Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE
Alice Grove MCDLT - THE END...?
Jeemy:
--- Quote ---Know what Patreon usually covers? Flight costs, printing costs, accommodation, shipping fees. Which would probably be considerably higher since Jeph moved to Canada a couple of years ago.
--- End quote ---
Keeping it brief as I have little more to say on the matter: Perhaps this seemingly patronising response is indicative of the fact that you think most people would not realize this.
I think most people would understand exactly this. I especially understand the costs involved for multiple reasons, I have decades of first-hand experience in many of the fields including printing, publishing, music recording and self-employment.
I would argue that every business owner in the creative or any other industry has to pay for their own flight & accomodation costs. Printing & shipping *should* be recouped by the sales made. There may be a shortfall between sales and costs, and that either gets funded by loans, profit from existing revenue streams, or funding whether that be Patreon, business loans or whatever. If that shortfall never reduces, its not a viable business.
I am sure 5,300 Patreons x between $1-5 per month does a pretty good job of covering flights to conventions.
A $200,000 kickstarter to print QC Vol 6 at $10 per person would be 20,000 copies. Printing costs on 20,000 160pp perfect bound books are under £20,000 GBP, so about $30,000 USD?
And you're right, I don't want to fund his Patreon anymore as I feel that this abrupt end to AG has not just been slightly odd, its been completely cut-and-run.
derech:
How many people still wonder, often actively, such things as the actual architects of the Giza Plateau and its sturdiest buildings, who Jack the Ripper really was, what happened to Amelia Earhart, the identity of the Zodiac Killer, and now, what was/is the NightWalker and why did/does it shoot the moon with stolen nanotech thousands of years ago/from now.
I might read through AG again at a pace that flows the same from start to end, as having a timing-lopsided experience is not conducive to much in the way of gauging a whole lot of things. A curious interesting side-project patronized by some and not by others. Hopefully, at least in aggregate, everyone got their money out of it. Although hopefully everyone realizes that whenever you pay for art, you are taking a chance you'll like it enough to justify to yourself its cost.
As far as this ending, it, and a lot of other story elements, could have gone a lot farther in a lot more detailed ways. So yes it's somewhat incomplete. Sure the story is kind of rambling, and the end just an end. A slice of story at a given time, in such a long time as Alice Grove herself has been around, maybe pretty accurate as to how she might see things. But the ending, yes. A little terse. However, it's likely not so bad to make just about anyone and everyone never want to see any of it again at all.
Chopping off any second reading/watching/viewing by the bulk of an audience, that's a real danger sometimes; in one case, you end up in a logical but somewhat depressing state, not bad itself. But combined with how seemingly random so much of the bulk of the material preceding it is, and how in so many ways is pointless, gives not much reason (short of a real love of the situations and actors and actresses) to watch again. For example, I felt that way about Six Feet Under. Worth watching once, but that's about it. On the other side of that, you can get an ending that is so amateurish and sloppy, so horribly and numbingly terrible, that you have a reason to not watch again even the "good seasons" if out of nothing more than spite, at best. For example, I felt that way about Dexter. Then you've got material that might be worth watching again even if that's just to remind yourself on how good filmmakers and storytellers would never do things, because unless you're a megafanboi willing to forgive anything, there's nothing but a smidge or two of coolness (or acting) to redeem a work. Inglourius Basterds, here's looking at you. On another side of that, somebody who almost never gets to finish anything plot-wise because they've apparently not thought of any way to tie things up (which often turns out okay, for them, as the shows get canceled anyway because all the threads snap at once), doesn't understand the material they're working with (because they are not a fan of the original) and surprise their characters are shallow hollow representations of the original, the work having none of the benefits of the original, the time-travel elements a mess. Hi, reboot of Star Trek (movies). But not everyone likes scifi to begin with. Still, you hire a person who doesn't like the original to reboot it? Seems rather odd. Yet there you are.
Although there are probably plenty of people who are big fans of all of those things in spite of everything else, and that's okay too. And who's to say here that if there was a reprinting of this in physical form that there might not be some additions or subtractions, or that other things might come out of it. Not everyone likes instrumental heavy metal experiments, or one person bands, but there's plenty of jazz (pop, rock, classical, opera, etc) out there and lots of multiple people bands if that's your thing. Perhaps the next side project (musical or comic or otherwise) will be better, maybe it will be worse, some will fund it, some won't.
mil:
To highlight my suspicion that AG was ended abrubtly, I'd point out alicegrove.com/page/17, where JJ's text at the bottom states:
“That does it for chapter 6. We’re getting towards the end, I think. Not sure how long it’ll take but we’re getting there. Alice will be back in 2 weeks while I write the next stuff. Thank you for reading.”
I can't speak for anybody else, but when I read that I wasn’t expecting the end to come 16 panels later, i.e after less than 10% of the total artwork/script content and considerably less than 1% of that ineffable concept ’story time’.
Just one of the problems this rapid end brought writing-wise: in page 21, Pate ends up with Gavia’s energy blade in his heart. In page 18 Pate points out that killing him lets Church off his leash, and “you’ve got the tiger by the tail and you’d better not ever let go.” That’s a great moment of tension, but unfortunately it's utterly ruined by the fact that maybe 5 minutes of real time passes and no scene changes occur before Church’s leash is loosed.
In the interest of being constructive as well, I liked the fact that JJ left Alice's role in the pre-Blink war ambiguous. I also can't fully condemn her for the revelation that she caused most of the war's deaths; as she says in alicegrove.com/page/130, "I'm sorry Ardent. If I'm right, you're being used as a weapon. That's a terrible thing to be. I should know. I was a weapon once", then as good as bursts into tears. She clearly had the authority to make whatever bad decisions she made in the war of her own volition, but nevertheless, I feel like there was some bigger power there compelling her to do so in some way...
Welu:
I thought Alice Grove was an interesting project. It's generally fun to see creators you like stretch their wings and enter new territory. I enjoyed getting to know these characters and seeing some of their stories. I'm unsure how I feel about the end.
I liked the last page. It felt appropriately bittersweet.
mil:
Gifting Patreons a pdf of AG was a nice gesture. Thanks, JJ!
I liked the last page too, I have to say. The impact of Alice's departure on Ardent, Gavia and Sedna was very well done. Finishing up with the wind turbine prominent in the last frame called back to the start very nicely too.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version