Let’s get the bad news out of the way: Brazil has once again conspired against us.1 There will not be a full comic on Friday! To display the intensity of his anguish regarding the situation, Greg sent me an email containing no less than 601 frowny emoticons.2 That, friends, is regret. I’ll do my duty to produce something humorous or interesting in the meantime.
Regarding public opinion, though, I’d figured this is a good time to gauge peoples’ thoughts on a couple of things. Chronillogical has run for more than 100 strips now, and while Greg and I have discussed the strip’s future, it’s always worthwhile to know what fans are thinking. So, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email (john [at] chronillogical [dot] com) regarding one or all of the following:
- What do you like about the strip?
- What about the strip is most non-triumphant and/or not so great?
- Are there any eras you’d want our trio to tackle in the future?3
- Specific merch ideas?
Of course, we may decide not to use anyone’s suggestions and have the gang fizzle out in the Pleistocene, a gaggle of Megatherium their only companions. Then again, we might use all suggestions simultaneously in a schizophrenic post-modern barrage! Who knows? The only thing that will reveal the answers … is TIME.4
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1 BRAZILLL!!! [shake-shake-shake-a-fist]
2 The original plan was to reproduce the email here for all to read, but that’s just too much gloom for one post to handle.
3 Hah … “future.” (Almost any time word becomes a pun in the context of this site. It’s ridiculous.)
4 Regardless, thanks for your input and thanks for reading!
1. The jokes. Like, about history and stuff?
2. Not enough riddles.
4. Novelty mugs. ‘I traveled through time and all I got was this stupid mug.’
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1. I love the style of dialogue, along with onomatopoeia and computer screen messages, other made-up hilarious details and such. Examples: 2008/06/10 (first comic), the last 3 panels of 2008/06/27, 2009/09/17, 2009/02/10, 2008/10/17, 2008/09/05, you get the idea, maybe.
2. While the art has gotten more consistent, which is nice, I think the characters have been exaggerated a bit too much, like in 2009/06/23/. But maybe I’m just not used to it.
3. It would probably be confusing to write and maybe not work out well as a story arc, but it’d be potentially hilarious if the trio met *themselves* in the past or future or something. And/or maybe if they showed up in the middle of some ancient war, and accidentally won it, and then were treated as gods. (Though maybe they’re going to do that in the current spatiotemporal arc and I just stole your idea.)
4. Time Goo! Stanley! Black Hole in a Jar! …I could go on!
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4. jtabandes’s ideas for merch are actually really good, but you’d need a lot of merch-desirous readers to produce things that mostly indicate that one reads Chronillogical for profit. Though time goo and black hole in a jar could have wider appeal if the packaging and design were really good (and then promoted via NotCot, geek places, and sci-fi places (i09?)).
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That’s true. I like your idea too — maybe some of the lines from the comics, like “The Future is NOW!”?
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Oh, also I forgot to mention 2009/02/17 (“syntax parallax” is awesome, not to mention the rest of the comic), 2008/12/12, and 2008/11/21.
Oh, so now I want a Syntax Parallax shirt.
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3. While it was only a line in the play, having Roy be the one that warns Caesar about the Ides of March would be funny, since many people think that’s how it actually happened anyway…
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I agree that the dialogue and the messages and such have been pretty good, not to mention the references, obscure and otherwise. Like the cartoony art style, although I agree it does tend to get just a little too exaggerated at times. And the characters seem to be a good mix and interact fairly well with each other, each offering context and counterpoint to the others.
Big problem for me is that the story seems to be meandering for no good effect. The characters are starting to do things that just really make no sense in any context that I can see. I thought you said you had the story outlined to the end. Must be a lot of gaps in the middle? Famous historical settings can be okay, but not really my cup of tea. I’d rather see them in the future, especially since time travel seems to be a pretty regular thing, according to Hermes and the guide books.
Having them meet themselves could be interesting, if handled well, but time paradoxes can be difficult to handle.
I’m still wondering if there’s an overall theme or plot, or if it’s just a ridiculously silly story.
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As for merch ideas, I’d love to have a copy of Fauxdor’s available when traveling. Perhaps there could even be a digital version coupled with a GPS (with temporal capabilities, of course)
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