Playing to lose
This is one of my favorite updates for this season. I’m not sure how effective it is, and maybe it just shows that I’ve spent too much of my life reading experimental comics and haven’t learned a thing from them. A little part of my Graphic designer self died when I added that third font, but it wouldn’t work any other way.
Long form storytelling is a new thing for me. Is it okay to let one of your characters wax poetic for ten minutes about a pet peeve if it has nothing to do with the story at hand? Is it okay if the story at hand has no real structure, and will be broken up by other, smaller story fragments that will not be resolved at the end of the current story? Is telling a story about restaurant renovations a good idea or am I just losing people’s attention?
Part of what makes a webcomic special is that you get to watch me figure things out. It’s something like watching a runaway freight engine that’s been fitted with offroad tires. Yes I’m the one shoveling coal into the furnace, but I don’t really know where I’m headed and the whole thing could crash and burn at any given point.
I admire John Alison for his ability to do nicely tied up episodic stories that still advance the characters and build the world. I don’t know if I can do that with Cats in the Kitchen, not that I didn’t spend the whole freaking summer trying. I’ve been reading Freakangels lately and it seems like more the kind of story structure that I’m looking for with CitK. (Go ahead, Ask me if I read comics that aren’t from England) FA is strictly episodic, since it was released weekly in print, but the story itself isn’t. Or at least the episode starts and ends are subtle enough that I don’t notice them.
Anyway, the net result of all this is that today you get a waitress committing suicide in Galaga, while her boss and co-workers discuss business, and she has an inner rant about the misuse of graphs. So, yeah…
(I’m not editing this because I had to run off to work)
I think you over analyzing yourself to much. I mean you’re still establishing the charters. As for losing readers I can’t speak for any other person who reads; but, I came to this comic expecting to see people and situations I can relate to and so far that is what I have gotten. So as long as you stay true to your characters I don’t think you have too much to worry of losing readers.
Thanks Stephan
I’m not really too worried. I’m going to keep telling the stories I want to, no matter what. What got me thinking about holding audience attention was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i69Xb2ZMgGI
Thinking of it as a microcosm of any form of entertainment, the first few repetitions, the audience doesn’t really get it. Then by repetition number four, you get a pretty big laugh, but number five gets a smaller one. Things go pretty steady for a while, then the audience gets invested in it and the laughter picks up so it’s almost constant by the time he becomes unintelligible.
It feels like I’m around repetition five of this project, I got some spikes in readership at the start of the year, but they’ve more or less petered down to a constant, albeit slight growth curve, and I can work with that. I just need to keep slapping my knee and singing at the top of my lungs. If that metaphor makes any sense at all.
Oh is there some kin’da moderation thing for post’en comments now? I don’t remember that.
Yeah, no that’s always been there. I’m not too keen on spammerdroids.