Bob Is Doomed

When Chris and I decided to start doing a comic strip again, we were heavily influenced by the halfpixel crew, their excellent book, and their superb Webcomics Weekly podcast. One topic they’ve tackled, and that I’ve been giving a lot of thought, is how to handle a strip that presents an ongoing narrative.

Some strips, like Penny Arcade and Perry Bible Fellowship, rarely if ever truck with continuity: every strip stands on its own, and, no matter which is the first strip you see, you have about the same chance of “getting” the comic.

Bob Is Doomed falls into the other category, though, which is to say it has a story that continues from strip to strip. The challenge there is, especially when we’re only posting one comic a week, we can’t expect readers to dedicate themselves to the story. Here’s what I mean:

1. We’ve had a couple of readers since the very first strip. Each week, they come back (hopefully) to see what happens next. If the new strip does nothing but shove the story forward one step, that isn’t very rewarding, and they lose their desire to continue coming back. Human beings do not readily consume stories in tiny increments with week-long intervals between.
2. Look at it this way: whatever comic happens to be posted right now, that’s a new reader’s first impression of Bob Is Doomed. If it doesn’t grab them, they aren’t going to read the rest, even if we had a hundred strips and a substantial narrative in which they could immerse themselves.

These two problems suggest only one solution: every single comic, regardless of its place in the larger storyline, needs to engage the reader on its own. And that’s tricky: I need to tell you part of the larger story, but still provide you with a gag that makes you laugh (or a hook that makes you go “what’s next?”) and come back next week.

I’m not complaining! I’m just outlining the challenge. I got some feedback on today’s strip - The Worst Place For a Paper Cut - that brought this whole thing to mind. As novice webcomic writers, this is a skill we’re excited to improve. Let’s see where we’re at in a year, shall we?