9-25-06: Arty weasel. (+ open thread!)

[CubeOtter]

Hi there. I keep forgetting to put forum threads up like a good little admin. We're currently going through a bit of adjustment, trying to find a good balance of pictures and text and size in general. We also took a stab at color, although it still needs some work before going live.

Any suggestions or things you'd like to see us do or try? Just kinda generally curious what you guys think, although we're getting some useful feedback here and there about it, which is nice - please keep it up. Also: feel free to promote nocona if you like.

Plot-wise, we're doing okay. Pretty much worked a plan out for a while. We seem to be settling in and we're happy with things so far.

Oh, and magenta weasels are useful.

[Calbeck]

This...plot, of which you speak...what effects can we expect it will have on the strip?

For my money, you can never have enough airborne chakats...

[CubeOtter]

Well, you have to understand, nocona started with about a year's worth (or more, as it was originally going to be 3 times a week and may get there eventually) written and thought out.

Then much of that got thrown out the window as we actually started doing it and thinking of more things to do.

There is a plot. It meanders quite a lot. Isn't that a thought?

As for airborne chakats... we got permission from Mr. Doove on this very early on. I'm not sure I want to overstay the welcome.

[Calbeck]

Well, you could always segue into a version of "Weekend at Bernie's"...

"Cerine, is this your cadaver?"

"Not mine, this one's too long in the legs and hasn't begun decalcifying yet."

[Bruce Bergman]

Hi there. I keep forgetting to put forum threads up like a good little admin.

You don't have to open up a new thread here for every strip, yanno... Though whoever does open the strip should follow an agreed upon standard on the post title, like the publishing date you've used.

And if you ever get multiple strips and one forum, it gets a bit confusing unless you agree on a tag in the Subject for which strip you are discussing - Kathy Kellogg's dealing with that over at Magpie House Design.

We're currently going through a bit of adjustment, trying to find a good balance of pictures and text and size in general. We also took a stab at color, although it still needs some work before going live.

Don't go any smaller on the text than today - I have the resolution up all the way 1024x768 on a 19" LCD, GeForce FX 5200, and if you go much smaller it's going to be zoom-in time.

There have to be enough pixels left to make readable text.

Any suggestions or things you'd like to see us do or try? Just kinda generally curious what you guys think, although we're getting some useful feedback here and there about it, which is nice - please keep it up. Also: feel free to promote nocona if you like.

Plot-wise, we're doing okay. Pretty much worked a plan out for a while. We seem to be settling in and we're happy with things so far.

Oh, and magenta weasels are useful.

No doubt.

About your year of pre-planned scripts that are getting disrupted, remember the old rule: No battle plan survives intact past the initial volley.

Stuff Happens, and you have to adapt and roll with the changes. And sometimes the stuff that happens naturally and spontaneously is far funnier than anything you could try to script out in advance.

Some of the best sketch comedy work Tim Conway ever did on "Carol Burnett" was when he threw away the script, and the rest of the cast is playing along - while desperately trying to avoid cracking up... Like the "Siamese Elephants, Joined at the trunks - One elephant would try to trumpet, and the other one's eyes would get Real Big..."

--<< Bruce >>--

[CubeOtter]

You don't have to open up a new thread here for every strip, yanno... Though whoever does open the strip should follow an agreed upon standard on the post title, like the publishing date you've used.

I know, I do like to open a thread every so often. Otherwise the forum looks kind of wasteland-like, and that's no good. We're still building a fanbase.

Moment's blog (which I don't know whether he wants referenced proper or not) has been a center of some discussion as well - I need to talk with him about specifics on whether to consolidate somewhere.

Don't go any smaller on the text than today - I have the resolution up all the way 1024x768 on a 19" LCD, GeForce FX 5200, and if you go much smaller it's going to be zoom-in time.

I don't believe we're going any smaller. We're having some debate back and forth as to whether we need to switch to a 2x2 panel size or start adding some more vertical space. The main problem is that both of us are motormouths as well. This is going to take some time to resolve, least of which is getting out of this plotline so we can slow down.

Stuff Happens, and you have to adapt and roll with the changes. And sometimes the stuff that happens naturally and spontaneously is far funnier than anything you could try to script out in advance.

We had a nice long talk about this about a month ago, and basically agreed that we were doing better riffing than necessarily sticking to the original script. The script was originally created because Moment was unsure that we'd be able to just run on actually doing this comic and didn't want to run out of steam. Was also a proof-of-concept. So after South Side Story... we'll specifically loosen up on the script and just run with the general ideas, using the script as a guideline. That's kinda what we've been doing, but it also means that epics like S3 probably need to get approached with a gentler hand. We didn't know.