Damn, another obituary for the pile. I had a nice article about using myths in stories ready for this week too, but instead, I'm going to spend my time on Just Another Escape.
I suppose there really shouldn't be much of a surprise that one of my weekly comics comes to an end, especially one as high concept as Just Another Escape, but I am still kind of surprised. I've come to accept that it was taking two or three weeks to generate a new comic as I was kept interested in the comic by it's concept. In the end, though, the delays were a sign that the end was neigh and I should have heeded them.
Just Another Escape had probably the most interesting premise in terms of format I've seen in quite a while. It's stated on the very first archive page and is a really neat idea. The comic is divided into 3 periods, the past, present and future, and each is defined by three different art styles. The past is in black and white, the present is in normal, flat color and the future is done in water colors.
This is a brilliant idea, allowing the reader, at a glance, to tell what time period a part o the story is in, and what it's significance is for the comic as a whole. This is a great idea and opens the comic to a wide range of storytelling options. It literally provides a mechanism to crank out flashbacks and flashforwards as needed to drive forward the main, present story.
But I don't think Just Another Escape used it well. There is no present story to speak of and the future story is where most of the action happens. The past stuff works really well, and I enjoyed that part, but the present and future stuff, for the most part, didn't go anywhere. At least through the run of the comic. What I'm trying to say is while the idea was really good, in the end Just Anther Escape didn't use the idea to the fullest. For the most part, I think that was simply because the story was being generated on a weekly basis for the most part.
Also I think that as originally planned, it might have been a touch to ambitious. The original cast page featured a cast picture, which must have had 20 people in it. It's different now or I would show it, but it was a hell of a cast. The cast page has been streamlined since then, and the cast is MUCH smaller, but even then, many characters have little to no development. Yes, he did manage to go back and give some back story to these characters, but without the context of a main, present time story, their point was completely lost.
I don't want to sound too down on this comic, I did enjoy it. The stuff with Solina and Abraxas was actually really good and fun, while some the stories around Erica and her past were probably the most tragic and probably the more important past stories in the line. The artwork improved GREATLY over the length of the comic and the story telling got better as it went along. Developing a much stronger main storyline to bounce the future and past stories off of and constricting the cast much earlier would have helped the comic a great deal, but sometimes one must reach for the sky and he did it. Things just didn't work out in the end.
In any case, it's a shame that yet another comic I like is shut down, but it's something one must get used too on the internet. He's moving on to work on his own graphic novel, Cogs, which while not up and going yet, will probably prove very interesting and I'll keep my eye on it.
Well, I guess next week I'll post my myth article (had to do some tweaks on it anyway), and then the following week, a special edition where I show you my "future read" pile. Oh, it's a doozy. Until then kiddies.
I suppose there really shouldn't be much of a surprise that one of my weekly comics comes to an end, especially one as high concept as Just Another Escape, but I am still kind of surprised. I've come to accept that it was taking two or three weeks to generate a new comic as I was kept interested in the comic by it's concept. In the end, though, the delays were a sign that the end was neigh and I should have heeded them.
Just Another Escape had probably the most interesting premise in terms of format I've seen in quite a while. It's stated on the very first archive page and is a really neat idea. The comic is divided into 3 periods, the past, present and future, and each is defined by three different art styles. The past is in black and white, the present is in normal, flat color and the future is done in water colors.
This is a brilliant idea, allowing the reader, at a glance, to tell what time period a part o the story is in, and what it's significance is for the comic as a whole. This is a great idea and opens the comic to a wide range of storytelling options. It literally provides a mechanism to crank out flashbacks and flashforwards as needed to drive forward the main, present story.
But I don't think Just Another Escape used it well. There is no present story to speak of and the future story is where most of the action happens. The past stuff works really well, and I enjoyed that part, but the present and future stuff, for the most part, didn't go anywhere. At least through the run of the comic. What I'm trying to say is while the idea was really good, in the end Just Anther Escape didn't use the idea to the fullest. For the most part, I think that was simply because the story was being generated on a weekly basis for the most part.
Also I think that as originally planned, it might have been a touch to ambitious. The original cast page featured a cast picture, which must have had 20 people in it. It's different now or I would show it, but it was a hell of a cast. The cast page has been streamlined since then, and the cast is MUCH smaller, but even then, many characters have little to no development. Yes, he did manage to go back and give some back story to these characters, but without the context of a main, present time story, their point was completely lost.
I don't want to sound too down on this comic, I did enjoy it. The stuff with Solina and Abraxas was actually really good and fun, while some the stories around Erica and her past were probably the most tragic and probably the more important past stories in the line. The artwork improved GREATLY over the length of the comic and the story telling got better as it went along. Developing a much stronger main storyline to bounce the future and past stories off of and constricting the cast much earlier would have helped the comic a great deal, but sometimes one must reach for the sky and he did it. Things just didn't work out in the end.
In any case, it's a shame that yet another comic I like is shut down, but it's something one must get used too on the internet. He's moving on to work on his own graphic novel, Cogs, which while not up and going yet, will probably prove very interesting and I'll keep my eye on it.
Well, I guess next week I'll post my myth article (had to do some tweaks on it anyway), and then the following week, a special edition where I show you my "future read" pile. Oh, it's a doozy. Until then kiddies.
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