Paranatural

Yeah, as funny and clever as this comic is, and as pretty to look at the art is, the pace is just glacial.

The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.

I always thought Paranatural moved at a pretty good clip, considering how detailed the art is. If you actually go back and read chapter 5 a TON of stuff has happened, all of it important.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

the issue is that we get maybe two pages a week.

I'm absolutely positive that this webcomic will be great for archive binging, but when waiting for release it's definitely a lot slower.

"There's not a girl alive who wouldn't be happy being called cute." ~Tamamo-no-Mae

I'm not debating that stuff happens, but honestly, things haven't really changed all that much since this chapter started - there are still many mysteries that have barely even been introduced at this point.

Compare it to something like, say, The Order of the Stick, which - despite updating about as or even less frequently - has advanced considerably over the past three years. Granted, that comic sometimes has updates that are the equivalent of two or more pages, but still.

We're moving, yes, but there has been precious little forward momentum.

It definitely reads better in the archive, yeah.

I really do think that Zach would benefit more from shorter chapters, or at least breaking things up. Chapters 2 and 3 are considerably shorter than the rest, and they flow great.

edited 29th Aug '17 8:12:37 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Oh God! Natural light!

I can recognize that Paranatural has a slow pace, but personally, I don't mind it.

That's just me, though.

Mostly does better things now. Key word mostly. Writes things, but you'll never find them. Or you can ask.

I think that if he used his Patreon to hire a flatter or something, that might help the pace.

Writer, or something. And... a button? 🖲️

Order of the Stick has a much looser focus on time than Paranatural. Important moments show up on panel, but the pacing of what happens between strips varies wildly. In OOTS, strips that aren't fights or long talks can skip over minutes or even hours of time with no comment or question. It's a hold over from when the comic was gag a day and time didn't matter at all, if it's not a direct continuum of events like a conversation or an action scene, time can be flexible and pass *very* fluidly.

Paranatural is an ENTIRELY different ballgame. Paranatural said point blank in chapter 1 it was going to be locked in very tight into the comic approximation of Real Time. Things are always happening in direct order, one after the other, minute by minute. At most the comic will chose not to depict about 5 minutes of fluff, or skipping over the wee hours of the morning to get to people arriving at school. When something isn't happening to Max, something is absolutely happening at the same time to someone else, who we will cut to as long as they need for that "time" to pass.

Comparing Paranatural's granularity to the wider less focused time scale of OOTS, especially after it's been running rapidly towards climax after posting for 11 years (using the 3 years point of comparison) strikes me as disingenuous.

Despite my screen-name, ranting to you about One Piece is not my top priority.

Fair enough - that Paranatural does so much in relative real time hadn't really occurred to me. That being said, I don't think it's an advisable model, at least not in serial format.

Oh God! Natural light!

It's not so much an issue of time as much as artstyle. You're comparing a strip that have upwards of a dozens panels per page, frequently each with three or more speech balloons, and a very simplified artstyle, to one with much more detailed art and decompressed panel layout.

Each Order of The Stick page contains 2-3 times more story than any given Paranatural page, so it's no surprise that one moves faster than the other.

"Canada Day is over, and now begins the endless dark of the Canada Night."

Yeah, you're right - probably not a fair comparison.

Still, I do think that there's a limit to how well this format can work for a webcomic.

Oh God! Natural light!

/shrugs

I can't honestly say I disagree. It was, after all, a thing I thought while reading the hitball. 'This must've been hell to read one page at time'.

But equally, it's nothing new, and furthermore is a very common problem webcomics have.

"Canada Day is over, and now begins the endless dark of the Canada Night."

Time to shake my subjectivity stick!

In the end, I think it can work great for a webcomic, or poorly; sometimes, both, to different groups of people. It depends on the priorities one has with their fiction, I think. Like I said, I'm not bothered by the slow pacing at all, and I really appreciate how comprehensive everything is. It's going the speed it needs to to tell the story it wants to tell the way it wants to tell it, with added Schedule Slip. Which isn't at all to say that criticizing it is inherently invalid and people dissatisfied with the pacing have wrong priorities, or just need to see the light and come around to being zen about pacing. That would be stupid; but, by the same token, I just want to toss in my two cents about not acting like we can absolutely state that a given stylistic choice is actually inherently bad for the comic, or comics in general. You can only really define its pros and cons,^note And even then it's ultimately subjective what are pros and what are cons, but I'm digressing enough as it is and leave those to the individual to weigh and decide how much it is or isn't worth it.

I think you could very easily have something on the extreme end of "Things happen in relative real time" that makes it work quite well, even as (one of) the conceit(s) of the comic. People might dislike it because of slow pacing, but other people could like it specifically because of the charm that decision offers. Neither would be wrong, y'know?

"Raichu, why are you waxing philosophical about inherent subjectivity and extreme hypotheticals when what people mean is 'It's been in this one chapter for ages and generally speaking that's not considered great pacing' and are aware it's all opinion?" I don't know, I got bored.

Mostly does better things now. Key word mostly. Writes things, but you'll never find them. Or you can ask.

I think the comic's moving at a fair pace, but Zach could have really benefited from sticking a couple dividers in there and calling this Hijack thing 2-3 "chapters".

Then again, maybe that's a problem? Hijack has now consumed a nontrivial percentage of the comic's runtime. And he doesn't feel like a compelling "main" villain in the same way that Forge did, especially since he wasn't hinted at before he appeared.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

The problem is that they know very well why Isaac is mad at them. They make fun of him for it. It's pretty clear that Isaac only hangs out with the Activity Club because he has no other option — it's either stick with them and try to pick up what scraps of information he can, or go it completely alone with no hope of learning anything. There's a ton of stuff in early chapters that comes off as playful banter, except they're not actually friends. Isaac is resentful of them, and they're dismissive of him. We haven't really gotten their side of the story, but from Isaac's POV (as explained to Max), he's very much resentful of them because they're dismissive of him.

Isaac contributes to the problem by lashing out instead of reacting productively, but I find it hard to condemn him for that when it's clear that his bad attitude is a reaction to their poor treatment of him, not the cause of it. If Isabel was serious about trying to clear the air with him, the first thing she'd do is apologize for treating him badly (both in that specific instance, and by extension, in general), but instead she blames him for her treating him badly (both in that specific instance, and by extension, in general). "It's not my fault that I upset you by making fun of you, it's your fault for being upset that I made fun of you" is a really shitty thing to say, and seems to be pretty par for the course vis-a-vis Isaac and the Activity Club.

Of course, Isaac's problem with Max are mostly Isaac's own fault, but he seems to have realized and accepted that after Max called him out on it. Which is part of why I blame the Activity Club for their poor relationship with Isaac — we've seen Isaac realize the err of his ways and own up to it. We've seen the rest of the Activity Club inching towards that, but outside of Isabel and Spender talking, they haven't actually done anything about it.

edited 30th Aug '17 11:53:29 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It's funny, when you put it that way Isaac seems like an ideal candidate for a villain to try to subvert to their side. He strongly resents the team and feels like he's getting a bad bargain. They don't take him seriously despite being very strong. And most importantly, almost any credible villain could offer Isaac exactly what he wants (useful information about ghost stuff, feeling like an actual team member). Plus it would be trope-errific.

And then you realize that in a way that's what they're expecting and planning on, and why they distanced themselves from him in the first place. They know any information they give him is help they're giving his cloud spirit once he dies, and they expect said spirit to be an enemy when Isaac dies. Thus, don't help Isaac. Thus, Isaac hates them and is primed to betray them.

It's like he's a self-fulfilling The Starscream.

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

But the Then Let Me Be Evil trope always makes me feel kinda sad. Then again, it is also the source of tasty, tasty angst. Hmmm...

Writer, or something. And... a button? 🖲️

Yeah, actually, I could see that happening very easily. Isaac has little loyalty to the Activity Club because of the way they've treated him, and resents the fact that they dismiss him despite the fact that he thinks he's stronger. (As an aside, I have no idea whether he's actually stronger or not. He only makes the claim to Max, so we don't see anyone else's response to it. We've seen that both Ed and Isabel are pretty damn good in a fight, and Spender seems to consider Isabel the best fighter of the three. But the important thing is that Isaac thinks he's the strongest, which colors his relationship with the rest of the club.) If someone gave him an opportunity to have an actual mentor (which he wishes Spender was) and a chance to show up his former clubmates, he'd jump at it.

Of course, he's also an anime hero, so he's not actually a bad person and would balk at seriously hurting anyone or doing anything clearly evil. But if the Consortium's rival organizations (the Cousinhood of Man and.... I think there was a third spectral group too, but I'm blanking on the name) approached him and convinced him that he could join up and be on a different team but not be the bad guy, and in the process get the respect he feels he's been denied, he'd absolutely go for it.

Of course, for full anime points, he'd either be manipulated or just outright mind-controlled into crossing the line into being a bad guy, and then somehow shake it off at the last second and sacrifice himself to save the Activity Club. And equally of course, knowing this comic, said sacrifice would end up being embarrassing and undignified but not physically harmful, so he'd end up back where he started (in the Activity Club, getting no respect) except this time he'd accept it because he felt he deserved it and letting it happen was a sort of penance. ...until it went on long enough and he started getting resentful again over the fact that they refuse to let him live it down despite him turning good again in the end (and doubly so if it's actual mind control).

Man, having typed that all out, I can see it super clearly and I really hope it doesn't happen that way, because Isaac deserves better.

edited 30th Aug '17 4:53:44 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

...I've been expecting Isaac to turn into Max's arch enemy since the Spirit Train. It seems like the big arc of the story, imo. Isaac becoming a villain because nobody would trust him, and then Johnny taking his place as an ally, filling a Vegeta like role.

Okay, Isaac teaming up with Johnny and crew in order to act as wild cards that run around screwing up everyone's plans would be awesome.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Which makes it all the more funny that Ed is sort of fulfilling that role...

Wait, would shooting balls of spectral energy at Isabel and Ed even do anything to them?

edited 30th Aug '17 8:54:12 PM by Victin

Spec-shots can affect anything with spectral energy — which includes ghosts, spirits, tools, and spectrals. If spectral energy couldn't affect spectrals, then ghosts and spirits and whatnot wouldn't be able to harm them.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

[1]

Replying to what was said earlier in response to me about Isaac (....Ouch, that sentence. Ugh.). That's not how I'm seeing it. When Isabel explained the situation a while ago, she said that something bad happened, Isaac assumed they were angry, and then got snappy ever since. They snapped back a bit, playfully, because someone is snapping at them and that's no fun. They would like to talk it out, but he keeps being hostile to them and you can hardly get out two words before he blows up. Again.

And, Isabel didn't make fun of him here! She simply asked him to name his favourite anime to prove it was him. Isaac assumed she wouldn't know, and she showed that she did. Isaac then blew up at her for making fun of him but...she didn't. She just said a thing she noticed and he exploded.

As someone who has a trouble reading people at the best of times, that's a pain in the arse to deal with. I cannot read minds. I don't want to talk to someone who is going to assume the worst of me and just randomly explode when I open my mouth. It's no fun. It's not how a good friend acts.

That's how it all feels to me, anyway.

The last thing you hear before an unstoppable juggernaut bisects you with a minigun.

Yeah I get that feeling here. Isabel didn't mock his taste or anything, she just noticed his behaviour and is stating it plainly as a fact.