801 Lockdown.

This is kind of an odd page in that I almost never do a scene change mid page.  Although one could argue that the typical pages now are more like two pages and I just split it as though they were.  It’s also a little odd that Nina references Reggie but the page cuts to Thomas and Wes, who then references Reggie.  On a TV show the scene would have cut to what Reggie was doing.  I suppose I could have just altered the dialogue so that Nina says something about both of them, but I didn’t think of it at the time.  Honestly I think Reggie’s whereabouts would be of primary concern to Nina for purposes of avoidance.  I could have just as easily drawn what Reggie is doing at the moment these other things are occurring, I know what it is and wrote a scene that didn’t really seem to add anything of value,  I decided that Thomas & Wes were more important.  When Reggie does appear you’ll be able to easily guess what he was doing long before he mentions it.

I also kind of wanted to keep Carol off screen until a little later so that her first appearance in this part didn’t start with a sour Reggie encounter.  I can always take the dialogue and plug it into some later story.  Waste no want not and all that.  Keeping her off screen is kind of counterintuitive in so far as she makes site traffic spike whenever she appears.  People who don’t like the comic itself like Carol.  I’m sure that’s true for all the cast, though mostly the girls, on some level, but Carol wins that contest hands down.

If my stats are anything to go by, the list is like this: Carol, Jess, Nina, Jo.  People who just stop in to look at the pictures stop in for the female cast members in that order.  Jo wins over all of them in verbal appreciation.  People who like the comic like Jo and like talking about her.  Comments tend to spike on pages with her on them.  Which I like because I like the interaction.  I should probably be careful about putting Carol and Jo in scenes together.  There may be some kind of quantum fandom rift if I do.  That said, as they get to know each other later on it is very adorable.  Everyone will like it I think.

Jess is kind of the wild card.  Her casual attitude toward nudity and confidence in herself are probably why she spikes traffic.  Nina is, perhaps, a bit too reserved to do the same sort of thing.  Which is odd to say about a character that spends a lot of pages with her belly showing.  That may change over time as well.  Especially  when I get to some of the outside the store stories.

As far as the guys go, I’m not sure.  They certainly don’t spike traffic.  Thomas tends to be on pages with Carol so the data is muddied.  If the comments are to be believed people really enjoy them doing things as a couple.  That’s an important dynamic to be sure.

More than any other male cast member Ed tends to get comments if he’s not around for a while.  Why that is I’m not sure.  Maybe it’s because he’s had more interactions that reveal his personality better than John.  John hasn’t really had a moment in the sun yet.  That’s sort of his character in so far as he’s portrayed as slightly less quick than nearly everyone.  Even Reggie.  Not everyone in the world is a star necessarily, but they are still an important part of the tapestry.  To be fair I have painted him as a bit shallow too.  Maybe the key is to add water…

20 Comments

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the scenes between Thomas and John. It reminds me of the same brand of whit that my friends and I use when we burn each other.

It’s interesting traffic on the site is higher when female characters appear. It makes me wonder how people know when they are there. Like a gay-dar, do people have a girl-dar that I’m apparently missing?

I’m not sure about that either. None of the links show any sign of what brought them here. I have a real hard time believing it’s word of mouth.

Maybe Google has an option where you can see a smaller version of the comic. People peek, see that neither Carol nor “the girls” are in today’s installment, and they don’t bother to clickthrough.

Part of it may be coincidence. I don’t always check the comic every day you post, and will often let a week or so go by before I check some of the comics.

If I was looking for specific characters, Ed, Jess, Jo, and Reggie are the most fun to read, mostly because of how they interact with the other characters. Nina needs more screen time, as it is, or she might be higher there too.

Didn’t seem odd until you mentioned it. However I trust your comic writing more than my critical analysis of stuff I read.

I wish you would break the story into chapters or something, I’ve read the entire series but I still get lost on what exactly is happening. Just a suggestion.

People actually have timed failure locks on doors? I know they put them on safes and such, but I thought it was illegal to put them on doors because of fire safety code. Then again I suppose it could predate code, have been completely overlooked up to that point, or they just never got caught.

And personally I prefer Nina’s style of verbage, at least as far as the ladies go. For some reason I always hear her lines in a sort of dry post-ironic monotone with a semi-intellectual-sarcastic sort of inflection (and vaguely amused at the same time…)

I love all the Reggie scenes but hope that the new douche Wes doesn’t rub off on him. Can’t have him tipping the scales into complete douche-dom. I do, on occasion, wonder where John is but I’m always wanting to know where Reggie is. If they’d ever gotten the door open at some point on this page, I would wager Reggie was locked in the shelf room. I can’t wait to see what he was doing. ^^

When i had started reading i was a bit of a Nina fan but after the recent showing of Jo’s interest in sex and the delicious glimpse of master mind Jo, heart stolen. As to your worry about a “quantum fandom rift” I would think a blog singularity would be more troublesome. The server might not handle the load. {Not really but if more people notice this wonderful web comic it could happen.}

Oh lord. I’m sorry, I can’t help it. Every time I see Brooksie I can’t help but do a double-check to make sure I’m still alive. The way she talks compounded by the gestures and facial expressions she makes… I want to meet this character. Don’t care if Brooksie is fictional or not. This webcomic just makes me want to be her friend. And that’s just odd, if you think about it.

And then you see Brooksie again and all the thinking about it goes away into a logical argument of “OMG <3".

…I have the feeling this door lock will come into play later in the overall story. Also Wes’s knowledge of it, given his apparently suspect history.

Maybe, with all of the prior jobs he’s had, some people feel like Ed is the title character who is between failures? lol.

I’ve loved Brooksie’s ‘then it was now’ so much since I first read it (started re-reading the entire archive last night, because why the hell not) I’ve taken to using it myself in common speech. XD

Brooksie tends to end up getting all of my weird verbal ticks. One of the only ones she didn’t is to say indeed instead of yes, although I think she has done at least once if memory serves.

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