The first "era" of Eddsworld, later officially named the Classic Era or Goulden Era,[1] began when the late Edd Gould began uploading his content online. Edd's earliest-surviving creation was a short titled bendee stick meets spiderman prt 1, and it was uploaded to Stick Figure Death Theatre in November 2002, the same month he began using Flash.
History[]
During Edd's time at Orleans Park School,[2] he would draw comics about his playground friends being killed and consumed. Edd's school friends would be "cast" in what he called 'Edd's World', a title inspired by Wayne's World. Edd later joined Neopets (about 9.5 years from November 2011[3]) with Matt Hargreaves[4] (who Edd met in primary school) and some other friends, and he created a Guild accompanied with its own website titled 'Edd's Kill-a-thon'. After angry threats from some users, the admins removed Edd's guild for having a violent title. Because of this, Edd created a new guild titled 'Edd's World' with a GeoCities webpage.[5]
On top of the comics, Edd started using an animated GIF maker to make animations about various things like "stickmen dying and farts". However, when Edd finally found a site to post the GIF's on (sfdt.com), he discovered they were only accepting flash-animated entries. Edd decided to search for some flash entries and came across one titled Agent Smiley, and he downloaded Macromedia Flash MX on November 7, 2002 as a result. After some time, Edd started to transition from making stick animations to making "character-based" animations.[5] The flash animations would continue to have drawn versions of Edd's real-life friends, including Matt.
Edd would be first animation to feature the name "Edd's World", it featured a stick version of Edd while also featuring Matt and Joe (a former friend of Edd).
Edd would go on to meet other people online. Thomas Ridgewell took a liking to several of Edd's submissions to StickSuicide.net and added him on a messaging service. On top of this, Tom provided a voice for Bendee 7. Tom started interacting with Edd even more Edd posted Edd Again, sending fan art and other work clearly inspired from the art style in the short.[5] Edd debuted the first version of Tom's animated counterpart, designed by Tom who added a unibrow to one of his Edd Again-inspired drawings,[5] in Eddsworld Halloween. Later, Edd met Tord Larsson after Tord liked one of Edd's animations on Newgrounds. Initially brought on to draw comics for the Eddsworld website,[6] Edd would later debut an animated counterpart of Tord in Eddsworld Christmas Special.
In early-mid 2005, Edd began to have computer and internet problems.[7] This resulted in a period without new submissions from Edd. On March 17, 2006, Edd started his YouTube channel, and the first eddisode he uploaded was "Tord's Adventure" the day after he joined, and the day after it was uploaded to Newgrounds.
Tord Larsson would leave the show in late 2008, his character made his last regular appearance in 25ft Under the Seat where he can be seen leaving in a car at the beginning of the episode. However he later voiced him in a flashback scene in WTFuture.
On March 25, 2012, Edd passed away after a 6-year-long battle with cancer. Edd made it clear he wanted Eddsworld to continue even after his death, prompting Thomas Ridgewell and Eddie Bowley to create and direct Eddsworld: Legacy.
Scrapped/Unknown Projects[]
Power of Three[]
The announcement of a new game was made in late May of 2009. Edd stated: "I have also formed a group with Psycosis91 (who coded Not-so Special Stage and Bang, Boom, Splat!) and TheWaves (who made the intro music for MovieMakers) for the Newgrounds 'Power Of Three' summer event - which basically means we shall be making a game together over the next few months, hopefully meaning it will be an awesome game!"
Word continued to be released on this game until mid-August of 2009, when the game was officially dubbed "Kid Thulu" and was destined to be a platformer. Shortly after this announcement, updates on "Kid Thulu" stopped.
Copyright Infringement[]
Edd Gould used numerous copyrighted materials in his videos until around 2009.[8] Because of this, certain videos were edited, remastered for sound, and uploaded to the "Eddsworld Extra" channel.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ The phrase "Goulden Era" was coined by fan artist Sal D. Barr in July 2024. The phrase was later endorsed by Eddsworld showrunner Matt Hargreaves.
- ↑ "Tributes flood in for Eddsworld creator, a former Richmond College pupil, who died aged 23" - Richmond and Twickenham Times (4/14/2012)
- ↑ Question: "so when exactly did you join neopets? i've been on it for 4 or 5 years now xD"
Edd's Answer: "According to my account i signed up 9 and a half years ago. Hahaha i'm old." - ↑ Matt: "Edd, we both discovered neopets together and got hooked... i appeared earlier than is implied here. TOM? TOM IS THE FIRST CREW MEMBER?! FTS"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Origins of Eddsworld [WORDSWORDSWORDS]" (2011)
- ↑ "Introducing the new part-time workers at Eddsworld....
Tom Ridgewell & Tord Larrson
Tom is Going To do the Occassional Comic and flash, while Tord is our new Comic artist! check out his most recent one... 'Hobbie accessories'!" (11/13/2004) - ↑ "Im Not Dead.... Yet." (4/18/2005)
- ↑ "Lots of Copyright Violations: Just so you know, all my movies with copyrighted music are finally being removed from deviant art - which is fair enough, i have been expecting it, i'm only concerned i may be in trouble for not knowing the rules back when i submitted them.." (2009)
External Links[]
- eddsworld.co.uk (archived)
- Eddsworld Newgrounds page
- Eddsworld DeviantArt page
- Eddsworld SheezyArt page
- Eddsworld YouTube channel
- Eddsworld Twitter page
- Eddsworld Facebook page
- Eddsworld Kongregate page
- Eddsworld Tumblr page
- Eddsworld AlbinoBlackSheep page
- Eddsworld forums (stickthemepark.com)
| Animations | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animators | Edd Gould • Thomas Ridgewell • Tord Larsson • Paul ter Voorde • Matt Hargreaves • Chris O' Neill | |||
| Writers | Edd Gould • Thomas Ridgewell • Tom Bown | |||
| Voice actors | Edd Gould • George Gould • Thomas Ridgewell • Matt Hargreaves • Alex L'Abbé • Tord Larsson • Paul ter Voorde • Yanov Cutajar • Arin Hanson • Chris O' Neill • Eddie Bowley | |||
| Musicians | Edd Gould • Thomas Ridgewell • Chris O' Neill • Christopher Bingham | |||
| Others | Vicky Gould | |||
| Comics | ||||
| Artists | Edd Gould • Tord Larsson • Paul ter Voorde • Louise Weir • Matt Hargreaves | |||
| Writers | Edd Gould • Thomas Ridgewell • Matt Hargreaves | |||
| Games | ||||
| Programmers | Edd Gould • Psycosis | |||
| Artists | Edd Gould | |||