Hey all

I am just wondering what general idea you have as far as pacing your story. What general guidelines do you use? With humor, do you sacrifice story for a quick gag? Or the other way around? I think it'd be useful to share your methods!

As far as my two cents: obviously, if you update very frequently you can get away with slower development, but you also want to be able to capture a new reader or two with every strip. With Clench and Cheese I drew out the last storyline for 62 strips, slow by any standard. But, as it's updated every weekday, it moved briskly enough to keep both new and regular readers interested. I have really tried to make every gag stand alone, show character development and also move the story along. Sometimes it's been tricky (or downright impossible) but I'm getting more of a feel for it as I go.

Thoughts?

Pacing and getting the story clearly across is most important to me. However, I also want to keep humour in the fringes, always apt to emerge at any moment- even the darkest, worst one. The characters do not have to be the ones realising they are making a joke, either.

I try to get a chapter completed within 10-14 pages tops. Within the page, there will be several occasions to make a joke or have humour that I may choose to take or not, depending on the weight I want to give to the story.

All in all, I'd say it's a balance that has to be kept :)

Mixed Bag... being a daily updating sprite comic strip that upholds a constantly moving storyline...

I can say that I'm constantly trying to make sure that nothing goes stale... even though considering not much can change each day with sprites...

It always seems to take me forever to get through a storyline, though because I always end up thinking of one more funny thing I can do with the current situation before moving on.

Monkey Island on the other hand seemed to blaze through the story arc I made for it in seven comics... but for the writing I've planned out for it, it'll take much longer for the next...

That's another weird thing... I write down ALL of the material I plan to use for a comic BEFORE I make it... but yet I still end up with MORE stuff than I started with...

So yeah @_@... my pace is rather random...

I like to make my comics as funny as possible (If I'm making a comedy comic), but I still try to move my plot along as well. If it just focuses on funny when you're trying to tell a story, it can get kinda lame.

As far as pacing goes, I like to use the traditional manga method of using the art to express what the dialogue isnt saying. Other times, i plan out how i want it to look visually on the page. I.e, where the reader's eye will be drawn to, what kind of impact it will make, etc.
Generally, the themes and overall plot of my story are pretty serious, but If I feel like it's getting too melodramatic, i tone it down. I can't help but use whatever comic relief i can lol
Length doesn't bother me, either. If it takes ten or fifty pages to play out a scenario, so be it. what matters is not rushing the story and just telling it how you want to tell it without dragging it on forever (like english dubbed anime has a bad habit of doing x__x).