Start with the bad news on this, Road Waffles has ended, again. I love Road Waffles, always have, but my biggest complaint is the hardest one to vocalize because it will cause the problem to surface: Eight. The artist, not the number.
Since I've started reading webcomics, I've had a lot of comics die due to the artist having to stop for some reason. To be fair, most of them have a good reason. The guys doing Parking Lot is Full moved on to other projects (distance didn't help either). Emergency Exit and Metrophor went down to injury. The Meek and Superhero Girl have paid jobs that take priority. I get that, I get ALL of that, and I'm fine with it.
Then there's Under Power. I'll probably do retrospective on this comic in the future, but the point is that it was pretty good. And then one day, it just stopped. Death by Hiatus. Why the hiatus though? The answer is along the left side of the main page: "Vaz's Emotional Tampon Level." Vaz is the nickname of the artist. Yeah, when you see something like that, it should be a warning sign. I know some people, especially artists, are like this, they have their ups and downs, bursts of creativity, and depths of depression.
Other comics, like Nobody Scores! seem not to really have an interest in doing a comic for very long. The stops and starts between strips have gone for months at a time. Does he have a paying gig? No idea. He's got an art page, but that tells me nothing of what he's been up to. It's almost as if he doesn't LIKE his own comic. Just the impression I get.
That's much stronger, of course, with Road Waffles, where Eight seems to be deathly afraid his works sucks in some way I can't pick out. From my perspective, minor bumps in the road (as it were) of the comic are, well, minor. But to volatile artists like Eight, a simple misstep in story, or art, or whatever seems to actually cause intense hatred for the entire work. The frustration comes when I know other artists, like Poe of Errant Story, who have the same issues, but push through it and keep going. As Poe reposts Errant Story and adds some commentary, he even speaks about how terrible a particular strip is, but it never, EVER stopped him from posting it.
Sadly, there's nothing a reader can do for these artists. No matter how much support is thrown too them, or how often we check and recheck for an update, they are the ones who have to get over the issues. Sadly, sometimes they don't. I was shocked, SHOCKED, that Road Waffles started updating again, even for a brief period. After a while, the feeling is they gave up on the strip, and the reader kind of does too. It's what happened to Under Power, it'll probably happen to Nobody Scores!. I guess the only thing we can hope for is they don't go too crazy and delete everything. It's happened, and that, my friends, is the saddest thing of all.
Next time, something. I hope. Until then kiddies.
Since I've started reading webcomics, I've had a lot of comics die due to the artist having to stop for some reason. To be fair, most of them have a good reason. The guys doing Parking Lot is Full moved on to other projects (distance didn't help either). Emergency Exit and Metrophor went down to injury. The Meek and Superhero Girl have paid jobs that take priority. I get that, I get ALL of that, and I'm fine with it.
Then there's Under Power. I'll probably do retrospective on this comic in the future, but the point is that it was pretty good. And then one day, it just stopped. Death by Hiatus. Why the hiatus though? The answer is along the left side of the main page: "Vaz's Emotional Tampon Level." Vaz is the nickname of the artist. Yeah, when you see something like that, it should be a warning sign. I know some people, especially artists, are like this, they have their ups and downs, bursts of creativity, and depths of depression.
Other comics, like Nobody Scores! seem not to really have an interest in doing a comic for very long. The stops and starts between strips have gone for months at a time. Does he have a paying gig? No idea. He's got an art page, but that tells me nothing of what he's been up to. It's almost as if he doesn't LIKE his own comic. Just the impression I get.
That's much stronger, of course, with Road Waffles, where Eight seems to be deathly afraid his works sucks in some way I can't pick out. From my perspective, minor bumps in the road (as it were) of the comic are, well, minor. But to volatile artists like Eight, a simple misstep in story, or art, or whatever seems to actually cause intense hatred for the entire work. The frustration comes when I know other artists, like Poe of Errant Story, who have the same issues, but push through it and keep going. As Poe reposts Errant Story and adds some commentary, he even speaks about how terrible a particular strip is, but it never, EVER stopped him from posting it.
Sadly, there's nothing a reader can do for these artists. No matter how much support is thrown too them, or how often we check and recheck for an update, they are the ones who have to get over the issues. Sadly, sometimes they don't. I was shocked, SHOCKED, that Road Waffles started updating again, even for a brief period. After a while, the feeling is they gave up on the strip, and the reader kind of does too. It's what happened to Under Power, it'll probably happen to Nobody Scores!. I guess the only thing we can hope for is they don't go too crazy and delete everything. It's happened, and that, my friends, is the saddest thing of all.
Next time, something. I hope. Until then kiddies.
No comments:
Post a Comment