As far as the archives, it’s nice that you added some more links. Personally though, I don’t want to know the whole story ahead of time. I want to watch it roll out. If I read the whole thing already, it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable.

If nothing else, now you’ve established a precendence in both the text AND the art for how the feel of the comic will be for the remainder of the story.

Actually this reminds me that the archives are still broken, sorry.

But here: http://kirsia.hwcommunity.com/extra/version1/page03.jpg

This was before I was ever involved, and that last panel had me rolling. Sure, we may not switch gears between serious and silly very smoothly yet, but it’s something we’re hoping to get down. I understand what you mean– more people will have a better handle on it if it’s more consistent and they can say “oh this is a DRAMATIC STORY.” The thing is, I’m not worried that working in some plainly silly things now and then will actually put off a lot of readers. I know you have a lot of experience with the print form, but, well, Riess and I have a lot of experience with the online form. I can’t think of a successful dramatic webcomic I’ve enjoyed that wasn’t punctuated with jokes.

Besides, it would be BORING AS HELL if we did it straight 90% of the time, and it’s right there, somewhere, on the tin: “making young adults look silly.”

If we’re losing you in the transition from drama to comedy, ok, that’s a problem, but the solution isn’t going to be removing the comedy. The next few pages are already written.

Tory: Squid, could you come here for a second? Can you tell me what you’re writing?
Squid: Well, I’m writing a web comic.
Tory: Well, I was just wondering why you would suddenly introduce such a comical scene into a story that has been mostly dramatic and relying on irony for humor. You totally threw off my interpretation of the scene by changing styles like that. Stick to what has been working so well these last few months so that you can build a core of readers, and then pull in the occasional extra element.
[Squid starts crying]
Tory: Are you crying? Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in the comic industry!
Reiss: Why don’t you give him a break Tory.
Tory: Oh you zip it, Reiss! I grew up reading Spiderman, Batman, Avengers, and the Hulk and if Batman had made a joke in a panel of a Dark Knight comic, the readers would have been all over it. I even did some amateur comics myself and if I went so far as to alter a costume, my friends reading it would scream about continuity. And did I cry?
Squid: No, no, no.
Tory: Yeah! No. And do you know why?
Squid: No.
Tory: Because there’s no crying in the comic industry. There’s no crying in the comic industry. No crying!

Ok, that’s it. Go back to writing up the page for next Monday.

If they hadn’t clapped, would he have cut their hands off? Now that would be impressive if he did that with no weapons while his hands were bound.

They’re clapping for his dramatic reenactment.

Also he unbound and then rebound himself just for the reenactment. It’s partly to show off the fact that even though he’s surrounded he completely outclasses them, as a Nameless.