Doom (comic)

The Doom comic is a sixteen-page comic strip, written in 1996 by Steven Dehling and Michael Stewart, with art and color design by Tom Grindberg, all credited with purposely gory nicknames for the occasion. It was produced by the same Tom Grindberg, of Marvel Comics, as a giveaway for a video game convention.

The story is loosely based on that of Doom, and revolves around a marine searching for powerful weaponry in order to defeat a Cyberdemon. The strip includes many well-known Doom monsters, including zombies, Imps, Cacodemons and Spectres. Several of the weapons from Doom are featured, including the shotgun, chainsaw, chaingun, plasma gun and BFG9000.

The comic has been criticised (though less than the Doom movie) by many in the Doom community for its content. Most of the criticism concerns the marine protagonist of the comic. In contrast with the game, where the marine is mostly silent, the character in the comic makes a running commentary of clichéd phrases. Examples include: "You're stupid! And you're going to be stupid and dead!"; "Rip and tear your guts! You are huge! That means you have huge guts! Rip and tear!"; "Who's a man and a half? I'm a man and a half! A berserker-packing man and a half!"; At one point, the marine launches into a tirade concerning the polluting effects of radioactive slime, though this preaching is cut short when he realizes his weapon is out of ammo.

Another point of criticism is the way certain weapons are portrayed in the comic. The plasma rifle is shown shooting out large jets of fire, and the BFG 9000 shoots bullets.

On the other hand, the comic has also become something of a cult hit, with its fans hailing it as a comedy in the vein of Army of Darkness, although there is still some debate on whether or not the humor is intentional. Various lines from the comic, as listed above, have developed into memes, with the "huge guts" rant probably ranking as the most popular.

The comic first achieved fame when Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka reviewed the comic on PlanetQuake. Original art from the project was put up for auction on eBay in April of 2004. The perceived bad quality of the Doom comic has turned it into something of a meme within the Doom community.

Fan tributes

 * A dramatic rendition of the Doom comic, released in September 2005
 * A video version of the Doom comic, incorporating scans and the dramatic renditon audio.