Comic Awards

So I just finished rereading the final 7 chapters of John Allison's Scary Go Round. Looking at the chapter archive I recall how incredibly long the comic ran. I'm not sure I have even read every single page, but... wait, no, I'm pretty sure I have. I don't like the earlier chapters as much simply because they focused on two different protagonists, and I fell in love with the later protagonists: Shelley, Amy, Ryan, Esther de Groote, and Sarah Grote.

Besides everyday life, the general premise of the comic is that there are mysteries that need to be solved in Tackleford, England. Monsters and other things exist, including a somewhat retarded merman creature, Des. Shelley died and came back to life. They went to Atlantis. But what makes the wacky scenarios work is the witty banter and strong character development. Anyone who reads any webcomics will recognize Mr. Allison's style, which is beautiful and colorful and hip. Scooby-Doo like mysteries and hijinks aside, I wish I could be as quirky and fun as these characters. I'd look for some of my best quotes, but then I'd get caught up in it again and wouldn't stop reading until the end. Again.

I've always wished I was funnier. I love to make people laugh. Get me with the right people, and my sarcastic best will cut like a sword. But more likely, I'm the straight man to my friends, and I'm fine with that. I'm much too level headed and safe to do the kind of things that make great stories. Why could I never have thought to do something like this? I haven't seen a jukebox in ages, but that's beside the point.

As I have spent the past 2+ hours rereading Scary Go Round, I might have to say that it is the best comic that I have yet read. And I have read many webcomics. Questionable Content is still going strong, and I have reread the majority of it, even though it's not divided into chapters. Sam and Fuzzy got a little weird after the ninja mafia storyline finished. Sam Logan's transition to Ninja Mafia Services was very far from the origins of the comic, when Sam was a poor, unsuccessful taxi driver. I felt like I've been strung along for a very long time waiting to find out about Fuzzy's past. Otherwise I would have given up on the comic. One thing that makes me choose Scary Go Round over the others is the fact that the narrative storytelling has a lot more structure. And as weird as some of their adventures are, for the most part their lives go back to normal, yet there is definite long term character development. It's the best of both worlds. At this point I don't believe I would ever go back and reread more than maybe 100 strips of Questionable Content, simply because it's so massive.

I have a dream that I could make some kind of webcomic. It would be primarily a guy talking with his pet Red Panda. I'm a little obsessed with Red Pandas, if you hadn't noticed. There does seem to be a trend among webcomics for animal characters who either have word bubbles or can speak and interact with their human counterparts. Questionable Content has AnthroPCs instead, but the same principle applies, I believe. On the one hand, I'm a simple guy who knows his limits (mainly due to laziness which is becoming sinful) and would like to write a simple comic with 2 or 3 characters' dialogues working out my own thoughts on paper. On the other hand, I so greatly admire comics who are fantastic (in all senses of the word) storytellers. If I were ambitious I would like to create my own world with a plethora of characters, with an intricate web of relationships that I wish I had. *Not that I don't have amazing relationships with my friends, but seeing as how all of my relationships have ME in them, they are all a bit boring and not entertainingly witty as would be fit for a webcomic.

Anyway, I guess I should try to stay awake and practice enough to make up for all the television I watched the past few days.