The Dreadful -- Chapter 12: James

[MSperoni]

Keep reading! It'll all tie up in the end. Trust me! The way the comic is updated makes it seem like we're spending a lot more time on one aspect of the story than we really are. The ninja have only been around for a handful of pages, so to say they've taken over the comic and hijacked the genre isn't really true.


Also what part of what's going on is incoherent? Maybe I can smooth things over.

[Moosh]

It starts out well enough. You have Kit seeking revenge on Jeanne for (maybe?) having her shot, then getting involved with Liz against Burke, which sets the general tone of the comic (Western theme combined with DnD elements). The Dreadful is displayed, raising the mystery of who/what Kit actually is. Boozeloaf enters as an amusing supporting character, and Erin gives Liz a reason to go after Jeanne as well. Add the contention between Kit and Liz over Poe, and the mystery of what Jeanne is actually up to, and you have the start of an excellent and interesting story.

But then it seems like new ingredients keep getting added to the soup ad nauseum.

Erin is resurrected by what was throwaway gag about fairies in bottles. The Angel Arm Dreadful is shown to cause its victims to turn into monstrous zombie-like creatures. Jeanne turns out to have DBZ-like fighting abilities (complete with Freiza Finger Lasers). Sabueso ends up being more than just a joke character in one of the advertisements. Boozeloaf is revealed to be some kind of secret agent working for a group of knights. Kit gets captured by people working for some spriggans from Skyrim. Sabueso's horse is sapient, and an assassin. Then Ayane from Dead or Alive shows up, heralding the introduction of ninjas. A mysterious entity named "Dewbreen" is alluded to. Then we're treated to Sabueso's backstory with a Marvel/DC-esque parody superhero team. Ayane's horse is that one guy from Naruto. Kit is summoned by a random group of cultists, who happen to be about to kill one of the knights Boozeloaf is working for. Then the Shew Stone gets a backstory, complete with a confusing chronology. Then the robot (or a robot very much like the one) from Sabueso's backstory shows up mysteriously. And then more ninjas show up, with the ability to smack the skeleton right out of a person, and shoot lasers from their eyes.

There's not much sign of continuity for anything that gets introduced. It seems like new elements are constantly being added without really fleshing out the story potential of any one thread. Additionally, the theme of the story has kind of exploded into a "everything that is 'awesome'" rather than being focused on a western fantasy theme. The comic is a combination of action, a little drama, and comedy, but it's become difficult to take any one of these aspects of the comic seriously. The action went from gun-slingy to DBZ/Naruto pretty abruptly. The importance of the drama of Kit and Poe's relationship and hard lives is lost amid all the insane stuff that keeps happening. The comedy is becoming less apparent as the comic becomes more about super-powered violence.

It seems like the comic doesn't know what it wants to be, and is trying to be a whole lot of different things at the same time. Or maybe it started out knowing what it was, but has since been distracted from that goal, or simply didn't know how to get there and started exploring a lot of diversions. What I know is, as a reader, I was lured into the comic by the idea of a western fantasy, but am being turned off by the expansion into superheroes, ninjas, and the general devolvement into villains being superpowered murder machines.

In a western, you want a gun with plain old bullets to actually mean something, you know?

[MSperoni]

Gun and plain ol' bullets still mean something!

There is a lot of stuff that happens in this comic for sure. It's hard for me to focus on one thing because...I dunno, I guess that's just my nature.

I have a plan for everything though. It's just a matter of getting there. I have recently made a change to the way the story is structured, and that ought to keep it more focused.

Thanks for the feedback though! Hopefully you'll stick with the comic for a bit longer.

[Masterof7s]

Originally Posted by Moosh

I have to say I was enjoying the comic up until the introduction of ninjas. Then it was iffy until the two super-ninjas showed up. So much for the western motif?

Not sure I understand the problem. Do other cultures cease to exist in a western setting or something? I'm pretty sure there were plenty of Chinese immigrants in the old west (someone had to build those railroads) who brought there culture with them. Japanese and Korean immigrants followed soon after and I doubt they left their culture at home.

Same thing here. I see no reason why magic, DBZ powers, supernatural elements, and other things can't exist in the same place. The western motif is just a stage.

[MSperoni]

Japanese immigration to Texas was actually a thing in the early 1900s. They were trying to make money growing rice since the climate there was favorable for it. This was near Houston. Little communities sprang up and such.

If you look up Seito Saibara and Kichimatsu Kishi you will learn moooore!

[Moosh]

Originally Posted by Masterof7s

Not sure I understand the problem. Do other cultures cease to exist in a western setting or something? I'm pretty sure there were plenty of Chinese immigrants in the old west (someone had to build those railroads) who brought there culture with them. Japanese and Korean immigrants followed soon after and I doubt they left their culture at home.

Same thing here. I see no reason why magic, DBZ powers, supernatural elements, and other things can't exist in the same place. The western motif is just a stage.

Well, what you're saying is it makes sense, or rather it isn't unreasonable, for all of these things to be in the story. And that's not the argument I'm making. It's a work of fiction, and the creator can include whatever elements they want; there doesn't need to be justification for the inclusion of any given element other than the author's desire to include them.

Whether or not the inclusion of a given element is good for the narrative or overall quality of a story is another matter. A good story can be defined just as much by what it doesn't have as what it does have. Knowing the limitations of a character, or of a situation, allow for genuine tension to be built. When you make it clear that basically anything and everything could happen, it's difficult to create suspense or encourage the reader to become invested in a given character's predicament. There's a lot of potential for Deus Ex Machina if elements aren't handled carefully.

This is one of the reasons powerful characters are difficult to write for. A story about them resolving their conflicts with their naturally powerful abilities isn't particularly exciting, and tends to lead to an arms race with the villains. When your character can handle "mundane" problems like baddies with guns like its nothing to worry about, you're forced to send superpowered villains after them to present them a challenge. At that point it's very easy for the story to stop being about the characters and just turn into a "who's stronger" contest. There's not a lot of depth to be had in that kind of story, which can be unsatisfying, particularly when the narrative started out differently.

[Glabrezu]

@MSperoni: Without meaning disrespect to Moosh, I don't think you need to listen too much to what he said. He basically just restated what you've been saying several times in this thread, so he is being a mirror of what you already thought about.

By the way it's worth noting that when you say something about yourself or what you do, people are likely to take it at face value and agree, especially if it seems to put words on their intuitive perception.

Anyway since the concerns Moosh expresses are actually yours they ARE valuable up to a point, but I personally disagree completely, just like Masterof7s it seems, and certainly many others. I would guess that it's a matter of taste but also of how the reader first boarded the story.


I would take the opposite stance: I am glad and even grateful that The Dreadful's universe cannot be put in a defined category and is so unpredictable and mysterious. The comic is best read without preconceptions as it enables us to discover and understand an unusual but coherent universe as the story unrolls. That trait is shared with all of the all-times best pieces of fantasy and sci-fi, by the way. It brings pleasure beyond normal storytelling.

If you are having doubts and stuff regarding the value of your work, well, there is good in doubt, but it is just as important to pin down one's strengths and embrace them

[Moosh]

Originally Posted by Glabrezu

@MSperoni: Without meaning disrespect to Moosh, I don't think you need to listen too much to what he said. He basically just restated what you've been saying several times in this thread, so he is being a mirror of what you already thought about.

By the way it's worth noting that when you say something about yourself or what you do, people are likely to take it at face value and agree, especially if it seems to put words on their intuitive perception.

I have not read any of the previous contents of the thread, and am not influenced by anything MSperoni has said about his work. I entered only to express my own perspective. If my concerns line up with things MSperoni has expressed before, there may be something to them.

Anyway since the concerns Moosh expresses are actually yours they ARE valuable up to a point...

I suspect you didn't mean it this way, but it sounds like you're saying concerns about a given work are only valuable if they match those of the creator. That's a little echo-chambery.

I would take the opposite stance: I am glad and even grateful that The Dreadful's universe cannot be put in a defined category and is so unpredictable and mysterious.

The comic is best read without preconceptions as it enables us to discover and understand its universe as the story unrolls, as opposed to having a genre up front. (a trait shared with all of the all-times best pieces of fantasy and sci-fi, btw)

Unpredictable I can agree with, but not necessarily mysterious. The comic pulls from a wide variety of genres, and it's not so much a matter of mystery as you don't know what rules from what genres the comic will follow. It's not that the comic can't be put in a category; it puts itself into several at once. It's a little like playing with a standard deck of cards; you know all the cards that are out there, but you don't know which card is going to show up at any given moment. Unpredictable, but not particularly mysterious. If someone were to suddenly play the Commissar of Cubes, then things might start to get more interesting.

If you are having doubts and stuff regarding the value of your work, well, there is good in doubt, but it is just as important to pin down one's strengths and embrace them

The fact my criticism has a negative edge to it shouldn't worry you. MSperoni is obviously a very talented artist, and its clear he takes his work seriously. I'm just a writer expressing my thoughts about narrative; I'm probably harder to please than some readers because of my vocation. That said, it's unnecessary for you to tell him to "not listen" to what I say. He is capable of determining if any given bit of feedback he receives is useful to him. If you are concerned with the artist's motivation to work, I can understand that, but it seems like you're attempting to shield him from negative criticism. As a writer, I can tell you that this is one of the least helpful things a person can do for us.

[Glabrezu]

From: Moosh
If you are concerned with the artist's motivation to work, I can understand that, but it seems like

No buts and we're good.

From: Moosh
It's not that the comic can't be put in a category; it puts itself into several at once.

Just like any work said to have no category at all. In reality such work doesn't exist: You can't be influenced by nothing, and even if that was possible the minds of the readers can't be either, so they inevitably find comparison points. Worth noting again that the genre-setting pieces of fantasy and sci-fi that are now seen as "all-times best" fell into one or several categories at once on release, because that's impossible not to. Whenever you describe something unusual, you have to compare it to something that exists. I really doubt that Jeanne has much to do with DBZ. Every single thing you cited can be turned around to fit my stance, so this discussion is ultimately pointless.

What is "pointful" is our two stances and the balance of feedback.

From: Moosh
If my concerns line up with things MSperoni has expressed before, there may be something to them.

I said there is. It's a lens you can use to view The Dreadful, and it appears to be a lens that Matt is paying careful attention to as far as I can tell. That's why I emphasis that he needn't add any more weight to your arguments than he already does. I try to provide a different lens that he hasn't worded before in this thread (probably out of humility, because he must have thought about it on his own).

The goal is to balance out feedback because ultimately, even though your lens is worth acknowledging, I disagree completely with it. Provided the universe remains consistent and coherent, what you see as a problem is one of the comics' most interesting aspects to me; i.e. original, unpredictable, yet sound. The reader has to figure out the world.

And it is crafted well enough that I would be pleased to read unrelated stories in this same universe just like I would with the Forgotten Realms, Tolkien's stuff and some others. I rarely say that of a fictional universe, honestly.

In the end I think Matt already decided to embrace this aspect of The Dreadful while being extra careful about what you (and he) expressed here.

So what remains is preserving high motivation and happiness in work, which is the reason I posted after you. I'm pretty sure my points already crossed his mind and I said nothing new technically.

(It's fun how words can be used to convey something completely different from what they are actually saying )

[epcharles]

For the record, I am still enjoying the comic, but I broadly agree with Moosh's comments. Though I liked the more straight-western flavored theme we started with (even the fantasy elements were clearly tweaked to fit the western environment), I don't mind the mixed genera mode that has developed.

That said, there are so many bloody tangents here, and they take up so much space (not individually, but in combination), that I'm not really sure what the story is at this point. Were this a comic not trying to have a plot, but merely plodding around an interesting world, that would be fine.... but I'm pretty sure this is a comic trying to have a plot, or at least it started out that way.

I'm also worried about the overpoweredness. Overpowered people fighting overpowered people is fun once in a while, but it sure doesn't make a deep story. I'm not sure why normal people exist in this world at all, when half the characters we have seen are A) super powered, and B) neutral to enthusiastic about killing random people.

Now, I'm happy to maintain faith that all this stuff is headed somewhere and, as I said, I am still enjoying quite a bit, but I can also understand if other people are getting a bit forlorn, especially if they don't read the forum.