Girls with Slingshots

While cartoonist Danielle Corsetto says her two main characters aren't based on any particular people, she does say Hazel Tellington, the up-and-coming writer, represents the side of her who can be stubborn, cynical and somewhat clumsy. Jamie McJack, Hazel's best friend who works in a flower shop, on the other hand, represents the side of Corsetto's personality that's willing to take risks and have fun even if it means making a fool of herself.

The webcomic, which began in 2004, revolves around Hazel, who gets by with more than a little help from her friends. If it weren't for Jamie, she'd stay home in her little apartment much more than she does. Her friend Jameson helps by giving her a lead to a babysitting job, which introduces her to 10-year-old Tyler, who has an absolute fixation on "boooooobies...." While Hazel nearly strangles Jameson when he gives her a second job lead, that one puts her on the staff of the Daily Tribune, the local paper, as a reporter and later as a columnist. Hazel discovers she writes best when totally drunk, something her editor, Thea, says isn't that surprising.

Hazel's love life, such as it is, provides a lot of grist for the mill in this webcomic. She's been infatuated with Reese Phelps since she was 17, but he's off in New York and elsewhere being a traveling actor. With a lot of encouragement and some dubious setups by Jamie, she gets into dating several guys, with predictably mixed results and a lot of mixed drinks.

Corsetto has been drawing all her life. Her first comic strip was what she admits is a blatant ripoff of Garfield called Fat Cat. Give her a break; she was eight years old. She created several other comic strips during her school years, including one in high school called Fried Pudding (gotta love that name!). Just before she went to college she created Hazelnuts, the precursor, although she didn't know it at the time, to GWS. She did a couple of other comics during her college years, and Hazelnuts became her first webcomic in 2000.

Be sure to check out the interview with Danielle Corsetto that appeared on the Comic Book Resources website beginning September 10, 2008. There's also a link below.

Hazel Tellington - As the strip begins in 2004, Hazel is a recent college graduate living above a coffeeshop. She's got anxieties about bills and what she's going to do now that she's got her English degree. Fortunately, she avoids having to don a uniform and ask, "Do you want fries with that?" when she gets a job as reporter and later columnist for the Daily Tribune, the local newspaper. Her love life, or rather, her lack of a love life, leads to anxiety, strange dating situations, and the solace best found in the local bar. Lots of solace. Enough to make you think your cactus talks to you with an Irish accent.

Jamie McJack - Jamie is Hazel's best friend, "a bubbly hug on legs," says her creator. She loves her job at Flora's Flora, the flower shop. She's well-endowed and doesn't mind using that to her advantage. It's Jamie who gets Hazel out of her little apartment, and she's the one who knows where to go when Hazel needs material for her column about twenty-somethings out on the town.

McPedro - Hazel's prickly little friend (at least when she's drunk enough) isn't afraid to speak his mind and offer solace and advice to her. He's got a real passion for spiderplants and doing the macarena, for which he has a lot of stamen-a.

Jameson - He's the barista at the coffee shop under Hazel's apartment. He's a nice, easygoing guy, a little goofy, and Jamie thinks he and Hazel should date. Both resist.

Maureen - the "blog girl" stole Jameson's heart on the Internet. They meet and eventually learn to socialize with one another without laptops. Hazel's not too crazy about someone else moving in on Jameson, even if she resisted a relationship with him, so she's initially not very nice to Maureen.

Clarice - she's a wannabe librarian who insists she works in a bookstore. The store, "Variety Books (and more!)" is mostly "more." It's a porn shop, but try and get Clarice to admit that! Hazel and Jamie are rather shocked and surprised when they discover what Clarice does when she's not clerking.

Check out these characters and more, with pictures, in the "Cast" section of Girls With Slingshots.

Photo by MobyD shows the title page of Girls With Slingshots, Volume One with personalized artwork.

There are four "Girls With Slingshots" books out. To get them you'll need to go to the GWS store. At the store, not only will you find the books, you'll also find cards, buttons, original strips and other examples of Danielle Corsetto's original art.

The first book contains the first 200 strips plus 50 pages of extras, including the entire "Hazelnuts," the webcomic prequel to "GWS," and the first Hazel-and-Jamie comic strips drawn while zee artiste was in high school.

Volume Two contains strips 201-400, "How To Draw McPedro and Jameson," a Girls With Slingshots tutorial, FAQs, sketches,commissions, the making of McPedro, and the rules to Strip Scrabble (how have we lived without them all these years).

Volumes Three and Four were released in October 2009 and contain strips 401-600 and 601-800, with Volume Four including Jameson and Maureen's wedding which was anything but conventional and boring.

The Girls With Slingshots books are not generally available on Amazon at this time, although you might find one now and then sold through a third party. Your best bet is the GWS store where you can get signed or unsigned editions.

Once you begin reading the webcomic, you're bound to notice a dearth of slingshots. So what's up with that, anyway?

The purpose of this lens is to get you interested in reading the webcomic, not to give away all its secrets. But there is an answer to your question, "Where's the slingshots?" It can be found on the Girls With Slingshots website in "about gws," or as Danielle Corsetto calls it, "FAQs that I ask myself frequently."

OK, the Slingshot in strip #84 is a mixed drink, not a beer, but when I saw the beer, I had to get some so I could take the picture. Slingshot Extra Pale Ale is made by MacTarnahan's Brewing Company of Portland, Oregon. They're one of many smallish breweries in the area and they've got a reputation for brewing really good beer. I've never been disappointed, at least.

The screen shows the Girls With Slingshots cast page, so there you have it: girls with slingshots, with a little help from a large monitor, a large and slightly heavy mirror, a barstool chair and a little messing around with the photo in GIMP.

McPedro looks like he approves.