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Thanks for reading.

7/18/04

The problem I'm feeling with the baseline arc right now is that in Malory events proceed pretty directly from the sword in the stone to the battle of Bedegraine, whereas I mean to leave a year between them. As a result, since the strip's major characters besides Arthur and Merlin have yet to be properly introduced to the fairy tale arc, its gags are all falling into one of a few categories of filler sorta gags.

Initially there were lots of gags about difficulties with subject kings, but those seemed to make Arthur, King of Time and Space look like a continuity strip instead of daily humor so I stopped them. There've been one or two gags incorporating magical elements to remind us that this is a fairy tale world. And there've been gags to quickly introduce us to characters who are important later, like King Ban of Benwick (who actually shouldn't have come into the baseline arc so early, which is why I sent him back home), Sir Balin, King Pellinore and King Bagdemagus. But as I said once before I haven't a lot of experience setting daily gags in a fairy tale world, and I'm now flailing around a bit when I try.

I could make the fairy tale arc focus more on secondary characters that have already been introduced (Has anyone here unfamiliar with the legends picked up that Ector is Arthur's foster father? Has anyone picked up which character is the face that goes with the name Ector?), but I recall having rejected that option once already on the principle that a new webcomic mustn't have too confusingly large a regular cast. I could bring in Lancelot's and Guenevere's fathers, Arthur's allies, to fill the dramatic ecological niches they're filling themselves in the other arcs, but that'd mean bringing Ban back before Bedegraine. I could avoid the baseline arc mostly or entirely till Bedegraine but that doesn't seem just (or, as a fairy tale arc character might say, meet).

I guess I keep flailing till I hit something.

Webcomics I read daily: Something Positive, Irregular Comic, Penny Arcade, Loserz, User Friendly,
Sinfest, Kevin & Kell, Real Life, PvP
Webcomics I read weekly: Megatokyo, AppleGeeks, Wapsi Square,
College Roommates from Hell!!!, Sluggy Freelance, Boxjam's Doodle
See also The Belfry Comics Index and Comixpedia.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.