Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 2821-2825 (27 - 31 October 2014) Weekly Comic Discussion Thread
Aziraphale:
--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 28 Oct 2014, 15:58 ---Go back and start reading QC from Comic 1.
Every 5 comics, hit the banner link to take you to the current comic, before going back to the archive.
Why?
Jeph didn't hit this level of art for 700+ strips. Even then, he wasn't satisfied. The art just keeps changing.
Jeph didn't hit this level of storytelling for nearly 400 strips. Even now, he's constantly fiddling with how he tells stories. His latest thing is less word = good.
The lesson, me thinks, is don't wait until you're "good." "Good enough" will do. What's good enough? Make something. show it someone else. Did they understand it? If yes, it's good enough.
Lesson two is, "You'll have time to be good at it when you're dead. Right now, it's time to be doing it."
--- End quote ---
For me, the comic is okay in the early going, but the storytelling doesn't really hit its stride 'til The Talk. I think getting that out of the way opened the comic to go in some different directions, and may also have shown Jeph that he could play against expectations and people would still stick with him. While the art's vastly improved around then, I think it hits a sweet spot (for me) somewhere in the 1500's, but that's just a matter of personal preference. There were times before and after that that I loved, but that kinda mid-period stuff was a happy medium between the early days, when I think Jeph was kinda figuring out how to draw,* and the more recent stuff that's a bit more stylized (though he's getting a lot more mileage out of facial expressions lately, which is also very cool).
*Not a knock against him; this is something he's said before.
Regarding creativity, there's an awesome book called "The Midnight Disease" that explores the link between writing and depression, but it touches on creativity more broadly (and on issues far beyond depression). It's a good read if you're interested in any of those things (or the intersections among them).
ReindeerFlotilla:
I think the one thing Jeph had down from the start was patience. If he didn't know the talk was coming from strip 1, he still knew pretty early. He still managed to go ~500 strips before he finally got there. If he meant For Claire and Marten to be a thing from the moment he added her to the cast, he still waited 605 strips to pay out.
I'm not saying any of this to poop in Jeph's cheerios. It takes guts to do what he did, at all. "Here's my art!" That's bold. But it takes even more guts to say, "I'm going to do better tomorrow. And I'm not going to remove the old stuff, or redo it." I like QC as much because I can see that he's always working on it. Jeph doesn't phone it in.
Estron:
Heh heh. I just hit my QC bookmark to see if the Wednesday strip is up, and I actually read the title of today's strip: "Please Try Again Later." That's funny.
Or Emily-funny.
bhtooefr:
Is Dora going to have to threaten Faye to get her to call her therapist?
Gladstone:
I wonder what Angus is up to, and who he's getting advice from. Marigold? Momo? MAY?
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