Hello again, everyone!

For everyone who missed it, Bounty was an experimental comic I began in honor of 24-Hour Comic Day last weekend. The basic premise was that it would be a forum comic like MS Paint Adventures, with one simple twist: Multiplayer. Two forums were made, one for TIGSource, and one for Destructoid. The original plan was to have the game conclude within the 24-hour time limit, but complications arrived that prevented me from doing that. Nevertheless, the last pages were posted a couple days ago, and I've decided to take some time to analyze the project.

WHAT WENT RIGHT

It was finished- Never underestimate this. When it comes to projects, I have a habit of biting off far more than I can chew, so I was determined to not let this experiment get out of hand. Ever since I'd heard about 24-Hour Comic Day, I'd been wanting to participate, and this seemed like the perfect way to ensure that I would get the darn thing done. Even after running into every single problem possible (more on that later), I was stubborn enough to not give up.

Improvisation Forum adventure comics are by nature made up almost entirely on the spot, and Bounty was no exception. Among others, these are a few things I didn't plan and/or just made up on the spot:

-The dream sequence
-The ex-girlfriend
-The metaphor behind the Tape Measurer of the Sea (seriously, that came out of nowhere)
-The catbomb(s)

Aside from the comic itself, I had to improvise a bit for when my tech started futzing up. After the first three pages, my tablet started acting weird, so I ended up drawing the rest of the comic on sketchbook paper with ballpoint pen. Not only that, but I drew all of the pages without any penciling or layouts- all pure pen, with no planning whatsoever. And then when my scanner refused to connect to my computer (again), I decided to simply photograph the last three pages. I personally like the sepia tone effect that occurred as a result, but of course that's just me.

WHAT WENT WRONG

Technology- First was my tablet. I love my Wacom Bamboo, but it has this nasty habit of going nuts in Photoshop. At seemingly random times, it'll lose pressure sensitivity and not even recognize the other end of the stylus. This would not do, so I switched to good old pen and paper. Then one of the forums got locked for about four hours- both moderators were offline, and no one seems to know how it got locked in the first place. And then after all that, my printer refused to connect to my laptop, so I decided to photograph the pages with my camera, but the camera's batteries were running low and I didn't have any more AAs... All this didn't kill the project per se, but it made it a helluva lot harder to get through.


Momentum- The other major issue was trying to keep people playing the game at the odd hours of the morning. For several hours after starting, there was not a single person posting in the Destructoid thread. I didn't want to make the character do anything autonomously, so I just let him sleep. This eventually led to the weird dream sequence, which I suppose made it worthwhile, but it was still a bit of a pain. The other major roadblock came when the TIGSource thread got locked (again, for no apparent reason). I didn't want to just continue the game on Destructoid (as it would have been an unfair advantage), so I let it sit for several hours, which is basically why it took me a week to finish what should have been done in 24 hours.

All in all, I'm pleased with how the comic turned out. I'd certainly like to try more multiplayer comics like this, especially if I can do it with you guys. Now that Bounty's over, what are your thoughts on it? Any suggestions for what you'd like to see in the next comic?