Irregular Webcomic!

Irregular Webcomic! #513 Rerun

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

If my memory serves me correctly... this is the first time Serron has said anything since way back in #320. That's some time for a regular character to remain silent.

Yes, Serron wears a fez. Why does an alien in a science fiction setting wear a fez?

Because it's both stylish and practical.

2013-06-19 Rerun commentary: And Serron was setting a trend that Dr Who would follow six years later. You can't argue with that.

Irregular Webcomic! #512 Rerun

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

A bit of a follow-up to #507.

There are some feasible reasons why the Empire wouldn't just blow up Yavin to get to the Rebels faster, namely:

The Death Star's superlaser might take a long time to recharge for another shot.
The debris of Yavin might make it hard to target or shoot the moon with the Rebel base.
Yavin may have something the Empire would like not to destroy.
Probably the best one: Yavin is a gas giant, not a relatively small terrestrial planet like Alderaan was. Gas giants would take a heck of a lot more energy to blow up than a terrestrial type planet (which leads to other problems, see #153 and #160). So the Death Star might simply not be powerful enough to do it.

And I'm sure some readers will think of others. But I still think the gag is pretty funny.

2013-06-18 Rerun commentary: On the other hand, if they could blow up Yavin, that'd probably do enough damage to everything in the vicinity to destroy its moons and the Rebel base anyway.

Man, those Rebels are doomed! I can't see any way they could possibly survive this.

Irregular Webcomic! #511 Rerun

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

2013-06-17 Rerun commentary: Heroic sacrifice is all well and good in fictional principle. But nobody wants to be the person at the bottom end of the rope.

Irregular Webcomic! #3284

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

I'm writing this just hours before the next Sunday update is due. I've been sick for essentially the entire past week - I took the whole week off work. Since I normally type up long annotations on the train to and from work, I found myself here on Sunday afternoon with nothing ready for today's update.

So I've pulled out an old entry into the art competition I ran some years ago again.

And unfortunately as I was looking through old strips for anything involving Anakin, I found I'd already used this particular piece of artwork, by Gert Hansen, back in strip #1212. And I'm too worn out to do anything else now, so you get an art rerun. At least the dialogue is new, if kind of a by-the-numbers gag.

Ah well, as I always say when talking about webcomic publishing, predictability of new material is more important than quality. And interestingly enough, Mark Rosewater, head designer for Magic: The Gathering at Wizards of the Coast, recently said exactly the same thing in one of his regular (note!) Monday columns on Daily MtG just last week: Communications Theory:

In the 70s, a major newspaper did a giant amount of market research to discover why people read their paper. The number two answer was to "get the news." The number one answer was "because I do it every day." We learned this in school because it drives home a very important point. The habit (or comfort) of media is more important than the content. The audience will prioritize comfort of the presentation over quality of the content. I cannot stress how important this concept is.

His article has much wider application than just game design, or even webcomic creation. If you've come here today hoping to read something interesting and inspiring by me, you could do a lot worse than head over and read Mark Rosewater's article. It's actually something very close to what I might have written myself. Or at least I like to think so.

Irregular Webcomic! #510 Rerun

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

Yes folks, they're off on a quest! Aren't you excited?!

I've been thinking for some time now that I don't use the fantasy and space characters as much as I used to, and I'd like to try to bring them back into things a bit more. The trouble is the ongoing storylines are much easier for me to write strips for than the disconnected one-off gags that fantasy and space kept getting. So I'm going to try this as an experiment and see how we go. There won't be a fantasy strip every 3 strips the way Monty Jones is currently going, but you should see it a bit more often that it has been appearing lately.

2013-06-15 Rerun commentary: Well that worked out well, didn't it?

It's actually a fairly common form of evolution in webcomics. They begin with unconnected gags, then slowly develop into ongoing storylines with some semblance of continuity and all. If the story gets considerably more dramatic, this is Cerebus Syndrome. But if it remains light-hearted and comedic, just with enhanced continuity, then that's merely Continuity Creep.

Irregular Webcomic! #509 Rerun

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

This is the first time Terry has answered the door when the Charity Collector Guy has knocked.

2013-06-14 Rerun commentary: I never meta joke I didn't like.

Irregular Webcomic! #508 Rerun

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:11:00 +0000

As much as I use the standard four-panel layout, I like to try and break into other formats when possible. And the three Joneses hanging on a rope off the bottom of the Nazi zeppelin was an ideal opportunity to try this layout. It also means the photos can be a bit larger than usual.

2013-06-13 Rerun commentary: I like these sorts of alternative layouts. I think this one worked particularly well.

The photos were shot by actually suspending the characters with the piece of string seen there from a gantry (which I also made from LEGO if I recall correctly). And then replacing the background with a sky gradient.