Strip Order

[Human Paragon 3]

I read all of Erfworld today- well, almost all of Erfword. I actually read the first few strips last week and didn't like them much. The conceit of the MMORPG/Warcraft world wasn't that interesting to me and none of the characters grabbed me either...


Then, today I saw the most current Erfworld (50, page 45) and saw Parson and thought- wait a minute, is the "Ultimate Warlord" a fat gamer from earth? And then I thought, now that's a premise I could get interested in.

I read the rest of the comic right after that and enjoyed it pretty well.

My suggestion to the authors is to rearange the strip order so we meet Parson right after Wanda explains to BBEG about the ultimate warlord. It wouldn't require any re-writes, it wouldn't mess with the continuity, it would just get our protagonist in earlier and perhaps catch a few more fans. I wasn't interested in the comic at first because I didn't care about the Erfworld folk, but Lord Hamster hooked me in.

I strongly suggest you re-order the strips to move the introduction of Parsons up. Others are welcome to comment on this (obviously, it's an online forum!).

[Alex Star]

From a purely editorial standpoint I think you have a valid point. However, given the fact that Erfworld is someone elses creative property I am personally hesitant to make too many remarks on their creative decision making.

[Human Paragon 3]

As a writer, I always apreciate constructive criticism, and that's what this is, friendly advice from one author to another.

[kpenguin]

That might just be a good idea. I too felt disinterested at the first few strips. I really got into Erfworld when Parson was introduced. Introducing Parson earlier would be a good idea.

[Scientivore]

From a purely editorial standpoint I think you have a valid point. However, given the fact that Erfworld is someone elses creative property I am personally hesitant to make too many remarks on their creative decision making.

I've studied the art of constructive criticism. I'll share what I've learned in very brief terms in the hope that you or someone else will benefit. I'll be using the OP as an example of good criticism. The three main points to keep in mind are respect, specificity and fit.

The first and most important is respect. You expressed that. The OP expressed it too, with courteous language and a sense of place. You have a right to your preferences and desires, so you'll not be stepping on anyone's toes as long as you express yourself in terms of "I want you to" instead of "you should" / "you must" / "you would be dumb/foolish/evil not to".

The second is specificity. Vague terms like "sucks" are useless and therefore unconstructive. The OP was very specific, saying exactly what change he would like to see and why: Parson being introduced earlier as a hook to draw readers in.

The third is proportionality or fit. Basically, it's just keeping the context in mind. It does no good to describe advanced techniques to someone who is still struggling to learn the basics. It does no good to give a harsh, no-holds-barred critique to someone who isn't looking for criticism in the first place. In this case, Rob and Jamie are experienced professionals, they're putting forth what I perceive as a commercial product (albeit delightfully free) and Rob in particular has repeatedly said that he wants to hear from his critics. So, I think that it's appropriate here to express any respectful, specific criticism that you might have.

Good criticism takes care, same as any other craft. I've held off on giving more myself -- not only here, but also on deviantART and other places -- because I just don't feel like going to that much work. I respect the OP for taking the time and I hope that others may find my explanation useful.

[SteveMB]

FWIW, Rob did mention in an earlier thread about the strip's pacing that the final published order of pages may differ from the one presented here in realtime (or is that "during Erfworld's turns"?), so he's clearly given some thought to the matter.

The example Rob mentioned was possibly putting the interrogation scene pages together. (At the time of the earlier thread, we had seen pages 28 & 30; pages 36 and 38 were still in the future.) I see the reasoning for putting pages 28 & 30 together, given the absence of a significant time or event gap between them.

Other than that, I prefer the sequencing as it is; it provides a large gap between pages 30 and 36 and a somewhat smaller one between pages 36 and 38 (corresponding to the apparent time passed over in each case), and there is a nice counterpoint between Wanda's actions on page 30 and Stanley's indignation at having his side called "the bad guys" on page 31. (Of course, it's a purely theoretical point -- page 36 is tied to page 35 by Sizemore and Parson's conversation, which in turn is tied to Sizemore's eyebook message immediately following Stanley's rant, so that sequence of pages is locked into place anyway.)

[Moik]

You think the gap between 30 and 36 was big, you should see the one between 46 and 47. It yawns widely.

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I apologize for having no relevant content to add to this conversation.