Cliched, but often true.
I like everything in today's strip (The Bonnie Situation - Part Three) except the first panel, which is crowded by the art and the script.
First: the art. As a commenter commented, and as I've commented before, the vertical line denoting the corner Cole is coming around muddies things a little. At first glance it seems like it could be a gutter. Some very simple shading could solve this, or you could even do without the wall altogether:
Have Brent standing behind Cole and give him the first line, then have Cole react.
This has the added benefit of having Cole react to an in-strip event, rather than having him turn the corner and run into Brent in what we could call panel 0, an un-illustrated event that we have to assume has taken place. I'm not saying that "panel 0" events are a bad practice, I'm just saying it's not ideal, and we could have gotten around it here.
(There's probably a name for "panel 0" that I don't know about. Anyone? "Closure" doesn't seem to fit.)
Second: the script. Cole's line, "GAH! Jeez! You scared me," would have been just as effective were it just "GAH!" I suspect 99.9% of the readership would have understood immediately, the rest would have picked up the context from Cole's expression.
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4 comments:
While I agree that a double exclamation (Gah! + Jeez!) sounds a bit awkward, I believe it is intentionally so. I think one would be appropriate if Cole were simply surprised, however, he's also feeling guilty and nervous that someone caught him as he was "sneaking" out. People are often a bit too chatty when they're hiding something and caught off guard, and I think that's the case here.
Would "sneak" be an acceptible substitute for "panel 0"?
Two things for me; I don't think this strip was needed. Yes, it was a bit of funny, but it seemed a waste to have them talking about helping Jase, only to find them waiting until they got back to the office to decide to actually go. And then, with the foresight only hindsight allows, this strip would have worked better, for me, had they had yesterdays' converstation back at the office. That's what gets me, they're in the cooper, why not just go straight to Jase? Cole is buggery enough to allows try to fix other people's problems, why wait? To go it alone? Help Jase by himself?
Sidenote: last panel was good, no arguement, but what if instead of just standing there, Brent was already in his cooper, leaning out the window looking at Cole haul himself out the window? Better?
Undernote: is the PvP office on the first floor, or just the bathroom? I was under the impression they rode an elevator to get to their offices.
I don't understand why Brent cares if Cole goes to see Jase.
Yes Cole is a meddling idiot, but were he and Jase (and Robbie and Brent) not all friends in college? Quite frankly it's surprising that he hasn't talked to Jase at all since the original falling out.
I thought the same thing as anonymous 6:49, at first. But, back in my college days, sometimes friends would just leave the group, never to be heard from again. I think that's part of the college friends experience. Trying friendships out for size.
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