Episode 371: I’m Cooperating

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Dave

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Zombie Cliche Lookout: Kick It Over Here

It’s one thing to disarm a person by having them drop whatever weapon they’re holding, but if you want to be thorough, you really need to make sure that weapon is completely out of their reach. Better still, have it be under your control so that you can even use it against them should the need arise.

And how do you pull this off? Simple, have them kick the gun (sword/grenade/dangerous political manifesto) over to you. Now they don’t have it and you do. It’s a win-win (at least for you; they lose).

About this Episode:

This episode contains another (mis)quoted line from one of my favorites, this time the Coen Brothers’ classic, Fargo.

As some people pointed out in the last episode, I’m doing something a bit different with the lighting here. I’m trying to give the impression of a darkened building that is only partially lit from the outside sunlight. Based on your feedback, it sounds like I was at least somewhat successful. Here’s a little setup shot to show how I did it (in case it’s not clear in the photo, everything but the lamp on the right is switched off.

My setup for Episode 371

Discussion Question: Behind the Scenes

In the last couple of episodes, I’ve gotten some really great questions about some of the behind the scenes and meta information in the comic (e.g. how do I store my characters, what’s the name of the town in which the comic takes place?).

I love these sorts of questions, so naturally I’m interested in anything else you guys might be curious about. It’s probably about time to update the FAQ and Behind the Scenes sections of the site anyway (and yes, I know the character bios are painfully outdated, I’ve got a plan for that, but it’s going to be a bit before I get to it, unfortunately).

13 thoughts on “Episode 371: I’m Cooperating”

  1. i’ve got something that i’d like to see in the comic, the ol’ “I have a memory i just can’t think of it, or i don’t want to.” and you play different scenes with certain lengths. Like with Stewart loosing his girlfriend or something, kinda like Sam’s memory, but i’d really like to see something like that in a school

    • I definitely want to flesh out the backstories of the other characters. I don’t know if I’ll do them all in flashbacks though.

  2. im testing the format of my comic http://www.flickr.com/photos/97414182@N03/9397308318/ and i made a little vigenette too

    • Unsolicited feedback: I’d suggest giving the speech bubbles some subtle lack of opacity, so they blend into the photo a bit better.

  3. Well, it’s been a long life-changing mandatory vacation from web browsing, but four months isn’t too bad I guess, now to spend the next couple of days/nights catching up on webcomics etcetera! 😀

    Dave: Typo alert: About This Episode, second paragraph, third paragraph “someone” should be replaced with “somewhat”. 😀 It’s nice to see Dave is still occasionally making typos, this webcomic wouldn’t be more fun to read without finding some! 😀

    • Duh, “third paragraph” should read “third sentence” in my own reply lol! 🙂

      • Hah, oops. Fixed, thanks Brickvoid.

        Also, welcome back to the comic!

        • He’s not the only one who’s back

        • Welcome back to you as well.

  4. Discussion Question: I had a bit of trouble finding the name of the city for my animations, but I eventually went with a good name that everyone finds funny, are you looking for a fictional name or a real-life town? I would probably suggest Bayston for a fictional town name, and if it’s a real town you’re looking for and you don’t have any problems about how you get it, just use wherever your finger landed on a random road map page!

    • I went with a fictional name, but that is used for a lot of towns: Meridian. I just like the sound of it.

  5. With your comic you flip between a few different sets of groups, different story arcs. So I was wondering how do you choose when its appropriate to swicth to another arc and how do you know you are making the right choice as to who who follow next? I find you do this very well

    • I like to have a couple different groups going because I think it diversifies the story quite a lot. As far as how I know when it’s time to switch, I always have a story arc in mind when I switch to a new group. When that arc is finished, it’s time to switch to another group. When it comes to picking which group is next, I generally just try to round-robin them to allow each story relatively equal time.