November 13, 2006
Today’s strip was a nice way of reminding you all that Mae and George, Bernard’s seldom seen parents DO exist and do have actual jobs. Strips RARELY revolve around them and it’s nice to play with them every now and again.
Now, today’s gram aside, I’m not happy with the strip right now. The current Monday/wednesday/friday schedule was implimented to help me maintain my workloads and manage time better for all the different projects I’ve got going right now, but it’s not working out like I’d hoped. It seems that the extra lead time is making me LAZY and I’m finding myself less inclined to want to jump into the longer, more involved storylines that have become a trademark of “Dandy & Company”.
That said, I’m SERIOUSLY considering changing the format yet again to help re-balance the curerent state of the strip. I’m torn between returningto a 5 day a week schedule, or doing bi-monthly “Comic Style” stories. Now, the 5 day a week schedule is pretty self explainatory. Every weekday, you’d get a new strip…
But the bi-monthly comic idea is a bit different. THAT idea entails coming up with comic-BOOK style long-form stories, 22 pages or so in length, once every two months. It would mean 6 full-length Dandy adventures a year, with a month off inbetween each yarn. The advantages of THIS format are plentiful… More involved stories without the detailed need for a punchline every 4 panels inturrupting the flow, and bigger, more expressive art. These would also likely be HAND drawn allowing myself to ease off the computer and rescue my eyes from the strain they’re under.
In this thread, as well as on a poll on the main page, I’d like to hear your thoughts on these ideas. Ultimately, I want to do MORE Dandy & Company stories and bring the strip back to the level of quality I feel it’s been slipping from. BUT, (And there’s ALWAYS a “But”, ain’t there.) either direction would require SOME kind of Hiatus. Going 5-days-a-week would probably just take a few weeks to ramp up with more new strips, and wouldn’t slow things down TOO much. But the story idea would probably require at LEAST a month to let me get ahead. It’s a much bigger idea and committment, but one I’m becoming interested in persuing.
What are your thoughts?
