Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Comic strips and heavy topics

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Meilu:
I've quit reading QC on a regular basis.

The story rings true, hits me close to home, and isn't uninteresting in and of itself. It does seem like beating a dead horse, but as others have said that's how it works most times.

While reading through the archives awhile back, I thought I'd grown to dislike the characters. It isn't that, though. I've grown to dislike Faye. I've grown to hate the pacing of the comic, too. The focus went from story to art, and I miss that old focus. That's Jeph's prerogative, I won't criticize.

Alice Grove moves glacially slow and somehow I don't mind nearly as much. Maybe it's the freshness of it all.

pwhodges:
Sometimes slowness means that any update at all is a treat!  (Dresden Codak... which is now on a fortnightly update cycle, which he's late for this week for the second time in a row!).

Anders loves Maria had periods of that as well.

I also dropped Misfile.

ReindeerFlotilla:
Pace really is hard. At least as hard as distinguishing between "this bothers me" and "this is a problem." When I wrote my strip, week 10 was supposed to be 50 strips. Instead, it's 30. That's a pacing problem because it wasn't written with a 3 day schedule in mind.

It's one I don't mean to change for now because I don't have fan base that expects anything, at all. Freedom in poverty, I guess. But if I can't change schedules, I'll eventually have to rethink my scripts. That's really underlined what the transition with QC has been--I also crunched some numbers and it holds up. The total volume of QC information density has dropped. Compared to what it was before, it's gone from 5 days of stuff to 2 to 3 days of stuff.

That's a kind of "just the facts, ma'am" look at it, and I suppose there are feels attached. But I'm fully aware that this free. Jeph doesn't owe me an adjustment in pacing any more than I owe him a page view. I certainly don't expect a change to suit me. OTOH, I do think it represents an issue. Jeph's still structuring the strip's content as he would for the more dense presentation. Practically speaking, that's going to make juggling a large cast more difficult.

Of course, as long as the page views keep up and the patrons keep paying, it's an academic problem, isn't it?

EDIT: I dropped Misfile because of the X-Files problem. While resolving the set up would end the strip, it's become clear that Misfile isn't really going anywhere. The same could be said of a lot of comics, QC among them, but QC hasn't had a setup since the talk. It doesn't have a background premise with plot implications. Misfile's issue became, "there's plot threads, but I don't care about them." I wouldn't say the quality failed. I think that's different with QC, in that I care about the plot threads, but it's starting feel like we'll never get there.

sfsdfd:

--- Quote from: Akima on 01 Jun 2015, 15:23 ---I'm not quite sure why "I'm outta here" announcements have to be made, but tastes differ on that too.
--- End quote ---
First - the post that started this thread was the second time I've ever posted in this forum - the first being a pretty basic "nice strip today" message. Why would I ragequit a forum on which I've not yet meaningfully participated? What would be the point? Why would anyone even care?

Second - please go back and read it again. I didn't write that I'm leaving. I wrote that Monday's development was so unnecessarily tawdry that it made me want to leave. I wasn't writing about my plans; I was describing the magnitude of my reaction. I'd hope that any author would consider the reaction of the audience to be valuable data.

--- Quote from: Akima on 01 Jun 2015, 15:23 ---I'm a bit puzzled by the idea that serious themes should not be revisited on a continuing basis. Surely it would be more like the "Very Special Episode" syndrome if an author treated something like a check-box, saying in effect: "OK, that's trans issues *tick box*, and alcoholism *tick box*, let's get back to the wacky fun.", and never referred to the problem again.
--- End quote ---
As I noted above, the handling of Claire's trans issue has been just utterly spot-on. It's neither been hidden, nor pushed into front and center. It has simply been a significant part of the main story arcs. Similarly, Jeph has done very well with a few other tough issues: Marigold's and Clinton's extreme social awkwardness, Faye's breakup, portrayals of sex, etc.

That's why this insistence on mucking through alcoholism, time and time again, is perplexing: it's abruptly out of character for the way that QC has dealt with tough issues. The heavy-handedness; the clumsy pacing; the insistence on portraying the most bleak and revolting aspects, like Faye vomiting all over herself... seriously, WTF? It's pointlessly cruel, both to the characters and the audience.

swapna:

--- Quote from: ReindeerFlotilla on 02 Jun 2015, 00:34 ---[...]

That's really underlined what the transition with QC has been--I also crunched some numbers and it holds up. The total volume of QC information density has dropped. Compared to what it was before, it's gone from 5 days of stuff to 2 to 3 days of stuff.

That's a kind of "just the facts, ma'am" look at it, and I suppose there are feels attached. But I'm fully aware that this free. Jeph doesn't owe me an adjustment in pacing any more than I owe him a page view. I certainly don't expect a change to suit me. OTOH, I do think it represents an issue. Jeph's still structuring the strip's content as he would for the more dense presentation. Practically speaking, that's going to make juggling a large cast more difficult.
[...]

--- End quote ---
You raise a very good point, and I think that is also the reason why people (including me) got very fatigued during the Marten/Claire-are-together-arc.  To the overall topic of an author pushing the topics that are important in an annoying way - yeah, that problem's magnified now. He did it a few times in earlier strips, too, but it usually was one or one week or so, but not 8. Gladstone's got your solution right here - I get infuriated/bored if I check the comic every day. If I check it once a week, I can ignore a lot of the pacing/filibuster issues.
(And no - people don't ragequit, usually. they quit because they're bored, or because they feel they're strung along, or because they don't care).

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