Postmortem: Volume 01 – Part 01: I want to crush (on) you
Conclusion
Four positives versus six negatives. That’s better than I was expecting.
Now that I think I have my main concerns covered it’s time to think about ways to solve them. The length of the story can be easily fixed by working again with pre-established scripts and storyboards, as I was already doing in volume 00. That will ensure that I’m not only telling the story I want to tell, but in the way I want to tell it and in the best way possible for Robomeks as a webcomic. Collateral damage can also be solved this way. Foreshadowing, though, is going to be a hard one. While from now on I’ll try to use that technique between the boundaries of a single part, so far there’s quite a bunch set as soon as chapter 1, volume 00 that need to be concluded. Inconsistency is an assumed problem, as I was (and still am) evolving Robomeks in all its aspects. The webcomic thing, that’s a losing battle, so I give up for now. And the navigation issues, well, that’s something that not only will be fixed, but improved in several ways with the new site design. Being a long form webcomic, navigation is key for attracting and keeping new readers, so this aspect will get extra love. In fact, Robomeks will have one of the most (if not the most) complete array of navigation options of any webcomic available, recovering some features from the first site design and adding new ones.
Thanks to those of you who have had the patience to read all this. For the rest, no problem, this post has been mainly done for personal reasons, and so far it has helped me to think carefully about some of the issues and has lead to some decisions that will, hopefully, improve Robomeks in this new stage. You can see some of them in the comic pages as of now.
And, finally, excuses to those among you who were politely waiting for me to publish this to comment on this whole part. This post soon turned out to be too long, and was threatening the time I needed to prepare and publish the comic page, which has priority, as you probably understand. That’s why it’s been published later than I announced.
Just don’t forget to comment below if you like.
4 Comments
I don’t know how long I’ve been reading Robomeks, but it’s been a few months at least. So far, I’ve really enjoyed it! Normally, I wouldn’t comment, but I thought I’d like to let you know that I think it’s been great so far.
As for the problems you identified, I think this went very well. Personally, I don’t mind the length, but you certainly do have a point. As for foreshadowing, I read for enjoyment, not to analyze something. So, quite often, foreshadowing will be lost on me. However, I realize there are people who love that stuff, so by all means, please continue. I’m only mentioning it, because, for me, I don’t consider it a detriment to the comic.
As for the rest of it, it went well, for me. Occasionally, there are “hiccups” in the English translation/version, but overall, it’s really good. Considering the amount of text/language you’re dealing with, you’re doing really well. English is my first, and only language (excluding Gibberish, but that doesn’t count), so I *really* appreciate that you publish this comic in English.
Great job overall. I look forward to your continued work. Mouser X over and out.
Thanks for your comment, Mouser X. I’m also more a stalker than a commenter myself, so I appreciate it.
I’m glad that this part worked in general for you. Sometimes is difficult to know when you’re in the good track or not, so any feedback is always helpful.
About the language, well, there’s not too many options if you want to reach your audience, particularly when talking about sci-fi, with this particular art style, etc. When all the matryoshka dolls are opened, the potential audience that is left is niche at best. Going international, and therefore, publishing it in English, was the only way. Fortunately, this wasn’t only a “forced” decision, but a personal wish. So, there’s nothing to thank. I would publish Robomeks in English even if none of the above were true, as I’m enjoying the challenge
Thanks again and I hope you keep enjoying Robomeks.
I just finished reading your web comic for the first time, and I really do enjoy what I see. I also went over your Postmortem and think that you have done a great job of of contructively analyzing your work. I’m sure you get plenty of feedback, but I really like where you are going with this story and wanted to help!
The only thing I had problems with (that you didn’t cover in your postmortem) is with some of the pages where the panels are uneven. I really like the look, but some times I wasn’t sure how to follow the action. Do I read across and then down, or down and then across? It would be helpful for the reader to have a clearer idea of the sequence of panels.
You also mentioned the problems with forshadowing. Might I suggest what I have seen in other web comics: on pages that reference something that was forshadowed in the past, put links to the pages where it was originally forshadowed. This won’t work for everything, especially when the forshadowing is very subdued, but used properly it can work as a reminder to your readers and releave you of some of the burden of having to re-tell everything.
Take care,
Tim
Thanks for your comment and welcome, Tim.
Page layout: That’s a very interesting issue you’ve brought up and, indeed, I probably should have included it. Most of the problematic pages you’ve detected could have been fixed with a more exigent revision process of their storyboard but, unfortunately, I’ve been limited by time restrains too often. I always tried to give hints about the reading pattern, though, but I agree that sometimes those hints were too subtle or simply, not enough. Anyway, I’ll try to be more careful about this from now on. Fortunately, this shouldn’t affect the present part dramatically, as it’s based on the storyboard of the previous page format, which already had a traditional (boring, but easy to follow) storytelling.
Foreshadowing: Yes, I’ve thought about placing a kind of recap text on the pages comment several times. In fact, I did it once. When Edgar mentions to Ace his past attacks, placing in the page comment a couple links to the scenes where Edgar appeared previously. The problem is, as you say, that sometimes this can’t be solved with only a link, and I can’t stop thinking that this is a quick patch at best, as the problem lays in the way foreshadowing is used. But… there’ll be something like this once the new site design is finished. It won’t be presented as you’ve usually seen in other webcomics, though.
And, no, there’s no “plenty of feedback”, it’s been quite scarce in fact. Partially because I’m not actively involved in the “webcomic community” (so I don’t benefit from the usual cross-commenting, etc) and partially because I suspect most Robomeks readers share my own profile (mostly introspective “not-so-young” people). So, any feedback is always welcomed, particularly when it’s as interesting and well constructed (not to mention funny) as it’s been so far