Five Surprising Series That Influenced Unguarded
Before talking about what inspired Unguarded, it's worth mentioning that many of the influences behind it aren't specific to this comic at all. They're the same influences that shaped how I approach storytelling in general.
In fact, a few things about me as a creator might surprise readers:
I read quite a bit but rarely do I read comics or manga. That is probably a substantial reason why I am still actively working to improve my storytelling presentation in this format.
While I've watched plenty of anime over the years, it isn't where I typically draw inspiration.
I prefer creating original content. Unguarded is the only fan project I've ever seriously committed to and it will probably remain that way. If you'd told me years ago that most of my webcomic career would be spent working on a Dragon Ball Z story, I wouldn't have believed you.
Because of that, the biggest influences on Unguarded probably aren't what most readers would expect.
Links are on pictures~
This is likely the single biggest influence. When Vince Gilligan, whom I already followed due to being a massive fan of The X-Files, pitched the series, he talked about its premise being an arc of turning Mr. Chips into Scarface. Writing negative character arcs can be challenging and while my plans for a clear-cut arc for Freeza isn’t as straightforward as I initially planned, Breaking Bad still remains one of the key reasons I became interested in writing the fan comic. In Breaking Bad, Walt’s downfall is hubris-driven and the spiraling consequences of his actions remain one of my favorite parts of his story. I rewatch the series at least once a year as it remains one of my favorite examples of storytelling. I consider it to be my favorite show, finally edging out what was my favorite for years prior.
While I did eventually watch Friends in university, Frasier was the show I was always excited to watch from grade school onward. I absolutely love this series; it remains my favorite sitcom. The dialogue is probably the biggest influence, though I still aspire to write anything near as clever as its creative team! I picked up a few tricks for balancing likability with a snobbish, vain protagonist. I also feel its influence in how I like to handle characterization, pacing, conflict setup, cultural references, and on rare occasions, farce. I include a fair amount of references to the series though I try not to be too heavy-handed with them.
3. Third Rock From the Sun
I ended up dialing back a lot of the comedy I planned for Unguarded because it felt too disparate from the overall tone I ended up writing. Still, admiring a sitcom about aliens inhabiting human bodies remains a key reason why I like to explore cultural misunderstandings and communication breakdowns. Generating conflict between two characters operating with different pieces of information makes for great comedy but it works for drama and suspense too.
If Frasier influenced dialogue and Third Rock influenced communication breakdowns, Are You Being Served? helped me to really find the balance in writing cheeky double entendres. Single-layered dialogue is a style that can make me lose interest in a story quickly and Are You Being Served? regularly relies on implications and ambiguity. The constant innuendo creates just enough plausible deniability to avoid slipping into crudeness and it’s right in that sweet spot of where I like my comedy.
To be clear, I love A Song of Ice and Fire and have made my peace with the likelihood of never getting the last books from that series. I cannot even begin to overstate how much I learned about handling complex characters, exposition, and plot from the book series. But I want to talk about the TV adaptation.
Game of Thrones is probably the influence that taught me the most while simultaneously teaching me what I wanted to avoid.
What I admire most about the early seasons is the sense that every character had their own goals, motivations, and priorities. The world didn't revolve around a single protagonist. While certain characters received more focus than others, everyone was pursuing their own agenda and making decisions that affected the larger story. That's something I've tried to bring into Unguarded. Freeza may be the central character but the story is also shaped by Cold's ulterior motives, Cooler's ambition, Ginyu's loyalty, and countless other characters pursuing goals of their own. The world continues moving even when Freeza isn't present to witness it.
At the same time, the second half of Game of Thrones became a lesson in what can happen when a story begins prioritizing destination over journey. As other viewers did, I felt the frustration of broken character decisions, unearned and unfulfilling payoffs; and showrunners showing their hand when they started shoving characters around because they as the writers needed to arrive at certain checkpoints and didn’t want to let those situations develop more organically.
As a result, a lot of my constant revision process has been a sort of self-checklist: Has this relationship earned this moment? Would this character actually make this choice or is this more of an authorial convenience/indulgence? Has enough groundwork been established for this development to feel believable?
In that sense, Game of Thrones influenced Unguarded not only through what it did well, but also through the mistakes I hope to avoid repeating.
