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Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:29 am
by Arloest
I do think taking malnutrition into consideration when discussing this strips flaws is kind of moot, since, you know, dogs can't talk or anything either. For all we know its MAGIC veggie snacks that fulfill a dog's daily meat quota.

Devil's advocate etc

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 1:47 am
by Cactus Jack
Whats that cat doing to Raine Dog?

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:30 am
by IceDragon
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:wub: My day was very shitty, and this was a nice. <3
pants this shit.

I’m going to make a comic where my characters Woo and Shadow eat a family of super cute mice and do not feel guilty at all about it. Because they are pantsless carnivores!

EDIT:

O hai, I upgraded your comic.
I love this one, but you know what would have been funnier? Chocolate.

Also, the new art style is because she is using digital for everything. Would be nice to see the more detail return, but DCS is too good for work. How dare she have to work a job like us mere normie mortals. She should be fanned, with people feeding her grapes all day. And they better be organic grapes, or so help her Darwin she will kick and scream in a tantrum until we all understand that we are stupid neanderthals, and she is an infallible deity.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 4:41 am
by The MAZZTer
Story continuity -10
I'm not sure why people hate this aspect. Lots of TV shows do this sort of thing all the time. And that's if you just use the narrow definition of shifting back and forward through time like this, and not simply switching between two different locations (which every freaking show ever uses).

The only TV I watch is Stargate, and even with just that I see this technique used (and I like it). It allows the story to start in the middle of the action (a classic storytelling tactic dating back to classic literature like the Homer's Odyssey) but also to explain how that situation developed. It also exploits the viewer's curiosity in wondering what exactly happened to cause the situation the characters are in.

I am talking about the Stargate Universe premiere, but also there was an Atlantis Season 4 episode which opens with an amnesiac Dr. Rodney McKay watching a recording he himself made several hours before, instructing him to find a friend of his he no longer remembers, or else he'll die within hours. The rest of the story alternates between the backstory (which also eventually reveals the plan set in motion to fix everything, of course, and explains some of the other things we see in the "present", such as SG personnel hunting their own people!) and Rodney wandering the empty city trying to find Teyla.

Of course it's easy to follow the transitions because the "present" has a hazy video filter thing (I guess to sorta represent everyone's amnesia!) and a sound effect plays and the video flashes to white when it switches back and forth, so the viewer can easily follow.

If the story were presented linearly, I think it would sort of drag (hospital scene after hospital scene) and then when we got to Rodney wandering the halls, it would get old fast. But in the form it's in, I really like it. Just went back and re-watched it last week, even.

As for Universe, both time periods take place in very different locations so it's easy to tell when it's switched. I don't think it would be bad if told linearly, but the way they do it, they get to show both sides of a Stargate during the entire period people are crossing though, as well as have a great opening shot and that whole "in-the-midst" storytelling thing I was talking about.

I think the general problem people have with Raine Dog doing it is that it's not obvious when such a switch between time periods has taken place, and thus it might be a bit confusing until you figure it out. Also the slow update schedule makes it more annoying since each side of the story is moving half as slow as it would if it were the only storyline.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:54 am
by klimt
batshit insane.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 10:27 am
by Novil Ariandis
I love this one, but you know what would have been funnier? Chocolate.
A dog of the size of Raine Dog could eat quite an amount of chocolate before it gets really dangerous.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:09 am
by sad jazz cantaloupe
I think it's pretty obvious when RD is and is not in the present...

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 1:22 pm
by Cactus Jack
The trouble Mazz is that most books, shows, movies, that use this device at least remain in one location long enough to finish the thought that was developing, or at least develop it a little. The book IT is like this but one section will be finished, then it will time jump. If it were like Raine Dog then Stephan King would be changing time periods pretty much mid paragraph, which would be annoying.

The time change should be a big event. It should either happen at a logical break in the story, or at a cliff hanger which will make more sense when we learn something new from the other period of time. Raine Dog seems to jump whenever DCS gets bored with what he is doing. We go from the middle of what appears to be an important event to a throw away comic with no purpouse or even a joke.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 4:23 pm
by Doc Sigma
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Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 4:25 pm
by Foxchild
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Why does RD have the tail of a fox?

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 4:28 pm
by Doc Sigma
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Why does RD have the tail of a fox?
She's a furry!

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:10 pm
by nickspoon
I do think taking malnutrition into consideration when discussing this strips flaws is kind of moot, since, you know, dogs can't talk or anything either. For all we know its MAGIC veggie snacks that fulfill a dog's daily meat quota.

Devil's advocate etc
If the dog biscuits are some sort of synthesised meat-replacing foodstuff, you'd think that it would be mentioned somewhere in the dialogue, because it's a kind of important point. You can't just assume that your audience will guess that nutritional technology in this society enables dogs to be vegetarians. It'll just look like an inconsistency.

Then again, I suppose the quality of storytelling here calls that into question...
Blah blah blah Stargate
The issue here is not the time-shifting itself, but the fact that we switch so often between the present and various bits of the past that none of the story actually progresses at any decent speed. Whenever a storyline seems to get going at all, DCS immediately throws the great concrete block of jarring, inexplicable narrative pretentiousness in the way of it, and it seems to fall by the wayside, never really being concluded, until eventually we join up with it again sometime later.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:45 pm
by sad jazz cantaloupe
I do think taking malnutrition into consideration when discussing this strips flaws is kind of moot, since, you know, dogs can't talk or anything either. For all we know its MAGIC veggie snacks that fulfill a dog's daily meat quota.

Devil's advocate etc
If the dog biscuits are some sort of synthesised meat-replacing foodstuff, you'd think that it would be mentioned somewhere in the dialogue, because it's a kind of important point. You can't just assume that your audience will guess that nutritional technology in this society enables dogs to be vegetarians. It'll just look like an inconsistency.
Why? No where in the story does it explain why dogs can talk. Dogs (and most pet-animals, apparently) are essentially the same as humans in this story, except for being oppressed by the true humans. Since humans can be vegetarians, it's not that big of a leap of faith that the other humanoid creatures can be too.

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:47 pm
by Foxchild
As has been stated somewhere on this forums before by another user: there is only so much suspension of disbelief that can be granted towards a comic (or anything, really)

Re: October 10, 2009

Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:02 pm
by sad jazz cantaloupe
I really don't think that letting a dog be a vegetarian is too much disbelief. Especially since pretty much everyone that has stuck around to read RD already knows that it's a semi-autobiographical story that is symbolic of DCS being a gay transsexual vegetarian furry hippie.