porringer (porringer) wrote in scans_daily, @ 2009-07-16 18:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | creator: john campbell, medium: webcomic, title: pictures for sad children |
Pictures for Sad Children - how to write an arc
After Schmevil posted the latest PFSC, and there was a discussion in the comments about one-shots versus continued arcs, I felt the need to post this: one of my favourite arcs.
Firstly, this arc works in that each individual comic is funny and odd in its own right.
Secondly, it works in that the overall story is funny and odd.
Thirdly, the arc captures fairly perfectly that feeling of being in the sort of situation the character is in.
Fourthly, all of it is referencing parts and the whole of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot. Sometimes more obviously, sometimes weirdly obscurely, never in a way required to find the comic funny, although it adds to it (some of the comics become less random once you realise!). And expresses the same feelings as the poem. Artistic!
Anyway, I offer this as an example of an arc in a humorous comic-strip done well. Possibly such a thing could not work in a strip that wasn't as sad and odd as PFSC.