Review: The Guild – The Official Companion / Author: Felicia Day / Publisher: Titan Books / Release Date: Out Now
The Guild: The Official Companion is a rare thing; it’s a guide to a comedy series that started out on YouTube. It’s a credit to The Guild’s brilliance and popularity that it too can produce an oversized book to fit awkwardly on the bookshelf, filled with photos and factoids.
Fans of the show will be well served here; it’s crammed with interviews from both the cast and crew and has a lot of insight into the production of the show. Some of the crew profiles are particularly fun, especially things like prop and costume design. Each series is examined in some detail, and because it’s a web-show, each chapter comes with a QR code so you access the web-page rapidly. (Or you could just use Google.)
The Guild gathered a lot of attention through its snappy music videos, and the meme-tastic Do you want to date my avatar? is covered in depth here, as well as the other songs. The main appeal of the book is that, like the show, it’s a collaborative effort and the cast have worked together to produce it. Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh have some very amusing things to say about the The Guild, and are as funny in text as they are on the show.
If you’re into The Guild, you’ll find this very useful as it has a lot of unique content. Those looking for more general ideas on producing their own web series won’t find it as good but there are still some hints and tips to be gleaned here.
