For the last few weeks, I've been uploading a longer story called 'Hello Future.' You can read the first part here. The story came to an end yesterday and I just wanted to write a little blog post to say "hooray," and "I hope you enjoyed it" and also "here is what I was thinking."
Hooray!
I hope you enjoyed it!
I enjoyed making it because I had plans and rules for this story - which is something I haven't tried before. Normally I just make whatever I want and see how things evolve. Wizarding Wednesday has been a great example of this and I'm really proud of it.
Firstly, the story had to be interesting to people that have read People I Know before without alienating a new reader. That's always tricky with webcomics. Some people see a huge archive as an obstacle to endure before they can start enjoying the latest comic. Even though People I Know only has 550ish comics in the archive, I wanted anyone who found my website for the first time to be interested in what was happening, without having to gallop through the archive. Yes, gallop. Like a comic-devouring pony.
The story also had to push things along in terms of future story lines. Believe it or not, I do actually think about character development - even though my webcomic is just a series of jokes and tears. 'Hello Future' introduced us to two new characters (Future Me and Little Robot) as well as showing us existing characters in a new light. SPOILERS! Toby the dinosaur spent a bunch of panels kissing his boyfriend. The Evil Sun and the weird green blob both got taught different types of lessons. Curly sort of stood up to Jones. Christina was nowhere to be seen (you'll find out more about that later on). The Robot got his head ripped off! So yeah - now we get to see what effect (if any) that has on future comics.
On a slightly boring note, I also set myself the challenge of making sure that each comic was the same size - in this case: A5 landscape. Sometimes there's a temptation to make a comic longer, thinking the extra space will make it better. So for 'Hello Future' I set the size challenge to make sure I never went crazy and just drew really big comics.
It was also a good excuse to touch base with a bunch of different characters that we don't see much of. Rainbow Chicken, the Sunday Science League and the Sleeping Hag all got some screen time because I'd like to do more stuff with them. And because I don't want you to forget about them! I feel like they all have something different to offer the comic. We've already established that Rainbow Chicken wants to find a gimmick... where will that take us next?
On a personal level, I made this story to give myself some breathing room to work on the PROJECT. You'll be familiar with the PROJECT if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram. I don't want to reveal what it is just yet but the sample arrived this week and I'm pretty excited about it all. I'll do a mega blog post about it soon.
In other news, I hope you're all well and having a nice time. Have I missed anything exciting?
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