We always talk about how much we love it when a strip has a URL that matches the title perfectly. While this week’s comic Robot Beach (found at www.robotbeach.com/) certainly has that going for it, the title (and there for the URL) also sum up the topic of the comic as well, eliminating multiple birds with the single stone that is a well chosen URL.
This is an interesting show. It’s one of those times where something is bother one of us and that one of us doesn’t really know what it is until the other one of us makes us define the actual problem. Translation: We fight and fight and fight and fight and fight, but in the end we get down to the actual nagging issue which opens up the nature of comics for both of us and our understanding increases.
That’s just fancy talk saying that you really should check this one out. Not only in Robot Beach and fun comic worthy of your attention, but Jason and I both grow as people, (more me as I’m more of a person) which is a rare enough event to warrant a half hour and change of your time.
Oh and we have show notes:
Zombie Hunter
Order of Tales
PVP
Imagine This
Todd and Penguin
Bear and Tiger
Snowflakes
Goats
Marooned
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Firstly I want to say I would totally use an “I’m here because of digital strips.” banner.
Secondly my opinion of Robot beach. I think it’s quite good, the vanished human creators isn’t particularly original but is still interesting. As to the jumping between gag a day and narrative, I think it’s okay to change but I certainly found it annoying sometimes. Really it’s when the narrative is interesting like after exposition and robot has to decide what to do next a gag seemingly at odds with what’s happening is really jarring. I wouldn’t mind the jellyfish interspersed with the narrative so much because they’re set up just be about the gags, and the fact that their jokes are pretty good does help.
Finally I read all of Order of Tales before reading Robot beach and it made me realise how much I appreciate good archives which load quickly.
You hear that Jason, people are demanding a banner/sig.
So Phil, are you saying the switching between the story and the gag-a-day is jarring? I guess I could certainly see that happening on some of the transitions, especially if you where reading along day by day. I agree though, the quality of the jokes helps a lot though.
Totally agree with you on the archive thing. Nothing is worse than when slow sites meet big archives.
Imagine my surprise when my podcast feed updated with this particular one! Thanks for the review guys!
I’ve found that the hardest thing for me by far has been balancing the story with the gag-a-day strips. It’s difficult at a regular five days a week pace, but it can be torturous on readers when strips come at a two or three day a week pace. Finding the perfect balance between making people laugh, pushing the story forward, and not boring the reader is tough.
I’ve spent this first year learning what I do and do not like to see in my strip from a story standpoint and I’ve kinda arrived at the conclusion that these epic story arcs just don’t fit with what I want to accomplish with the strip. So, now that I have the finally gotten the backstory out of the way, I am going to just relax and have some fun telling jokes for a while.
Thanks again for the review guys!