Hey, folks. For those of you just tuning in, you may have missed the announcement during the last thumbnail update at the beginning of this month, Paradigm Shift is switching over to a batch update system to help me work a little more efficiently. This means instead of a new page every Tuesday, I will update a new completed scene (or substantial part of a longer scene) at the beginning of every month starting in July.
During April and May I only posted thumbnails in part to help me weather the spring convention season and deal with some other work behind the scenes. It also gave me a chance to give my creative batteries a much-needed recharge. During this period, I realized that the weekly update format was actually slowing down the creation of the story. Instead of being able to work out the big picture by writing and thumbnailing large chunks of story, and working on pencilling complete scenes ahead of time, I was constantly forced to interrupt my train of thought to buckle down and produce the final art for the next page at the end of each week. I compare this to driving through Chicago by taking a street with a stop sign at every block instead of taking the expressway (assuming it’s not rush hour, that is.) It wasn’t very efficient, and it wasn’t very fun, either.
Also during this time, I came to realize that while PS is a webcomic by virtue of it being a comic that I post on the web, it isn’t served very well by treating it like one by updating one page at a time in the typical format. As I talked with many of you in the comments section here, and quite a few readers while I was on the road, it’s clear that you guys don’t really like reading it that way, either. Frankly, I couldn’t stand to read my own comic one page at a time, one week at a time, so why should I expect you to enjoy it that way either? Many of you have said that you only check in once every few months anyway. The fact is I draw this comic in order to make a complete graphic novel in the end, and that’s really the way it’s meant to be read. However, reading it a scene at a time is a reasonable compromise. That way you can still follow along the progress of the book as I create it, and I can continue to enjoy the benefit of your response to it.
So, I’m trying this new format as an experiment. Here’s the deal: You’re going to get the same amount of comics over the same period of time (maybe even more if things go well), except instead of getting a continuous cliffhanger at the end of every week, you’ll get to read the scene in its entirety as it’s meant to be read. I sincerely hope that it will be more enjoyable for all of us.
Paradigm Shift will return with a batch update on Monday, July 2nd, when I will post the finished version of the previously thumbnailed scene in its entirety.
See you then!
Tags: batch updates, comic hiatus, new schedule
This is great news, young man. Hopefully your fans will understand and continue supporting this effort. Thanks for boldly taking a lead!
I’m looking forward to the new format, but I’m a little concerned about how it will play out in the RSS feed (the main way I notice new updates). If every page of the batch updates is published on its own in the feed, it might not only be a bit “floody” but could potentially lead to spoilers, if the pages are feeded (“feeded”, is that even a word? XD) chronologically and one happens to open the latest entry first.
I don’t have a clear cut solution for this, except only putting the first page of each batch (or a separate landing page) into the feed and leaving it to the viewer to click through the rest. But I don’t know how difficult this would be to implement, since most content management systems automatically generate the feeds with each new entry, the one here probably being no exception.
If it’s too much hassle (or there are any other reasons against doing it) it’s also OK, this is a first world problem if I’ve ever seen one^^
That is a good point. I haven’t found the exact answer for that, yet. I will ponder it.
I think the best way to read RSS feeds is to sort with the oldest posts at the top, that way you read comics in order, or aren’t reading news feeds referencing something three posts down.
But you can’t assume that readers will do that, so what I’d recommend Dirk post the pages just like he normally would, then after that do a blog post about the update, so the first thing people will see (assuming they’re sorting by newest first) is the blog post. Maybe with a sketch or something that will generate a thumbnail to push the most recent page below the fold a little?
Yeah, I think a blog/news post announcing the update is a good solution, that way it can point to the page at the beginning of the new chapter, and push the page updates down. If I recall correctly, the RSS only shows smaller versions of the pages in any case.
Keep up the great work, in what ever way works best for you. We’ll be here!