[2] The plot originally centered on Marten Reed, an indie rock fan; his anthropomorphized personal computer Pintsize; and his roommate, Faye Whitaker.

Over time Jacques has added a supporting cast of characters that includes employees of the local coffee shop, neighbors, and androids.

[10] According to Jacques in 2008, at one point he would have sought newspaper syndication for Questionable Content, but the thought no longer appealed to him because he does not want to surrender editorial freedom.

Gradually, he decided he wanted to stop making indie rock jokes and focus more on the relationships between the characters, which had "always been the most fun and interesting part.

I'm always trying different things with the artwork — it's been a goal from day one to continually improve my drawing ability, and I think it's finally beginning to get to the point where I'm halfway decent at it.

The comic is mostly realistic with occasional bouts of absurdity, and action primarily focuses on banter between the characters, with slowly progressing plot developments.

On the other hand, the setting is filled with sentient, emotive artificial intelligences with individual personalities (referred to as "AnthroPCs" or "AIs"),[18][# 3] which frequently interact with human characters as though they have been doing so for a significant amount of time.

[18] Jacques remarked of the setting as far back as 2005:[19] Something people do not often realize is that the world in which QC takes place is considerably stranger than our own.

For instance, some of the notable technological creations in QC are the Deathbot 9000;[20] a Vespa scooter that transforms into a battle droid;[# 4] humans living permanently in space, single-stage-to-orbit ramjet-powered spaceplanes, orbital defense satellites capable of conversation.

The internal chronology of the strip is somewhat ambiguous; on January 13, 2006, Jacques stated on a LiveJournal fan community that he has "never sat down and exactly tabulated," but he suspects the total amount of elapsed QC time at that point was "no more than six months.

In other words, Jacques has created a world that not only reflects the diversity of our own in terms of gender, sexuality, disability, mental health, and ethnicity, but has added and addressed issues of AI and robotics.

[25][26][27][28][29] Graduate student Dennis Kogel used Questionable Content as a case study as part of their 2013 MA thesis at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.