Has it really been a year since my first webcomic ended? (Which was exactly a year after it started.) Apparently it has.
Note that Darths & Droids is running like clockwork. To my knowledge, they haven’t missed a single installment. (I think I missed six or so during the run of DMotR.) My comic covered 3 movies and ran for 144 episodes. By episode 144 of Darths & Droids they were only mid-way through the first of six movies. Whew.
To the Comic Irregulars: I hope you guys love making these things, because according to the navicomputer you’re going to make over 1,700 of them before Darths & Droids ends its twelve-year run!
I love the internet.
Could Have Been Great
Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
The Mistakes DOOM Didn't Make
How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
The Gradient of Plot Holes
Most stories have plot holes. The failure isn't that they exist, it's when you notice them while immersed in the story.
Bad and Wrong Music Lessons
A music lesson for people who know nothing about music, from someone who barely knows anything about music.
Wow…. that’s a lot of potential comics… Perhaps they should increase the frequency of the comic.
I am wondering about the full run of Darths & Droids as well.
I mean, 8-Bit Theatre is only on Episode 1034, and it’s been going on for more than 7 years.
I say, good luck to them. I know how hard it is to maintain a regular update schedule.
Hey,David Morgan-Mar is running two comics, and I don’t think he has missed any updates in his first comic either since first year.
Well DMM recently broke 2000 with Irregular Webcomic and he’s never missed a day, I think, so I reckon they’ll manage it.
The guy is a comic-making machine.
Isn’t he a physicist? My gosh. If he’d been physicist-ing instead of making comics all this time we’d probably have warp drive AND transporters by now.
He’s been late, but that’s understandable. Especially since it is Irregular Webcomic. ;)
For some reason, I just don’t see Darths and Droids extending beyond the first movie. On the other hand, I really hope I’m wrong! :)
If we’re giving props to some of our favorite long-runners, Howard Taylor’s been doing Schlock Mercenary every day since… June 12, 2000. I don’t think he’s ever missed a day. I’m too lazy to work out the numbers, but that’s a lot of comics too. :)
And I loved the last Darths and Droids, LOL! The look on Qui-Gon’s face in the second to last panel is priceless, heh.
Angie
RPharazon: I expect 8-bit Theatre will finish up sometime in the first half of next year, given the pace and the fact that it’s near the end of the game’s storyline. I admit some of the humor has gotten a bit repetitive – you can only stretch the “horrible people doing horrible things to everyone, including themselves” schtick so far – but it’s still a favorites and I’m sure I’ll miss it.
Darths and Droids is just so rarely even remotely funny. Shamus has much more of a flair for comedy. I think Stolen Pixels is great and I don’t even play video games! And of course I loved DMoTR.
I liked DM of the Rings, and I like Darths and Droids. As for length… Yup, I agree with your calculations. Assuming nothing jynxes it. 8-bit Theater is wrapping up, but there’s also Order of the Stick for modestly consistent webcomics. But yeah, David Morgan-Mar is definitely consistent. I really admire that.
I love “Irregular Webcomic” – that’s the very first site I check when I wake up in the morning.
Always looking forward to the next installment of Steve’s crazy adventures the most.
LOVED DMotR, never got caught with Darths and Droids. I have been reading and enjoying Irregular Webcomic for years though.
Rich Burlew, (Order of the Stick) while funny as all hell and wonderful to read, is the exact opposite of on-time with his comics. If he didn’t have an RSS, I might not have kept reading it. He does though, so it doesn’t really matter whether he’s consistent or not. (Dude has a lot of health issues, and I understand he has a stressful life.)
Chainmail Bikini can be forgiven too. Working with two guys on any project is at least four times as hard, and being separated by distance probably doubles that. You simply are never going to have everyone’s priorities on the same page.
I’ve never missed one or been late, but then I’m only putting out three pages a week, so I don’t know if that’s any kind of accomplishment. I just try to work with a buffer.
Really though, RSS takes a lot of the work out for the readers. No more “checking in” to see if the comic is done “” a link just shows up in your mailbox whenever it’s ready! Shlock even sends the whole comic!
There’s a Transformers webcomic I follow that’s been updated diligently for the past couple years now, although that’s admittedly because there’s one guy who does the main storyline and a few fans who pitch in with filler strips every so often when needed. (But considering that the filler strips are usually brilliantly hilarious, it’s hard to complain.)
And yeah, I admit 8-Bit Theater’s gotten tired by this point… I mostly read it out of habit nowadays. :>
Thanks so much for your DMotR comic… aside from being a brilliant satire of the typical RP group (that reminded me why I adore my own RP group for not being typical, eheh) it introduced me to your equally engrossing/entertaining gaming/geek commentary here on your normal blog. :D
@AngiePen:
Schlock Mercenary just recently celebrated its 3000th comic. And no, he’s never missed a day, thanks to his buffer.
Kevin: You put out three DRAWN pages a week. Very few webcomics pull that off.
Actually, yours is the only one I can think of that actually does it. I put out three pages a week – sometimes as many as six – but those were screencapped.
It’s not as geeky, but Least I Could Do has been like clockwork, five times a week since forever…
http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20080508
And read the next couple.
Sheldon Comics ( http://www.sheldioncomics.com and here’s the first one: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/011130.html ) has been going since November 30, 2001. He does it hand drawn every day of the week. I don’t think he’s missed any, but I could be wrong.
I have about 30 that I keep my RSS reader pointed to…most update a few times a week, a few (under 5) do daily updates.
Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard, Lynn Johnston (creator of For Better or For Worse) just restarted the comic from day 1 about a week ago…that ran for 29 years in publication with daily strips. You can now read it on the web at http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/
–Kev.
Oh yeah, we love making them – why else get into this game? We’re hoping to wrap Episode I by strip 200 (not quite sure if we’ll make it yet), so that means a mere 1,200 comics over 8 years for the whole six films. Much easier! :-)
I’ve been reading Da&Dr on and off; I’ll skip a few months, come back to it, and think, “Wow, I’ve only missed 5 minutes of film time!”
Hey, it’s DMM! Well, you only have 50 strips left until 200, to do it, you’ll definitely have to make it more fast-paced than you have been. ;)
I think that Darths and Droids would benefit a lot from a faster plot. Their current pace would be fine in book form, but when it is one every couple of days, I feel like the plot takes forever, and it does. This also draws more attention to bad jokes since there is no noticeable plot progression.
Also, a comic which updates 5x a week with almost no exceptions: http://www.questionablecontent.net/
cyanide and happiness updates a lot too, but that doesn’t really count since multiple people draw the different comics and its all stick figures.
Craig
I’ve been following Darths and Droids consistently since… hmm, I can’t think when, following both Irregular Webcomic and Shamus’ blog by memory and more recently by RSS feed has certainly helped. I find the humor is… intellectual. Is that the word? It doesn’t pander to the OMGWTFBBQ webcomic readers, there aren’t many popular culture based jokes. It requires something of a slower taste for comedy though it comes at a steady pace. It’s not so much parody for the sake of parody as parody as a conveyance for lesser levels of hilarity and greater levels of comedy. It’s comming at a consistent rate, though the tatooine parts lagged a little though use of the deleted scenes, it has it’s lulls and peaks like any other webcomic.
Darths & Droids amuses me well enough, though I wish the plot would move a *bit* faster, but that’s nitpicking.
Also, I love that Jim is a geophysicist – represent!
I love the first post, and I agree. That way they only have to make 1,700 instead.
First, I think DMM isn’t 1 single person, but a collective. So it explains their clockwork incredibly perfect respect of schedule when it comes to writing a plot. And after all, Irregular Webcomic is taken from picture of lego figures, while D&D is from screen caps, both of them take a lot less work than a scratch artist, I’d think..
But then again, I am a BIG fan of DMM.
Oh, and to the people who are saying “D&D should have a faster plot” WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! Don’t you understand that there is only ONE time DMM is going to make D&D? That when he will be finished, it’s gonna be CAPUT, NEIN, no more?! You really want to SPEED FORWARD? I was so sad when I noticed that DMotR had came to an end, because I knew there wouldn’t be anymore. Well, I say to all good Webcomic Writer all around, savour your plot! Extend as much as you’d like, because your fan knows that when you will be over…
it’s gonna be over.. :(
By the way, I miss Casey & Andy…
To Solka:
“So who are the Comic Irregulars?
The creators of Darths & Droids are Andrew Coker, Andrew Shellshear, David Karlov, David McLeish, David Morgan-Mar, Ian Boreham, Loki Patrick, Steven Irrgang.”
So yes, they are a collective.
I just want to second QC, it’s a daily ritual of mine.
No love for Sluggy Freelance?
… Though admittedly his work’s gone a little downhill the past year or so, it’s still my homepage. It’s one of the webcomic giants out there and it hits probably 95% attendance rate, which is amazing considering it’s 11 years old.
I second the whole “savour your D&D whilst ye can.” I have no problems with the humour (I find most of it pretty hilarious, actually) and if anything I wish the plot’d go a bit slower.
Oh well.
Schlock Merc has been mentioned.
IW! has been mentioned.
LICD has been mentioned.
Man, so many webcomics that I don’t have time to rave about. Qwantz? Scary Go Round? Cat & Girl? Sam & Fuzzy? Sinfest? Diesel Sweeties?
… Though I guess they’re not really game-culture oriented. The small list mentioned here is my opinion of the pinnacles of webcomicry so far.
(Not necessarily in order. Schlock and Scary Go Round are my favourites, for example).
And yes, if you’re going to talk about it I’ve probably read it. I don’t understand why people like QC or Cyanide and Happiness, but whatever. Different strokes and all that.
This is wonderful and awful, check out the people rising up in anger against spore!
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Mac/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1220815581&sr=8-1
Holy geez, people are actually crying out against Spore’s DRM in a place purchaser’s might see it beforehand!
http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Mac/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1220815581&sr=8-1
Feel free to delete this if you had planned on talking about Spore already.
Ever since Tat came back from his (extremely lengthy) hiatus, I don’t think Sinfest has missed a day, 7 days a week.
I’d like to throw out a congratulations to both DMM and Shamus for their efforts to add a bit of humor into my life. It’s also given me something to do for the last 6 months.
I love the current Darth & Droids strip, with the geophysics doctorate student offering his equations. The cheerful professor-like expression as he does so, priceless!
Darths and Droids has a harder row to hoe when it comes to humor because they decided not to have the social dynamic of the gaming group resemble DM of the Rings.
This was a good move because, well, the “I hate this game” jokes and people leaving the campaign midstream and absentee player stuff were very funny, but I’ve already heard them. Having everybody generally get along helps differentiate their screencap comic from the original. On the other hand, it’s a lot harder to make jokes about people getting along than being perpetually on the verge of fighting. They manage pretty well, though, and I think the idiot-savant geophysicist joke has some legs.
Well, Da&Dr had one major burst of brilliance when the team came up with Sally. Best of (a very good) Breed so far. It is required reading at my desk (as I explained only this morning to my irate boss).
But DMoTR gave us “A Very Specific Level of Tiredness”, “Walking Stick” *and* “Keen Ranger Senses”. These tropes have supplanted *all* MPFC references in our Conan campaign as the key way to break ten minutes of unabated atmosphere-building by our DM. Then there was that whole Ent/Spriggan episode that still cracks me up when I think of it. “Hoom hom welcome to Isenguard”. Classic.
Steve.
I do wish that the Darth and Droids guys would give the GM a name. “The GM” is the name of someone you’d find on a geek hippie commune.
“George” or “Lucas” would work equally well.
@Kirk (10)
“Darths and Droids is just so rarely even remotely funny. Shamus has much more of a flair for comedy. I think Stolen Pixels is great and I don't even play video games! And of course I loved DMoTR.”
Right with you on that one. I’m sorry, but when every strip has to invovle a long explanation at the end, it kind of takes the wind out of the sails. Shamus’ post-strip comments always added something of another joke, rather than an attempt to recover from a gag that just fell flat.
Actually another webcomic that shells out drawn strips three times a week is http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/. However when you see the comic you will understand. The strip makes me smile quite regular though. It is good stuff.