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I hope, once they hang Paranatural up and take some time to not have their wrists explode, Zack starts doing smaller, more manageable projects. Less "twenty-year epic story", more "50-page graphic novel."
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Sep 25, 2021 12:17
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The comic would have been over by now if he hadn't done the kickball arc
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Sep 25, 2021 15:40
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Hitball. Kickball was banned after the Mayview Elementary Kickball Massacre of 1978, and Coach Oop would never be so irresponsible as to find some way around the ban et cetera. Hitball is a completely different and distinct sport, legally speaking.
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Sep 25, 2021 16:12
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Hitball is also a version of dodgeball; kickball is like baseball or softball with running around bases and poo poo.
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Sep 25, 2021 16:56
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Fortis posted:Hitball is also a version of dodgeball Again, legally distinct &c, I've had enough of listening to you all disparage Coach Oop's good name.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:07
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Ahh, they pulled an Erfworld. So it goes.
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Sep 25, 2021 17:09
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the hitball chapter rules, frankly
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Sep 25, 2021 17:14
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Varinn posted:the hitball chapter rules, frankly 
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Sep 25, 2021 17:42
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Varinn posted:the hitball chapter rules, frankly It owns and is extremely funny and could be a standalone comic entirely by itself with just a few tweaks.
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Sep 25, 2021 18:46
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Hitball was my introduction to the comic
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Sep 25, 2021 19:21
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Hey, if it worked for the Achewood blogs it can work for Paranatural. I'm down to see where this goes
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Sep 25, 2021 19:24
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Strange Cares posted:Hey, if it worked for the Achewood blogs it can work for Paranatural. I'm down to see where this goes very different. the achewood blogs and cookbooks were all in-character first-person vignettes, not traditional prose. i can only remember one short story of onstad's (when teodor first moves in) and it didn't work nearly as well paranatural's writing would also be far worse than achewood's outside of comic format. the dialogue would be unbearably obnoxious without zack's visuals and panels to space it out, to say nothing of the narration itself. the smartest thing to do would be to just pull the plug on paranatural and move on to gag-a-day or something, but zack's probably still too deep in sunk cost to consider that
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Sep 25, 2021 20:10
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Nah, it'll work fine. Feels more like you all are afraid of change, but honestly? That's okay.
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Sep 25, 2021 20:30
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Strange Cares posted:Nah, it'll work fine. Feels more like you all are afraid of change, but honestly? That's okay. Yeah it can't be that the specific combination of Zack's writing and comedic timing in the comics format specifically being what attracted many of us to the story in the first place is what's making us skeptical about this, nor could it possibly be that other webcomics have done this exact thing immediately prior to totally imploding. No, it must be a personal failing on our parts that's making us skeptical about this. Of course. Fortis fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 21:51
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Comedic timing in writing and comedic timing in penis are totally different things.
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Sep 25, 2021 22:04
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Fortis posted:Yeah it can't be that the specific combination of Zack's writing and comedic timing in the comics format specifically being what attracted many of us to the story in the first place is what's making us skeptical about this, nor could it possibly be that other webcomics have done this exact thing immediately prior to totally imploding. No, it must be a personal failing on our parts that's making us skeptical about this. Of course. Hey, you can be skeptical but jumping right to doomsaying seems a bit much. I think it's a cool experiment and I'm happy that Zack is trying something that's gonna work better for them. Maybe a bit shaky to start, but they're super passionate about this story so I believe in them to keep improving, just like they do with their art. And hey, if I'm wrong you can dig up these posts and make fun of me in the future. That'll be a nice time for all of us.
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Sep 25, 2021 22:09
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girl dick energy posted:Comedic timing in writing and comedic timing in penis are totally different things. Tell that to Oglaf
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Sep 25, 2021 22:11
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Tenebrais posted:Tell that to Oglaf Pun aside, Oglaf kind of proves that point though; all the arcs around Ivan the Apprentice wwere an awful slog because of how long and drawn out it was compared to the snappy, instant payback humor Oglaf usually has. I love Paranatural for many, many reasons, but pacing is absolutely not one of them.
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Sep 26, 2021 00:15
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I don't think I like this change. It feels like Zack isn't playing to their strengths as a creator. Plus, switching over to prose summaries is the webcomics equivalent of hospice care.
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Sep 26, 2021 00:33
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One of my favorite visual puns from Zack -- "because of *gestures* all of the above*" -- just simply doesn't work in a prose format.
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Sep 26, 2021 00:46
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Oxxidation posted:the smartest thing to do would be to just pull the plug on paranatural and move on to gag-a-day or something, but zack's probably still too deep in sunk cost to consider that
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Sep 26, 2021 02:32
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Pants Donkey posted:Getting bi-monthly Lupin goof comics whenever their wrist is up to it would soothe our loss. Loss? Where?!
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Sep 26, 2021 06:18
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I think the problem with this kind of thing really comes from artists assuming that writing is easier because the work put in to get good at it isn’t as obvious/visible. So they swap over, thinking it’ll take less work, when all it does is take a different kind of work. And so this Hail Mary for “this will make things easier and save my project” is a kick in the teeth instead.
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Sep 26, 2021 08:29
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Strange Cares posted:Hey, you can be skeptical but jumping right to doomsaying seems a bit much. I think it's a cool experiment and I'm happy that Zack is trying something that's gonna work better for them. Maybe a bit shaky to start, but they're super passionate about this story so I believe in them to keep improving, just like they do with their art. Maybe it somehow will work out but at the same time uh... basic pattern recognition isn't doomsaying.
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Sep 26, 2021 12:14
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The closest thing to a success story with this format is Erfworld, which kept going for several years after the change and only ended due to outside circumstances. So, it didn’t kill the comic. It did, however, undermine all of the author’s strengths and encourage/intensify all their weaknesses.
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Sep 26, 2021 15:13
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girl dick energy posted:I think the problem with this kind of thing really comes from artists assuming that writing is easier because the work put in to get good at it isn’t as obvious/visible. So they swap over, thinking it’ll take less work, when all it does is take a different kind of work. And so this Hail Mary for “this will make things easier and save my project” is a kick in the teeth instead. Well the "easier" in this case is "easier on their body", so I don't think the intention is that it's less work in terms of writing being a simpler craft than drawing, but less work in terms of physical complications. That said I'm personally not very interested in continuing to follow Paranatural in a blog/LN style format but I hope they're able to find a solution that they're happy with even if it isn't one I'll be reading.
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Sep 26, 2021 16:40
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Can't say I was super hot on the first page they put out, but I'm willing to give it a try.
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Sep 26, 2021 20:46
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girl dick energy posted:The closest thing to a success story with this format is Erfworld, which kept going for several years after the change and only ended due to outside circumstances. So, it didn’t kill the comic. Erfworld also wasn't 100% that format either to my recollection, it was probably somewhere around 70% prose to 30% comic pages which I think contributed a lot to not killing the comic.
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Sep 27, 2021 06:34
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We're not getting more pages per week right? Still once a week, just light novel format now?
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Sep 27, 2021 06:44
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If we do wind up getting an illustrated novel I really hope that Zack will do it as plain text that can feed into my browser's reading mode so that I can read it at a comfy size instead of having to zoom way in.
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Sep 27, 2021 07:13
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blastron posted:If we do wind up getting an illustrated novel I really hope that Zack will do it as plain text that can feed into my browser's reading mode so that I can read it at a comfy size instead of having to zoom way in. Sorry but it is literally an image https://www.paranatural.net/comic/chapter-7-page-51
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Sep 27, 2021 14:06
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drat that is like the absolute worst way to do it lol. Easiest if you're doing anything fancy with the text, but there's none of that happening.
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Sep 27, 2021 14:10
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The transcript is in the text description below, not sure if that helps you?
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Sep 27, 2021 15:25
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Web serials are certainly something that can be successful—there’s plenty of stuff put out online that has a significant following, and also end up getting published or further adapted (like The Martian). But it’s a very different format that requires different skills, and isn’t necessarily going to appeal to the same audience. And switching from a very well-produced webcomic to a prose serial done by someone new to the format is going to be offputting to a lot of people. The update we have here is just too short to be enough of an update. Comics can come a page at a time and that works, because a picture is worth a thousand words, and whatnot. This just isn’t a strong start. I hope Zack can figure out something that works for them, but what we have in front of us right now ain’t it.
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Sep 27, 2021 23:29
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That prose page was ok as a one time thing but I don't think anything about it was particularly charming or clever. Maybe zack will find a way to make it more interesting who knows, but paranatural has always felt like a very uniquely visual experience, more so than most webcomics, so this transition seems especially ill suited. I'm remebering things like spender bringing out the shadow powers against forge or the entire reflection frog fight and like, the clever use of visuals is honestly the most compelling part of the comic. I don't think those moments would've been particularly good if not for the excellent visual presentation of the concepts. ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Oct 1, 2021 |
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Oct 1, 2021 07:38
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all I'm gonna say on these developments is that I think of Zack as the Kentaro Miura of visual comedy. that's not a bad legacy to have. I'll ride this out with them, to a good end hopefully, years from now. I hope whatever happens, they know a lot of us are proud of them for everything they managed to do.
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Oct 1, 2021 20:03
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Outlook not so good for this comic as prose since Zack just posted what would probably be half a year of regular paranatural comics in one written update and nobody's commented on it
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Oct 1, 2021 20:05
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Calaveron posted:Outlook not so good for this comic as prose since Zack just posted what would probably be half a year of regular paranatural comics in one written update and nobody's commented on it lol gently caress. Well the comic had a good run.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:09
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Yeah this isn't doing it for me. Some of the descriptions feel more like "this would be really cool, in a visual medium" note to Zack theirself than like...descriptive language, if that makes sense.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:35
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zack's best work isn't a fit for prose even if they were a really good prose writer, which they aren't like you wouldn't be able to accurately reproduce the fabled jeff-bullying page in plain text. it's not doable e: iirc they tried this same thing in 2018, to a similarly tepid response Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Oct 1, 2021 |
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Oct 1, 2021 21:38
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