now that the storyline is over i recommend to anybody interested to try reading this whole of 16-2 in one go and see if you still feel the same way about the story as an binge-read compared to a day-to-day read. i did a big groupread of the last storyline with my friends in voicecall when that wrapped up, and pretty much every pacing and plot issue i had with 16-1 was shored up by reading it all in one go. i’m sure it won’t be a perfect fix for everyone but i think it’s a good thing to try anyway!
That’s common with webcomics in general. A lot of techniques that are good or even great pacing in compiled form can be massively frustrating if you’re only reading one page at a time with 24+ hours in between.
Yeah I’ve definitely felt that in a lot of webcomics before, something that felt like it dragged out forever is paced perfectly on a reread. So I just try my best not to care about pacing
If a story suffers from being presented in one format, and is best enjoyed in a different one, would it not be better to offer it exclusively in the second format?
(One could, e.g., release a movie literally one frame at a time, but would it be wise to do so? Would anyone watch it?)
clif
Don’t know. I come back here every day. Do you?
Doopyboop
Web comics are usually done the way they are because the artist is working on their own. Like if Willis was given a deal to make a graphic novel, then they could keep themselves afloat from the money they were paid so that yeah, all of the pages for the graphic novel can be released at once with the release of the book. Since they don’t have that kind of deal, they have to release when they can (and daily is very generous compared to other webcomics which can be weekly, monthly, or “when it’s done”) as well as making a buffer because Willis doesn’t know what the future can bring. They have a life, a wife, two kids. Their life cannot be drawing 24/7 so building a buffer works out fine. A movie released a frame at a time wouldn’t work, but a movie is not a webcomic. There’s barely any information conveyed in a single frame of a movie that changes much compared to the frame before or after. The character moved a bit. You probably wouldn’t even have a line of dialogue in a frame of a movie.
StClair
@clif: Yeah, still. Long-time habit, 20 years or so. Don’t post as much lately, though; sometimes I get the feeling some people would rather I wasn’t here at all. And sometimes I think about just giving them what they want. Maybe everyone would be happier.
Thag Simmons
A similar logic underpinned the shift to the binge release model with TV, which a lot of people now regard as a mistake.
Just because something has frustrations doesn’t mean it’s without benefits.
Walky is being very respectful and trying to not accidentally make Amber’s injuries worse. That’s very considerate of him and he should be proud of himself.
And so the sun sets on yet another grief-filled day 😔
but so sayeth brotha MLK, we must accept finite disappointment, but NEVER give up on infinite hope 🥹
TL;DR the foot doctor looked at my foot X rays and said it looked like two bones fused together
he doesn’t think surgery is needed, just Physical Therapy (as well as whatever else is warranted by results of upcoming CT scans and ultrasounds on my leg)
doing my best but I’m still scared TT~TT
going in for my first ever iron transfusion, will take an hour, wish me luck!
My grandma nicknamed me ‘eggbeater’ because we’ve had to share a bed and I’d toss and turn a lot. She’d always passive aggressively update me in the morning to tell me how many times my knees hit her in the night.
Weirdly I think Walky is representative of a lot of kids now. There’s so much accessible stimulation that a lot of them just never learned to be bored.
And yeah it’s a little “back in my day!” But we didn’t have smartphones or tablets for long car rides. The best we had was the radio if your parents hadn’t commandeered it.
In this case I’m pretty sure it’s less “I can’t be bored” and more “oh my god I’m not comfortable enough to sleep yet but I can’t move even a tiny bit”. Maybe it’s just because I’m also ADHD but I mean… I can be bored just fine, I’ll just daydream shit and space out as needed but if I am PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE OF MOVING? I’d think that’d be hard for nearly everyone. With or without smartphones and such.
Rewatching a bunch of Buffy The Vampire slayer right now, and the same reaction applies here: “GO TALK TO THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT ABOUT WHATS BOTHERING YOU”. (Yes yes, easier said than done, do as I say not as I do).
Dotty looks a lot more worried than Joyce is. I mean it’s dorothy, she *is* a lot more worried about things, but still interesting that that’s the characterization being played up here. Joyce is comfortable and happy in their relationship, Dorothy is stressing out about things.
Dina hugging the dino is sweet and sad :( she’s trying to avoid it, but it’s still comforting.
I just took it as her sleeping face, not that she’s worried even while asleep.
But I guess I can see that, especially in comparison to Joyce’s sleeping face.
You know sometimes people make fun of cartoons/comics for having characters with distinct hair styles, or clothes that never change so the audience can keep track.
But panel 5 took me a bit to recognize who that was.
So, a kind of mini-poll.
Something I hadn’t really paid attention to was how it seems like every person whom we’ve seen in these loft beds sleeps with their head by the ladder. I’d have to do an archive check to be 100% sure, but that’s my impression.
And I realized how weird that seems to me. When I slept in the top bunk of a bunk bed, the only way that made sense to me was to have my pillow on the anti-ladder side. Climb the ladder, crawl forward, put head on pillow. Maybe it’s mild acrophobia? I really felt more secure seeing the railing between my head and the drop to the floor, even if it seems unlikely that I would fall down if I slept the other way.
Is ladder-side just natural for almost everyone and I am an anti-ladder preferring freak? Would anyone actually express a preference one way or the other?
PS: It also occurred to me that for an artist, ladder-side might be preferable for “blocking” (in the theatrical sense) purposes — that is, if you have one character in the bed, and one down below or on the ladder, it’s easier to portray them together if the one in bed has their head visible in the gap in the rail where the ladder is. Or something like that, anyway
Way back when I slept in a bunk bed, my head was always on the ladder side. But I really don’t remember why or even thinking much about it. It just seemed natural that my body swang and not my head. Of course I seldom used a ladder to get down. I just control-dropped feet down over the edge till they hit the lower mattress and then stepped down from there, releasing the edge of the upper bunk when my feet were on the floor.
As a kid, I slept with the head on the ladder-side. That way, I could look through the gap in the rail, through the door that was left ajar, and see my parents walk down the stairs after they had told me good night. They’d wave to me and I’d wave back, which was quite comforting.
That’s a good point about blocking and panel composition. But it also could just be that that’s the natural way for Willis to do it and it didn’t cross their mind to mix it up.
After typing all the below I realized I didn’t actually do either the last time I had a loft. I think my ladder was in the way and just pulled up like getting out of a swimming pool. My roommate used my desk to climb, he never seemd to kick over my monitor (or that sucker was durable) so no problem for me as I mostly studied in my department building and he always woke up before me. This allowed for two desks, a futon, a tv, a small bookshelf, a minifridge and microwave, a couple guitars, and the standard dressers that the room came with to fit in a pretty small room (an old pre-wwii building).
Ladder near feet makes sense to me for climbing up in a vacuum, because of crawling in as you mentioned, but ladder near head is useful to me for a couple reasons:
1. Climbing up with a low ceiling, I would have to duck very low to get into crawl position while still finishing the ladder climb. In some very limited situations (like one old pop-up camper) my legs were too long (I’m not super tall) for even crawling. In this situation the only way in was to poke my head in and roll/swing my legs the rest of the way up.
2. Climbing down is scarier to me going feet first than by grabbing the ladder first and then reaching my first leg down onto it. I hate backing over a ledge, could never rappel. I’d rather jump 6 feet than back over a ledge to a rung two feet down shrug.
I didn’t know nbsp worked here, thanks (edit: and I also have no friggin clue what the escape character is)
time for some melatonin, altho other than staying up late i always thought of walky as someone who could conk out quickly. aw dina still hugging the plushie
Dorothy and Joyce: Happy Spoon
Becky: Still overthinking this whole thing; talk to Dina
Dina: ON THE DINOSAUR
Asma: Went home to doomscroll instead of bowling
Garbage Bed: expecting Walky to get into another short term relationship again lol
48 thoughts on “One more”
QueenofSodor
asma falling asleep mid-doomscroll still clutching her phone, she’s so real
QueenofSodor
now that the storyline is over i recommend to anybody interested to try reading this whole of 16-2 in one go and see if you still feel the same way about the story as an binge-read compared to a day-to-day read. i did a big groupread of the last storyline with my friends in voicecall when that wrapped up, and pretty much every pacing and plot issue i had with 16-1 was shored up by reading it all in one go. i’m sure it won’t be a perfect fix for everyone but i think it’s a good thing to try anyway!
Thag Simmons
That’s common with webcomics in general. A lot of techniques that are good or even great pacing in compiled form can be massively frustrating if you’re only reading one page at a time with 24+ hours in between.
Quirk of the medium.
Stormtide Leviathan
Yeah I’ve definitely felt that in a lot of webcomics before, something that felt like it dragged out forever is paced perfectly on a reread. So I just try my best not to care about pacing
StClair
If a story suffers from being presented in one format, and is best enjoyed in a different one, would it not be better to offer it exclusively in the second format?
(One could, e.g., release a movie literally one frame at a time, but would it be wise to do so? Would anyone watch it?)
clif
Don’t know. I come back here every day. Do you?
Doopyboop
Web comics are usually done the way they are because the artist is working on their own. Like if Willis was given a deal to make a graphic novel, then they could keep themselves afloat from the money they were paid so that yeah, all of the pages for the graphic novel can be released at once with the release of the book. Since they don’t have that kind of deal, they have to release when they can (and daily is very generous compared to other webcomics which can be weekly, monthly, or “when it’s done”) as well as making a buffer because Willis doesn’t know what the future can bring. They have a life, a wife, two kids. Their life cannot be drawing 24/7 so building a buffer works out fine. A movie released a frame at a time wouldn’t work, but a movie is not a webcomic. There’s barely any information conveyed in a single frame of a movie that changes much compared to the frame before or after. The character moved a bit. You probably wouldn’t even have a line of dialogue in a frame of a movie.
StClair
@clif: Yeah, still. Long-time habit, 20 years or so. Don’t post as much lately, though; sometimes I get the feeling some people would rather I wasn’t here at all. And sometimes I think about just giving them what they want. Maybe everyone would be happier.
Thag Simmons
A similar logic underpinned the shift to the binge release model with TV, which a lot of people now regard as a mistake.
Just because something has frustrations doesn’t mean it’s without benefits.
IntangibleMatter
Walky is being very respectful and trying to not accidentally make Amber’s injuries worse. That’s very considerate of him and he should be proud of himself.
Astariel
Aw, Joyce & Dorothy are so adorable! But Dina is so sad! My emotions are conflicting.
Also, I guess Walky could have slept in Amber’s bed after all.
Doopyboop
Aaw Dina…
Thag Simmons
I really love these ending montage strips. They’re very effective.
Especially when there’s a good punchline.
Doctor_Who
Walky is pretty real here. I didn’t realize how much my being a sleep-fidgeter was going to be a problem until I had to share a bed with company.
Relationship tip: buy a king sized bed as soon as you can afford one.
Crotonhurst
We upgraded to a king once our queen bed gave up and went so far as to use two king singles so I didn’t rock the whole boat while we slept
NGPZ
And so the sun sets on yet another grief-filled day 😔
but so sayeth brotha MLK, we must accept finite disappointment, but NEVER give up on infinite hope 🥹
TrueSurvivor
Just in the comic, or did you have a loss recently?
NGPZ
TL;DR the foot doctor looked at my foot X rays and said it looked like two bones fused together
he doesn’t think surgery is needed, just Physical Therapy (as well as whatever else is warranted by results of upcoming CT scans and ultrasounds on my leg)
doing my best but I’m still scared TT~TT
going in for my first ever iron transfusion, will take an hour, wish me luck!
RassilonTDavros
Good luck! I hope it helps ease your pain.
BSD
I was asking “why is Sal tagged?” then I noticed Carla was also tagged and zoomed in.
ADLegend21
so much misery in the plot. Hope it changes soon and these characters get relief.
jeffepp
Enhance!
jeffepp
That was supposed to be a comment on the post above.
Bill Erak
DINA ON THE RAPTOR
I REPEAT: DINA ON THE RAPTOR
WE’RE SO BACK BECKYSAURUS TRUTHERS!!!!
Also, I get you Walky. I cannot share a bed with anyone because I will not stop moving before i go to sleep.
Doopyboop
My grandma nicknamed me ‘eggbeater’ because we’ve had to share a bed and I’d toss and turn a lot. She’d always passive aggressively update me in the morning to tell me how many times my knees hit her in the night.
NGPZ
I just realized
tommorrow is Prof. Brock’s class, and thus LAB PARTNER day D:
Pocky
there is hope for their relationship yet
Isalis
Aww Joyce, Aww Dina. Keep up the good work Walky.
Amós Batista
me too, Walky, me too…
Nono
Weirdly I think Walky is representative of a lot of kids now. There’s so much accessible stimulation that a lot of them just never learned to be bored.
And yeah it’s a little “back in my day!” But we didn’t have smartphones or tablets for long car rides. The best we had was the radio if your parents hadn’t commandeered it.
Doopyboop
In this case I’m pretty sure it’s less “I can’t be bored” and more “oh my god I’m not comfortable enough to sleep yet but I can’t move even a tiny bit”. Maybe it’s just because I’m also ADHD but I mean… I can be bored just fine, I’ll just daydream shit and space out as needed but if I am PHYSICALLY INCAPABLE OF MOVING? I’d think that’d be hard for nearly everyone. With or without smartphones and such.
clif
Jeeze, Nono. We had these things called books.
Of course my sister was prone to car sickness and couldn’t read in the car, but I don’t think cell phones would help either.
RassilonTDavros
Aww, she went back to the dinosaur after all.
…
…Not sure if this is a cute “aww” or a sad “aww”.
Jeremy
Rewatching a bunch of Buffy The Vampire slayer right now, and the same reaction applies here: “GO TALK TO THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT ABOUT WHATS BOTHERING YOU”. (Yes yes, easier said than done, do as I say not as I do).
Suet
careful, asma, don’t let your phone tap on something you don’t want it to
ㅤ
moral of the storyline (whatever its name is): everyone’s an anti-hero
Stormtide Leviathan
Dotty looks a lot more worried than Joyce is. I mean it’s dorothy, she *is* a lot more worried about things, but still interesting that that’s the characterization being played up here. Joyce is comfortable and happy in their relationship, Dorothy is stressing out about things.
Dina hugging the dino is sweet and sad :( she’s trying to avoid it, but it’s still comforting.
Cbwroses
I just took it as her sleeping face, not that she’s worried even while asleep.
But I guess I can see that, especially in comparison to Joyce’s sleeping face.
Opinion
You know sometimes people make fun of cartoons/comics for having characters with distinct hair styles, or clothes that never change so the audience can keep track.
But panel 5 took me a bit to recognize who that was.
clif
Jeeze, Nono. We had these things called books.
Mary and Asma can look a bit alike.
clif
Please ignore the first line which was left over from a previous comment.
Owlmirror
So, a kind of mini-poll.
Something I hadn’t really paid attention to was how it seems like every person whom we’ve seen in these loft beds sleeps with their head by the ladder. I’d have to do an archive check to be 100% sure, but that’s my impression.
And I realized how weird that seems to me. When I slept in the top bunk of a bunk bed, the only way that made sense to me was to have my pillow on the anti-ladder side. Climb the ladder, crawl forward, put head on pillow. Maybe it’s mild acrophobia? I really felt more secure seeing the railing between my head and the drop to the floor, even if it seems unlikely that I would fall down if I slept the other way.
Is ladder-side just natural for almost everyone and I am an anti-ladder preferring freak? Would anyone actually express a preference one way or the other?
PS: It also occurred to me that for an artist, ladder-side might be preferable for “blocking” (in the theatrical sense) purposes — that is, if you have one character in the bed, and one down below or on the ladder, it’s easier to portray them together if the one in bed has their head visible in the gap in the rail where the ladder is. Or something like that, anyway
Owlmirror
Shit, I forgot to put s between paragraphs.
Feh
clif
Way back when I slept in a bunk bed, my head was always on the ladder side. But I really don’t remember why or even thinking much about it. It just seemed natural that my body swang and not my head. Of course I seldom used a ladder to get down. I just control-dropped feet down over the edge till they hit the lower mattress and then stepped down from there, releasing the edge of the upper bunk when my feet were on the floor.
Findus
As a kid, I slept with the head on the ladder-side. That way, I could look through the gap in the rail, through the door that was left ajar, and see my parents walk down the stairs after they had told me good night. They’d wave to me and I’d wave back, which was quite comforting.
Dwampre Scorrigank
That’s a good point about blocking and panel composition. But it also could just be that that’s the natural way for Willis to do it and it didn’t cross their mind to mix it up.
After typing all the below I realized I didn’t actually do either the last time I had a loft. I think my ladder was in the way and just pulled up like getting out of a swimming pool. My roommate used my desk to climb, he never seemd to kick over my monitor (or that sucker was durable) so no problem for me as I mostly studied in my department building and he always woke up before me. This allowed for two desks, a futon, a tv, a small bookshelf, a minifridge and microwave, a couple guitars, and the standard dressers that the room came with to fit in a pretty small room (an old pre-wwii building).
Ladder near feet makes sense to me for climbing up in a vacuum, because of crawling in as you mentioned, but ladder near head is useful to me for a couple reasons:
1. Climbing up with a low ceiling, I would have to duck very low to get into crawl position while still finishing the ladder climb. In some very limited situations (like one old pop-up camper) my legs were too long (I’m not super tall) for even crawling. In this situation the only way in was to poke my head in and roll/swing my legs the rest of the way up.
2. Climbing down is scarier to me going feet first than by grabbing the ladder first and then reaching my first leg down onto it. I hate backing over a ledge, could never rappel. I’d rather jump 6 feet than back over a ledge to a rung two feet down shrug.
I didn’t know nbsp worked here, thanks (edit: and I also have no friggin clue what the escape character is)
anon
time for some melatonin, altho other than staying up late i always thought of walky as someone who could conk out quickly. aw dina still hugging the plushie
Tenzhi
Anyone else always hear Tron’s MCP in their head when they see “END OF STORYLINE”?
Pocky
Dorothy and Joyce: Happy Spoon
Becky: Still overthinking this whole thing; talk to Dina
Dina: ON THE DINOSAUR
Asma: Went home to doomscroll instead of bowling
Garbage Bed: expecting Walky to get into another short term relationship again lol
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