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Concerned

Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman is a webcomic by Christopher C. Livingston that parodies the first-person shooter video game Half-Life 2. The comic is illustrated with screenshots of characters posed using Garry's Mod, a tool which allows manipulation of the Source engine used by Half-Life 2. The comic ran from May 2005 to November 2006 and had 205 issues.

While Half-Life 2 follows protagonist Gordon Freeman in a dystopian future, Concerned follows "Gordon Frohman", a dangerously clumsy character who arrives in the setting of the game a few weeks before Freeman does. The webcomic's dark humor is derived from its contrasts with the game and through references to the game's shortcomings. On several occasions in the comic, Frohman becomes the cause of various disastrous circumstances that Freeman will later encounter.

Several reviews of Concerned praised the attention to writing and presentation and the comic's humor. Livingston also reported positive reception from staff at Valve, the developer company of Half-Life 2, who were pleased to have a comic based on their game. In 2014, Livingston began work as a writer for PC Gamer.

Christopher Livingston started working on Concerned as a hobby. He had previously considered developing a webcomic that would parallel the storyline of the original 1987 Legend of Zelda, for the Nintendo Entertainment System, from start to finish. He chose the Half-Life 2 game world as the scene for his comic because he was a fan, and because the availability of Garry's Mod eliminated the need to draw by hand. He always intended the plot of the comic to end at the same point as the game.

Livingston thought a comic would be a good way to introduce humor to the game, which he has described as "mysterious, moody, [and] immersive".

Well, I thought Half-Life 2 was a great game, but there simply weren't enough jokes about toilets in it. So, I thought a comic would be a good place to get some humor into the game. I came up with the idea for Frohman, a complete idiot, to play all the way through the game, just like Freeman only instead of being a hero, he'd be a complete fool.

— Christopher C. Livingston

The first issue of Concerned was released on May 1, 2005, the comic completing its run on November 6, 2006 with a total of 205 issues. The characters in the comic were posed using Garry's Mod, a tool which facilitates manipulation of the Source engine used by Half-Life 2, and the comic frames were assembled using Photoshop 6.

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