Man, I am THROUGH with "webcomics." Every one I find (that I like), I'll start from the front and plow straight through the story voraciously, and then - it STOPS.
It just stops dead. Right in the thick of the story.
Then a few days later, you get a little bit more.
Who can re-immerse in a fictional universe this way? In this abrupt, start-stop interrupted punctuated fashion? What kind of medium is this, through which to grip me with a thrilling narrative?
It's like if you buy a book, and you're really into it - you can't put it down! - then suddenly 100 pages from the end, it stops. And they start mailing you a page at a time, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Acceptable? Aw, naw. Hells naw.
I'm sorry, this is an irredeemably flawed story delivery system. Okay, the gag-per-page self-contained comics? Exempted. Those are fine.
Cat And Girl, you're off the hook.
4 comments:
1. I am not sure I like Cat and a Girl.
2. Dickens posted Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, and more, as serials
3. I don't really have a third point. Or really a point at all. Apparently I just like the sound of my own voice, in type.
I've certainly enjoyed a number of works that were originally put out in serial form (Vanity Fair leaps to mind). It helped that I had the whole book in my hand. Their original publication schedule was no obstacle to my enjoyment. It very much would have been.
Which is what I'm getting at: I'd say there's a good reason that serialization of novels has fallen off, over the years.
3. I like that too! Yours, I mean.
I suspect Pickwick Papers, etc, would still work in that context, because the serialised parts of Dickens novels were quite substantial, several chunky chapters in length - and Dickens had a clear idea of the overall story. Some modern serials aren't as satisfying, or carefully crafted.
The last modern serial I paid much attention too was Buffy, several years ago - that was a gripping show, more or less for the same reasons as Dickens and Henry Fielding and other classic novelists wrote gripping books: satisfying individually, and well-crafted as a whole.
The tv analogy is a good one, as is the point that the amount of story being delivered in one installment matters. I can take a tv ep's worth of material per installment, or a chapter of a book. A page at a time - that's not even a commercial break's worth in most cases.
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