-2000s, writing the 2005–2007 Marvel Holiday Specials. She was a regular contributor for ''Sequential Tart'', ''
The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...
'', ''
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'', and ''
Anime News Network Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and ot ...
''. Handling the localization of ''
Case Closed ''Case Closed'', also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. It has been serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Sunday'' since January 1994; its chapters are collected in 10 ...
'', Garrity became responsible for official translations of the names of new characters. Garrity intended to write the book ''CLAMP in America'' in 2011, a volume which was intended to cover the history of the popular four-member manga creation team CLAMP. However, this release was cancelled due to
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
issues. Garrity wrote short
science-fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...
stories in ''
Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online magazine, online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and non-fiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in S ...
'', '' Lightspeed'', and '' Machine of Death''. In 2013, Garrity contributed to
Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, manga and Artist's book, art book publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon, by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, O ...
' '' CBLDF Presents Manga: Introduction, Challenges, and Best Practices''.


Personal life

Garrity is married to artist and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago, and they moved to
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...
in 2009. The two had a son in 2014.


Awards

Garrity won the 2005
Friends of Lulu Friends of Lulu (FoL) was a non-profit, national charitable organization located in the United States, designed to promote readership of comic books by women and the participation of women in the comic book industry. FoL operated from 1994 to 20 ...
"Lulu of the Year" award, alongside
Kazu Kibuishi Kazuhiro "Kazu" Kibuishi (born April 8, 1978) is a Japanese-born American graphic novel author and illustrator. He is best known for being the creator and editor of the comic anthology ''Flight (comic), Flight'' and for creating the webcomic ''Co ...
. In 2005, Garrity's ''Narbonic'' won in the "Outstanding Writing" category of the
Web Cartoonists' 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 ''New York Times'' column on webcomics ...
. During her spotlight panel at the 2022 Comic-Con International, Garrity received the
Inkpot Award The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at Comic-Con Internati ...
for Achievement in Comic Arts.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Garrity, Shaenon K. 1978 births Living people Anime and manga critics American webcomic creators American female comics artists American female comics writers Marvel Comics writers Place of birth missing (living people) Web Cartoonists' Choice Award winners Vassar College alumni Inkpot Award winners