Finally, we've come to the last answer in the Matriculated contest. If you guessed that strip number 90, the first appearance of Jeremy's girlfriend, Gina, was the starting point for the party storyline, congratulations! Hopefully, if you participated in the Matriculated contest, you had fun reading through the archives and trying to get into the heads of Phil and Joe. And if you didn't enter the contest, you had fun reading the commentary on the Matriculated strips. Read on for one last commentary from Phil and Joe... and an announcement!
Phil: This is another one of the strips I came up with early on. I liked the idea of Steve talking to Jeremy and although Jeremy only says one word over and over again, each time he says "Yeah" it means something different.
Not many people know this, but I patterned Jeremy after an actor named Joshua Malina. He's been in "The West Wing" and "Sports Night" and is executive producer of "Celebrity Poker Showdown". I remember reading an interview with him once where he talks about his role in "A Few Good Men". It's a small role and he's only in the movie for 10 seconds, but he got to act with Jack Nicholson. He said all of 5 words in the scene and four of them were "sir". This strip kind of reminds me of that.
This strip is also the first appearance of Jeremy's girlfriend, Gina. I forget her name from time to time because when I was writing this strip, her name changed twenty or so times. I didn't have any idea of what she should look like, but I knew she needed to be hot. For a couple of reasons, actually. One, because I'm sure, deep down, it's some sort of psychological wish fulfillment. And two, because it will serve a story purpose later on down the line. And if history is any judge of when I'll get around to that story, it'll be 3 years from now.
Joe: I remember the big thing with this strip was the introduction of Jeremy's hot new girlfriend. As small as she may be, I still had to give a sense of her, and I knew she was going to be a B level character for a while, and that she would be hot.
I went out of my way to make her something other then white. It was unintentional, but the only ethnicity in the Matriculated gang is Janette. She's Korean by the way, but we never really touched on that.
So i asked Phil if he cared what she looked like, and he didn't as long as she was hot. I'm not sure what she is - Indian, Native American. Something. it shouldn't be that important. She's just not white.
This strips not a great example of how hot she actually is but I think she was looking pretty good in the rest of the story arc.
And now for an announcement! Have you enjoyed the commentary from Joe and Phil? Would you like to learn more insight on the Matriculated strips? If so, it's your lucky day! This summer Digital Pimp will be producing a Matriculated collection! This collection will feature your favorite Matriculated strips collected for the first time, with commentary on each strip from Joe & Phil. In addition, the collection will have Matriculated pinups from other webcomic artists! Stay tuned for more updates this summer on the Matriculated collection!