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I find Mike and Bloo so damn interesting, more! More development!
I personally hope Bloo's sire gets his comeuppance as well. Seriously what a dick! Also, didn't you know Joe? Huge sideburns are the mark of the curse of the douche!
Very true. The only way you can be douchier with facial hair alone is with a soul patch. It's like a little button labelled "Please punch here"
Sideburns. Oh yeah, there are sideburns. Sorry, I was staring at something else that's rather more enormous. Too bad they're attached to a pretty serious violation of the hot/crazy rule.
That said, I love the eyes on those vamps. And yeah, the finger smoke thing is a seriously cool visual element.
At that size, they're not sideburns anymore, they're more like sideblazes.
sidepyres.
sideinfernos.
sideconflagrations.
That was one hell of a moment. I'll keep this page in mind for years, mate.
Enormous sideburns?
You haven't seen dundrearies, then... 7@=Q
They got nothing on the original sideburns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Burnside
Hey! Trivia that I know! I was randomly reading Civil War Wikipedia pages when I first ran into him. Amazing how the name stuck for more than a century.
Man, Mike is still my favorite character. Great to see his continual development!
However this turns out, it'll be interesting.
Just got caught back up on the comic from back before it moved.
Always a pleasure, this one.
Also, not on topic for this page, but it seems like Zzandra's building up a "mama leadership" figure rather than a brute-force leadership.
People are always just looking out for themselves - If you want to lead, you have to give them what they want.
Those who lead through power solve problems directly that no one else can, and impose order with an iron fist.
Those who lead through wisdom guide others through the problems they don't know how to fix, and indebt others to them that way.
Of course, power is faster... but it's harder to hold on to.
So... Mike was ... um.. involved with BOTH Bloo and Zandra? (Are we to assume, at the same time). That guy may be evil, but you've got to admit he must have a brass-ball-measure of What It Takes to satisfy those demanding Immortal Lady-types.
Doesn't make him seem very... smart... though?
Still, Joe, I have to take issue with the way exposition is being delivered here. I'm constantly questioning why your characters are just standing out in the open talking about things that they should probably already know and wouldn't be talking about out loud unless they knew an audience (your readers) were reading a web-comic.
I'd actually much rather you let these folks sit in the shadows and obscure their intent within said shadows. Leave it to us to wonder why Mike and Bloo do what they do--too much exposition leaves little for my gears to work in figuring things out.
It's not that these characters aren't inherently interesting, it's just that what makes a character more interesting is in how much you don't know and want to figure out versus how much you do know and have little else to do but follow along.
Fair enough. But, without stating definitively one way or another, I'll mention that some of them might not necessarily be telling the truth.
The setting is what I'm more concerned with. Did they all agree to suddenly get a breath of fresh and and decide to get some true/false exposition out of the way for its own sake or was there another way this could be set up.
It's a nitpick, I'll admit. But I'm only picking the nits because I think there is value in improving your method of storytelling. I'm getting the feeling that Mike isn't particularly fond of Bloo's rambling given his responses.
In my defense, I don't consider this exposition so much as exploration. Exposition implies explanation of elements of a plot for the benefit of the audience. This scene is instead meant to demonstrate the nature of the relationship between two characters. Neither of them are entirely aware of the others' motivation, and may even be uncertain of their own. Their probing isn't so much a "true/false" examination as it is a Rorschach test, and my failure is that I was unable to adequately convey its nature as such.
I'm using exposition in a more literal sense than from a storytelling perspective. In other words, characters are "exposing" themselves through dialogue. Whether or not what they say is true or false doesn't matter so much as the setting under which they've decided to convey that information.
In other words, maybe you should give either character something to do to mediate the on-going conversation. Something visual, right? Just having the two out staring over yonder talking about whatever isn't as exciting as on-going action, in other words, yeah?
I'm using exposition in a more literal sense than from a storytelling perspective. In other words, characters are "exposing" themselves through dialogue. Whether or not what they say is true or false doesn't matter so much as the setting under which they've decided to convey that information.
In other words, maybe you should give either character something to do to mediate the on-going conversation. Something visual, right? Just having the two out staring over yonder talking about whatever isn't as exciting as on-going action, in other words, yeah?
Well then Pelinkovac why don't you make your own comic and write it exactly how you'd like? This scene including the setting make sense to me, because Bloo has, since the introduction of her character, been a chatty one and it seems to me that she's watching her vampire army prepare to cause some chaos down in the down. Mike's motivations are very much being kept in the shadows, and honestly it doesn't seem 100% clear why Bloo is so insistent that she wants this either. So I respectfully think your criticisms are bunk.
It's alright, Pelinkovac's just speaking their mind. I can't fault them for that, and I'll always encourage my readers to give their honest impressions for my honest consideration, even when I don't always agree with their conclusions. I owe it to every reader to contemplate any complaints.
And Pelinkovac has put a lot of thought into their criticism. In fact I think we're alike in a way. I've offered similar critiques many times in the past. I can sympathize, even if I don't concur.
In any case, I appreciate their input, and I appreciate yours, Spider, and I assure you there's plenty of room to agree to disagree.
Not to say that valid points haven't been raised, but...
When it comes to this scene I don't really mind the dialogue. It kinda feels like Bloo and Mike weren't super close until their desire to bring down Zandra did it. Hence its okay for them to have these "get to know you" conversations.
Take Mike, for example. He was interested in Zandra for what reason? That wasn't completely clear in the beginning--nor necessarily should it have been. There was just enough there for us to conclude he had an interest.
Was he in love? Was it just curiosity? It wasn't exactly spelled out, was it?
Now, here, it seems attention is being drawn to it. In similar fashion, Crystal drew attention to her character traits. Point being here that character traits don't exist to be expounded upon via dialogue. The traits exist as complicated constructs not easily deconstructed through mere words but actions and words within particular events.
Here, just words are taking place.
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