I felt sad when I drew that third panel. Almost like I wanted to reach into it, give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be OK. :(
Something I've been noticing about the direction of the strip that worries me a tad is that it doesn't seem to take much for me to fall victim to what is called Cerebus Syndrome. For those of you who've never heard of it, it's the tendency of a cartoonist to start off all wacky and slowly end up very serious. Dave Sim is a cartoonist that is known for his comic book Cerebus the Aardvark, which was intended as a spoof of Conan but, over 300 issues, became a very weighty epic dealing with politics, religion and other mature matters. Don't get me wrong, Sim did great work, but I don't want MeatShield to end up like that, where it becomes like the D&D version of For Better or For Worse.
Don't worry, only a little bit more of the serious stuff and we'll get back to Dhur walking through a screen door or something. :)
Take care,
~Rob
P.S. In case you're one of those readers that wonders how all these names are supposed to be pronounced, I recently updated the Pronunciation Guide with Mari and Sora's names, as well as their titles. So, we've got that going for us, which is nice.
“Destroy anyone”… is she a magic user and quite powerful? or more traditional bash in the head with a mace type of destroy?
I started reading when you had fewer than 50 strips out (not sure exactly how many) and have noticed a little bit of the seriousness-ing, but you are a very good cartoonist and have never failed to induce a laugh (when there is a joke). Thank you Mr. Awesome
also, what is our semi-evil step mother planning now?
Let the comments begin!
@Dragonborn Sorcerer: Awww, thanks, dude. 🙂
“You do realize, you’re going to wear your hair in that style whenever you’re home. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Mari, would we?”
@hswoolve: LOL!
It could be the “I’ll ruin your life and get you exiled” version of “destroy” too.
Wyverns love fresh aardvark, they add nice texture to gnoll stew and are a folk cure for gastric parasites.
…*Sniff*. I know Mari’s pain. Its a sad place, having only one parent ypou can rely on for support. Good to know The S.E.S wont be killing her any time soon.
What you are doing is fleshing out the characters, we can see that. Boredom comes from no or infrequent updates more than anything else.
Be interisting if she has L.E.P.Recon (Light Elven Patrol Reconisence) trail our beloved heros for a little while. Don’t worry about your strip becomming a bit serious at times. Many others do for a little while and lots of anime does it as well.
@Mike Lewis: Ow, that pun hurt. Good one, but still…. oww.:)
No matter how dire the situation, no matter how high the stakes, humour still returns supernaturally to D&D over and over again. It should work out fine as long as you don’t actively strive to stay serious all of the time.
Be kind of like Buffy: serious stuff alternated with laughs.
A little silliness now and then is relished by the wisest men -Willy Wonka
Now the opposite is true as well,…a little seriousness now and then is a good thing too,..I mean if you want silliness and comedy with no redeeming value then watch, well, many of the shows and movies over the past few years [I will not mention any of them because I will not turn this into a diatribe against mindless stupidity]. The seriousness that comes up just shows depth of characterization,….this is a good thing,…..
Considering Jainal’s demonstrated disinterest in being part of her father’s idea of “the Elven princess”, I think it would be hilarious if they conspired to convince father to let Jainal live her life the way she wants to. A kind of “Oh, dear let her be. She is still so young. It’s just a phase. She’ll grow out of it soon enough.”
I don’t understand it. The children are dissappearing like rabbits. Well, we still have each other. Shall we press on?
You really can’t have character development without at least a little bit of drama. No harm done by that. The difference here was that Cerebus was always a serious sort of character, while Dhur is a pratfalling clown.