Well hello there. I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties the last couple of weeks, so I wanted to stop by and remind everyone of my existence.
In today’s page, we return to Max with a new scene. Al really brought his “A” game for this scene. The next few pages are his strongest work yet.
Over the past ten years or so, superheroes have become a hot commodity in Hollywood. Thanks to modern special effects, we can finally have movies and TV shows that do justice to the comics they are based on (who remembers the old Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk shows from the 70s and 80s?). There have been some great superhero movies, and some that weren’t so great. And I’ve been surprised that the genre has survived debacles like Daredevil and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The fact that less mainstream properties like Watchmen and Kick-Ass were produced at all, let alone with blockbuster-sized budgets, is a testament to how much faith the movie industry has in superheroes these days (and it’s really too bad that those two films weren’t more successful; I’d like the studios to be rewarded for taking those kinds of chances).
There is a school of thought in the webcomics community that every installment of a comic should provide some sort of distinct value, independent from the series as a whole. That might mean a punchline, or a cliffhanger, or a big reveal. Whatever it is, each installment should provide a basic setup/payoff structure. Obviously, this is a lot easier to accomplish with daily “gag” strips, which are designed to deliver a joke every day. But it gets a lot trickier with “long-form” comics like ours. Obviously, if each installment is a standard comic book-sized page, you can’t follow this formula. Imagine reading a graphic novel where every page ended with some sort of dramatic development. It would be exhausting.
Some webcomics have sidestepped this issue by eschewing the standard page size, or they deliver several pages at a time. This often means that they update less frequently, but each update is more self-contained. We made a decision early on that we preferred a consistent release schedule, and realized that one page a week was simply the best we could do without sacrificing quality. And since we view our story as a whole, rather than as a collection of pages, we have also resigned ourselves to the fact that we’re not going to be able to deliver a dramatically satisfying experience with each update. It’s not perfect, but it’s practical. However, there is one webcomic that effortlessly trounces the rules of practicality.
Back in early May, Al and I decided that we should turn our Specialists idea into a webcomic. Until then, we’d been planning to make a roleplaying game product, but the project was languishing (I’m using a very specific definition of “languish” here which means that Al was churning out art like some kind of art-churning machine and I was… somewhat less productive). So we switched gears and less than two months later, we launched our site. I was amazed at how quickly, cheaply, and easily it came together.
There are all kinds of resources on line that make setting up a web site a snap. Literally anyone with a few bucks and a basic level of computer literacy can launch a blog or a webcomic in no time (of course, filling it with content is another story). I love that the Internet gives everyone an equal opportunity to express themselves, and that the cost of entry is so low (for now, anyway). If you’ve ever thought about starting a website of your own, read on. Otherwise, you can probably skip this one. (You won’t hurt my feelings. Have a good weekend, and we’ll see you on Monday!)