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Do you think his name is pronounced Jean or Jean?
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Sep 18, 2021 19:45
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Pretty sure it's Jean. Is he a werewolf or a rougarou?
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Sep 18, 2021 22:29
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Bonster posted:Pretty sure it's Jean. a roorooroo
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Sep 18, 2021 22:30
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Bonster posted:Pretty sure it's Jean. Well don't I feel foolish!
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Sep 18, 2021 23:24
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I don't think you're allowed to be a monster in Mayview without making constant cheeky references to it.
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Sep 19, 2021 06:26
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https://twitter.com/paranaturalzack/status/1441498812694994948
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Sep 24, 2021 21:36
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Thanks, I hate it! Zack needed to learn how to compress their storytelling eight years ago. At this point if it's really that much of a health issue, they should just retire it. I'll miss the comic, but I'm not going to bother with it if it transitions to prose anyway.
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Sep 24, 2021 22:02
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Falstaff posted:Thanks, I hate it! what exactly are you implying here
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Sep 24, 2021 22:25
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Wow it turns out that the storytelling equivalent of ADHD has consequences who knew
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Sep 24, 2021 22:25
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Maybe they could find an artist willing to draw it in collaboration with them. I like their art but the heart of my enjoyment is the writing.
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Sep 24, 2021 22:33
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flatluigi posted:what exactly are you implying here That Zack keeps having wrist problems because of the comic workload? Isn't it obvious that's what I'm talking about? Not gonna lie, I'm really confused by your need for clarification.
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Sep 24, 2021 22:52
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I think Zack’s prose is serviceable but not great. A huge chunk of Paranatural’s charm comes from just how dang good they are at making comics. The art’s great, as is the paneling and page layout, and since each beat is contained in a bite-sized panel there’s great pacing and flow, too. Turning panels into paragraphs would lose all of that and dramatically change the story. That said, RSIs are no joke and Zack should not destroy their body so I can watch Boss Leader conjure up hilarious Spender faces.
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Sep 24, 2021 22:58
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Yeah, Zack's an absolute master of the medium. It's a shame, but this sort of shift has been coming for quite a while.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:04
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Captain Oblivious posted:Wow it turns out that the storytelling equivalent of ADHD has consequences who knew As an adhd haver, gently caress off
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Sep 24, 2021 23:17
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Fecha posted:Maybe they could find an artist willing to draw it in collaboration with them. I like their art but the heart of my enjoyment is the writing. Yeah, this is the answer, not going full Poppy O'Possum. We've seen that the transition to picture-book doesn't work out for webcomics. It's felt inevitable for a long time now, but given their refusal to delegate work that literally harms their body to someone else, I fear that the story's eventually going to end up in a text dump of what the plot was going to be because there's simply no way they make it through whatever chapter structure they had imagined all these years.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:17
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“Zack’s physical health problems are because their plot is meandering” is the weirdest take. If kickball had taken up half as many pages, but Zack had still drawn the same number of pages, then they’d still have messed up their arm. The only thing that would change is how much plot progression would have gotten before they posed the exact same question, at the exact same time, about switching to illustrated prose.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:32
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N’thing the “hire an artist” thing. If money is an issue they could try selling the rights to a publisher who could have it made in-house with their artists but using scripts/character designs/etc Zach provides. Paranatural is good enough to where I think that’s a real option.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:42
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blastron posted:“Zack’s physical health problems are because their plot is meandering” That's not what I was trying to say. Zack, presumably, has a story they want to tell. Very rarely does someone put in the amount of effort they have into anything without wanting to bring it to a close. Unfortunately, it's been growing increasingly unlikely that they'll be able to tell that story, or at the very least tell it in their preferred medium. If they'd switched over to a more compressed style of storytelling, they might have been able to complete it by now, and no longer feel any obligation to continue harming their health year after year in order to finish the thing.
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Sep 24, 2021 23:43
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Falstaff posted:That's not what I was trying to say. That’s a fair point, sorry I misunderstood you. Since we don’t know how much story is left (or if Zack simply wants to it to be told meanderingly), though, I’m not sure if I agree with you there. They did at some point know that their health was at risk, since they took a lengthy break to rest and do some physical therapy, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable for them to have thought a change to their process would have fixed their problems without needing to change the contents of the comic at all.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:08
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I'm not surprised they're going to attempt this, their continued (& seemingly very severe) problems despite their attempt at alleviating the issue, but I am guessing this is the death kneel of the comic. I just can't see making the leap to this and it still continuing like they want.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:14
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rannum posted:I'm not surprised they're going to attempt this, their continued (& seemingly very severe) problems despite their attempt at alleviating the issue, but I am guessing this is the death kneel of the comic. I just can't see making the leap to this and it still continuing like they want.
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Sep 25, 2021 00:55
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girl dick energy posted:Yeah, there are at least two previous examples of a massive super-project of a webcomic transitioning to picture book in an attempt to delay the inevitable and then dying anyways. Also just gonna say that writing prose is probably a lot different of skill than writing a comic (& obviously way different from drawing in general) Kind of feel like unless you were already actively writing stuff like that it's probably still gonna be time intensive( just ideally better on the wrist) and might even be harder depending on the person....but I'm just guessing at that admittedly e: I don't want to be too much of a downer, I do wish them luck at it though
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Sep 25, 2021 01:11
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Zack is hugely talented as both an artist and webcomic writer and I hope they pass off art duties to someone else rather than slide into the death spiral of poppy opossum
Xand_Man fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Sep 26, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 01:13
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I wonder how much of a market there is for lavishly illustrated children's stories. I read a ton of books that were very paranatural-esque back in the 80s and 90s.
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Sep 25, 2021 01:40
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The mini golf story worked because it was a self contained thing that was always meant to be prose. This... this isn't working. I hope Zach is able to find a solution that lets them finish the story without destroying themselves but if this is the option picked then I don't think I can continue reading.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:07
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Welp, if our future is going to be the same as Poppy O'Possum consider myself Braced.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:15
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I had a feeling this was inevitable when even a weekly comic was proving impossible to maintain. This happens a lot, where the artist is young and their first major project is an ambitious webcomic that is poorly plotted out in advance and thus takes years to get anywhere in the overarching plot. Cucumber Quest is probably one of the higher profile examples of this. The major difference being ggdg just didn’t want to spend the prime years of her career sucked entirely into another decade on this comic she came up with as a kid, whereas Zack’s spirit to finish seems to be strong, but the flesh human and thus weak. Which is definitely tragic for them, as I know they’d prefer the proper comic treatment they intended. Just look at Gunnerkrigg Court, which seems like it does have some kind of plan to ultimately end, and yet Tom Sidell just passed the 15th year working on this thing. And a good chunk of those 15 years it was his full-time job, and he maintained a near-perfect three page a week schedule throughout. These webcomics either demand the kind of extremely short and self-contained story most young artists aren’t interested in, or turning into Andrew Hussie if you want to see it completed in a reasonable time frame. It sucks, but turns out writing and drawing a complete graphic novel entirely on your own is hard and time-consuming.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:16
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This is why I think the webcomic model is a dinosaur and you should just release your comic in books which you complete in advance and publish independently. You can still post them online, but the scheduled update system for plot-based webcomics almost never works. I think Digger is the only comic I've ever seen really pull it off.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:31
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I follow very few webcomics and I'm sad to see this go the same way as Cucumber Quest but what's most important is that they must do what's best for their physical health, mental health, development as an artist, or whatever they judge best. I just can't make that transition with them. Wish Zach all the best, whatever choice they make, and I hope I enjoy their next project just as much.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:32
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Cup Runneth Over posted:This is why I think the webcomic model is a dinosaur and you should just release your comic in books which you complete in advance and publish independently. You can still post them online, but the scheduled update system for plot-based webcomics almost never works. I think Digger is the only comic I've ever seen really pull it off. DrMcNinja seems like it was able to complete the story without rushing to the ending or changing format. I can't think of any others though, besides something like Kid Radd. Edit: Oh yeah, Kill 6 Billion Demons looks like it's going to finish properly, and that one gets the volumes published by Image Comics.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:38
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Some comics get there. Monster Pulse, O Human Star, Homestuck, etc. It’s rare, but it happens.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:48
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Pants Donkey posted:Some comics get there. Monster Pulse, O Human Star, Homestuck, etc. It’s rare, but it happens. Octopus Pie. Zac is really good at character dialogue but cannot plot a story out of a paper bag. How many years has it been since we saw the literal protagonist of the comic because he keeps getting distracted by shiny objects? Three? This was always a hopeless endeavor even if his health wasn't as bad as it is.
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Sep 25, 2021 03:52
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It's they.
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Sep 25, 2021 04:03
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Captain Oblivious posted:Octopus Pie. We last saw Max in January 2020 at the end of the last chapter. & the long period of time between Max appearences was far more because they transitioned to a one a week format, that they frequently missed due to health (& family (& family health)) issues. I also maintain that Chapter 5 was pretty good, further established more about the town and what seems to be a primary villain, had a string of interesting plot threads put up/furhtered by the end and was fairly brief. Likewise this chapter has been focusing on one of its other main characters and how he intersects with the other main characters while filling in other relationships and threads. Honestly after the hitball chapter it seems they've really reigned theirself in and avoiding getting super overindulgant. rannum fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 04:06
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Bleck posted:It's they. We were doing so well
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Sep 25, 2021 04:10
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naturalistic dialogue doesn't pair well with full-page coloured and shaded panels I don't have any hot take ideas here; one assumes Zack does not wish to return the comic to its initial 2011 b&w design (which was already hilariously over-detailed in its presentation; it's been a decade-long constant) ronya fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 04:43
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Hey as long as we're on the subject of identifying the author of Paranatural correctly, and I suppose this doesn't matter nearly as much as their pronouns, but they shorten their given name of 'Zachary' to 'Zack.' Not Zac, not Zach; Zack.
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Sep 25, 2021 05:15
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If the comic updated more often I'd recommend we put it in the thread title or something because every time there's meta discussion in here someone gets it wrong.
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Sep 25, 2021 05:19
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eta: I just checked GGDG's twitter which went against most of what I'm still angry about with CQ so nevermind.
Safari Disco Lion fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 09:58
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Captain Oblivious posted:Octopus Pie. As a point of comparison, Sleepless Domain started in 2015; six years in it now feels strongly like it's around its half-way point (and has, as far as I know, an outline to get the rest of the way). When Sleepless Domain began, the plot in Paranatural was at the same in-story day as it is currently. It helps that SD is Cube's third comic, so she's got a much stronger idea of how much she's capable of and how far she can take a story. Her first comic is technically still ongoing, although only because real life issues have prevented her from finishing the denouement. Plenty of comics do manage to properly conclude, it's not a problem with the medium except in the sense that there's no barrier to someone without the planning skills to get there from starting their project. The writing's been on the wall for a while that Paranatural probably isn't going to get there even before Zack's wrist issues started getting bad, and I think that's partly because their best skill was getting in the way, which is that Zack is fantastic at drawing really fun and funny comics. All that time not spent advancing the story is packed with great gags and evocative dialogue. So there's never really been a pressure to get on with it plot-wise because the in-the-moment experience has been such a joy to read. Unfortunately this also means that turning it into prose is going to be a lot less fun, for the audience and probably also for Zack themself. Hopefully they can find a better way to keep the comic going.
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Sep 25, 2021 12:02
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