Bomango 43: What You Fear

>I meant for this to be a Monday comic update, but held off awhile longer to get this one closer to "right".

>(I promise, this story won't be perpetually heavy-handed or ominous all the time. Bear with me, we'll get through the tough spots!)

I've struggled with anxiety most of my life, and though that sort of thing generally manifests in fairly benign flights of irrational excitability or weird fits of anti-social dread, there are moments where the Fear overwhelms your senses. There can be reasons (or triggers, if you like), but the "fight or flight" mechanism inside of you is capable of taking you to places you might never have thought possible. Before I finally got serious about seeking treatment--after years of "it's not that big a deal" rationalizing--I had the displeasure of experiencing some terrific episodes of wild, debilitating paranoia that had a rather profound effect on me.

I don't want to oversell the importance or drama of this particular scene. This isn't a novel or unique demonstration of the narrative impact of fear, anxiety, or trauma. But I did want to share a small amount of my own perceptions of it from being in that place where reality starts to become shady and distant while still closing in on you, and what you fear distorts what's actually in front of you.

>Anyway, like I said, we won't always be in tough spots like this. The ride is long and we've only just begun :)

>More soon!

Next comic: Gogo explodes like a gamma bomb, and Pablo becomes a Hulk. And dies.

I guarantee it.

*Andy dies.
We would never kill off Pablo.

Will Andy's friend(Oscar?) become a Punisher/Iron man fusion?

Do you mean Hector? Nah. More like Captain America in power set and I dunno who's a good goofball hero? Like that in attitude. I'm open to ideas on hero names

>Andy dies.
A tragic but necessary loss for his cousin to become the true Main character.

Are we going to ever get full color or is that too much for regular updates?

For now, no. But if bomango grows enough for Van to go part time or full time artist, additional pages per week and/or color would be the expansion plan.

>But if bomango grows enough
Maybe Deviantart posting isn't the best way to achieve this.

I'm aware. We've had setbacks in setting up a site. That aside, I don't expect the core audience to expand until the intro wraps up and things open up narratively.

Still have no reason to give a fuck about either character shown.

I'll repeat this since the writer doesn't seem to get it: You need to make the audience give a fuck about the characters before they will give a fuck about whatever artificial drama you have for the characters.

Not unwarranted.

We're in a weird space, because we have (ideally) a mixed audience. Those who were along for the previous comics, and those new to it.

For those who've been around a while, they (presumably) have a reason to care, so they get more out of things like this, and it throws them a few bones while they wait for things to be established and return to a more open narrative.

For new readers who aren't as invested, these scenes lack that impact. They become less about 'oh I care about what this means for this character' and more 'Okay this is a thing about this character to keep in mind going forward'. Data points that can gain more weight in the retrospective when they grow more attached to the characters and have more context for it.

You can absolutely disagree about our execution, but that is at least our thought process.

Uh, no, that's not how it works, this is the intro chapter, this is what establishes characters and probably tries to make you care for them.
You can't expect to immediately love a character as a person in 20 pages, user.
Besides, the main initial audience of the comic is the people who've been following the Gogo illustrations for the past couple years.

>You can't expect to immediately love a character as a person in 20 pages, user.
You're supposed to give even the slightest shit about either the core characters, the events occuring, or the setting. This comic is 43 pages in and has accomplished none of that.

I'm not the user who made the complaint, but I went and read this. The first 4 pages absolutely fail at delivering their idea. It's a flash forward of impending doom without any real context, instead establishing that the town exists and this big monster is about to fuck shit up while a conversation that tells us jack squat about anything is overlaid on top of it, killing any potential atmosphere in a poor attempt to be clever ("teehee, the things they're saying vaguely relate to what I'm seeing!").

Andy's core conflict is "I don't wanna live here," straight out of the playbook, but instead of giving us insight into this visually or adding context like a good example of this would, we get pages upon pages of things happening with very little thought put into it. There are well over a dozen pages about Andy moving in and dealing with people and I can't tell you SHIT about him despite so much being told to the audience instead of shown. There is an impressive amount of fucking nothing being conveyed here. There's the expected monkey wrenches, the weird creature and the mysterious girl, but they don't have any impact because we don't know our protagonist (deutragonist?) or fully understand his internal conflict.

It's just bad writing. Study the composition and pacing of good comics and movies with similar themes, like Spirited Away, and try again.

Neither that user or the tripfag is going to give you a meaningful response. This is a shill thread for a fetish webcomic, user, not a creative writing seminar.

I mean, what is a meaningful response in this instance?

The user is laying out their critique. The possible responses are going to be on a spectrum of 'agree' to 'disagree' to 'shitpost'. Other than the last option, any response that engages with the critique is meaningful, even if there is disagreement. Further, even if one of the people in discussion is 100% factually wrong in their responses, any ensuing discussion is still meaningful and valuable as long as the people involved are honest actors.

I welcome these critiques, and take them to heart. Quite often they have something valuable to say, even if I don't agree entirely. Sometimes I'm persuaded on some point or another. My ability to act on those critiques will always have their limits, but I'm not interested in shutting them down because of it.

Have a nice day user.

So we only get the site after this introduction is over with?

pic unrelated.

Site when I find a new-new-new person to make one. Van and I lack the skill set.

>I mean, what is a meaningful response in this instance?
And now I realize you're this comic' s SuitCase. That's a shame.

I don't know what that means.

It's the pen name the author of Bittersweet Candy Bowl's husband goes under.

A lot of webcomics like this have somebody close to the author who basically does PR for them. The problem is they often aren't proactive in engaging criticism unless it's a softball they can either quickly and easily fix or brush aside. They are, however, more likely to respond if someone talks smack about them.

You're probably not a huge cunt like Suit, but you're more talk than anything and speaking to Van directly would be far more effective than talking to you. No offense meant there, seriously.

Let's be honest, the main appeal is a young boy becoming friends and eventually romantic with a muscle woman. It's like a less insane FLCL.

But this reboot is hardly that right now. 40 pages and Andy finally meets Gogo and their first meeting is slow and uninteresting.

My personal problem with the old comics were their irregular updates but they managed to be interesting because they had little story arcs to complete or were just made for a joke.

This reboot has too many characters that shouldn't be featured as much. You could cut out half of the pages and deliver a more focused story.

I'd be happy with more standalone pages and mini arcs released on a weekly basis than a really, really slow building comic that's basically an AU of the original series.

I'm not trying to be mean but this reboot is just... boring.

Understood.

My role on Sup Forums is somewhere between PR and community outreach, if I had to put it in jargon. I'm originally from Sup Forums, and actually met Van as a result of a Bomango thread. I'm active on other threads, though not under my trip. I'm here to answer questions and do my best to maintain interest and communication. While Van has popped on once or twice, he doesn't feel comfortable getting into the thick of it. Sorry.

As far as Bomango as a whole, my role is a bit more all over the place. Creatively, I work with Van on the storyline, and script rewrites, so the things people say here do get back to him and do influence the future of the comic, though maybe not as quickly as people would like.

No offense taken. I aspire not to be a huge cunt.

I hear you. We've taken a risk, and response has been mixed. I do think the intro arc has value, even if its different in tone and less immediately engaging. For the time being, our goal is to keep pushing forward so we can get back to arcs and jokes.

I think the reboot is a chance for the comic to be more than just a romance.

It could become something new; something very good.. perhaps action? I don't think there is any other way to know but trying.

Again, pic unrelated.