Uh oh, it's Episode 261! Officer Friendly put his cards down on the table before Mai's plan gets the better of him. A night in the slammer seems to be looming, but there may still be a trick or two up those overcoat sleeves. Rika has lost her appetite for Chinese food for the moment.
I've been having my schedule at work flipped back, then forth, and finally back again for the past month, and it's been challenging trying to set aside time to draw. I think it'll be calming down from here on out, which will definitely help with maintaining a little more consistency in the update schedule. At least, I hope it will. A man can dream. On the plus side, I'm not working nights anymore.
In a way, yes. I think webcomic authors tend to be too nice to a specific character, often the lead character, even when the rest of the world comes tumbling down around them. I hate to trot this one out, but Dominic Deegan's namesake always seems to come out of any situation smelling like roses. What's funny is that this same comic has also played the drama-is-my-characterization card, so maybe it's not the best example. I had a similar problem with Maytag, of Flipside fame, but it's been a while since I've read that comic and times may very well have changed.
We are in agreement that drama is a poor character substitute, but at the same time, I generally dislike a character who's immune to misfortune. I'm an equal opportunity sadist: I like it when both the good and the bad get it rough, because it keeps the playing field level. I believe that a lot of the time, a character's solutions to the problems they're presented with are what really helps define them as people.
I'd have to disagree with you on the H2G2 front. I think part of what made the series so compelling (for me, at least) was Arthur's perpetual bad luck, which underscores in bright red ink that even on the cosmic scale, no good deed goes unpunished. He did finally catch a break in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, though.
Seriously? You think webcomics writers are too nice? I feel just the opposite. Give me some specific examples, please.
I'm not saying hardship-type characterization and/or development is bad, I'm just saying you can't use it nearly exclusively, which a lot of writers seem to do. And maybe 'hardship' isn't so much the right term as 'chaos'. Compare one terrible thing happening to form the plot of a whole novel- like say, in most of Michael Crichton's books- versus constant hijinks that eventually destroy the author's credibility as a plotter- like in Douglas Adams' H2G2. Characters need a breather from time to time- or even better, a nice slow warm-up at the start of the story. Otherwise the plot starts to shake itself apart, or the characters become so warped they alienate the readers.
For webcomics writers who are too tough, I'd point to Maritza Campos as the poster child. I stopped reading CRFH years ago because the endless sequence of horrors she visited on the cast became too improbable to believe- and I keep hearing that things are only getting worse. Another big example would be Pete Abrams, who was unable to resist his compulsion to keep throwing one disaster after another into Sluggy Freelance until readers started giving up on any plots actually being resolved and just stopped visiting the site.
You're right, characterization and hardship are two completely different beasts. But, one without the other makes for a pretty boring story. You can characterize up the yin-yang, but without a conflict, you've got little more than a character profile in bullet point. Which is not to say that lots of characterization is bad, but it's part of a full suit: it'll look kind of silly if you walk outside wearing the sportcoat and no pants.
I think a lot of webcomic writers get stuck in the trap of being too nice to their darlings, making all the right things happen to them and never really letting them get their hands dirty. It's a personal pet peeve, so I try to head it off at the pass whenever I can.
There's a counterpoint to Vonnegut's advice that I think needs more attention: hitting your characters with one disaster after another may show what they are made of, but it won't show your readers what they are actually like. It's a form of destructive testing, and while firing a chicken out of a cannon at a stationary airplane will let you find out how the cockpit glass holds up in a bird strike, it won't tell you what BBQ chicken tastes like. Characterization does not equal hardship. You can learn a tremendous amount about a character just from seeing how they go through an ordinary week.
It was kind of a "Saw it coming" thing.
It felt a bit anti-climactic, but that's only because of the wait between comics.
That's because I expect too much from the next strip.
My comment was meant to be joking in tone, not deadly serious or a command! I speculate too. Often wrongly.
I really don't mind if you folks try to guess what happens next. If it helps, I tend to take the Murphy's Law approach. A great author once wrote, "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of."
I see your and Autsa's point about speculation and now I think about it I agree with you both.
But it also seems to me that GD isn't likely to change the storyline over a few comments if that is even what you were worried about?
It's none of my business anyway so I don't know why I got into it. In future I will not comment on fellow commentorz.
But Autsa is right =O Instead of making your head explode trying to imagine what happens next, just wait and see =p
YOU ARE A GENIUS GD!!
(What's with the orders Autsa? Chillify outz yer harshin' my buzz)
I just knew the :awesome: face was gonna show up at some point
Wow, Officer Friendly is that good.
Dudes! Don't speculate, just spectate! Let all the pieces fall in their own time.
Heh, now you know Ruby/Mai's not going to just stand there and do nothing about it. I mean come on she's half machine, and some jack*** just tricked her nearest and dearest friend into indecency and possession charges.
Damn u Officer Friendly.....DAMN U!!!!
It ain't over yet, folks.
A plot twist? Because it advances the story, while making it interesting; this being a vast improvement over three people sitting in a circle getting sleepy eyed, lazy, and hungry (something I see every day OUTSIDE of my comics).
Well that was pintless. Why trick the cop and all that jazz for two pages when he tricks them either way at the end? I hope mai/ruby kicks his annoying ass out of the comic.
I liked where this was going, now not so anymore. I still think this would be entrapment and any judge would throw it out of court. Comic solution, make Mai-Ruby rip out the pipe and beat Officer Friendly to win Rika's trust and possibly love.
Since i'm channeling the comic book guy from the simpsons already, I might as well add that I didn't like the retconning of Rika's weed usage back in the first strip. Having her be a new user would've opened up a bevy of possibilities for this arc.
I just wanted to see my two hobbies, OHP and weed, combine in a burst of awesomeness. =/