Awful Hospital Hi Res Art + Notes - Gynnie

I figured from day one of Awful Hospital that I'd have a doctor based on a gynecological speculum. It's a tool that looks like a weird metal bird head and everyone (rightfully) hates it, so how could it possibly not be a monster? Trouble is, it's a tool whose purpose isn't exactly work-safe, and is tied to a lot of bad history and traumatic experiences for a lot of people.

This made me feel like I had to conceive this character kind of delicately. At first, I'd sketched a tiny, googly-eyed metal duck doctor with a rubber glove body, which I hoped would be so pitiful and stupid looking that it would lesson any ick-factor. I also imagined the character as a male doctor who was totally clueless about reproductive anatomy, a dig at an unfortunately all-too-common experience a lot of my friends and family have had, but I decided I didn't want that for my comic, and it was also redundant with the kook personality of Phage.

In the end, I went hard in the other direction. I made Gynnie big and downright nightmarish, a physical embodiment of everything intimidating about trusting a doctor with your orifices, with an eyeball inside of the "mouth" to represent someone peering through the speculum and a slimy tongue to just make it, well, really super creepy.

But I gave this terrifying thing the least terrifying personality I could. A totally kind, sweet, well meaning, motherly doctor who truly wants what's best for her patients and knows her stuff. In other words, someone who seems scary and alarming but is exactly who you want to be in charge of you, and anything "wrong" with her in the comic right now is the fault of our villains corrupting the hospital around her.

There is no hand or arm inside that glove, if you were wondering. In fact, it's only filled with a dense lymph fluid. The metallic parts are also fully flexible, despite still having the texture and sturdiness of stainless steel.