Comic #944: The F Word (Patreon)

The initial version of this comic was a bit different. It went like this:

Gigz: Remember when we could use goblin gliders in instances? That was cool.

Nyte: Yeah, Keydar ruined that years ago, made the mistake of using the F word during a run.

8 years ago

Keydar & nyte gliding

Keydar: Woohoooo!

Keydar: Boy, that was FUN.

Nyte: NO!

BLUE TEXT: WHOOOO DARRRES TO HAVEEE FUNNNN?!?!

Nyte (hand over his mouth): YOU FOOL!

That version was okay, but I really didn’t like that I wasted 2 panels on exposition talking about a mechanic that used to exist. I really wanted to just start off with something, but I struggled trying to come up with what was the “FUN” that the players were having that was nerfed in the end.

I then decided to write the current version of the comic, but I left what the fun was completely out of it. Originally Nyte just said something generic like this: “Is this mechanic supposed to work this way?” To which Keydar replied exactly as he does in the comic.

I could have kept using the generic idea, but I felt like I could make the comic resonate more for players if there was something real at the start. The idea to use Brann came from a Reddit search. I went into the wow subreddit and searched for “fun detected”, just to get a slew of data to see if anything fit. I wanted something simple that required only one piece of short dialogue to set up. I saw something about Brann’s strength being nerfed and it clicked.

Not only did brann work really well, but it made the final panel that much better. Initially that last panel was just a fist coming down from above, with Keydar and Nyte jumping off to the sides. Now with brann in the mix, the fist was actually doing something, it had a more clear motivation.

I also struggled to figure out how to make it clear what the voice from above was. Should I show a face? If so, what face should it be? Should it have hands? Should it appear at all? How can I make it clear who the voice belongs to? Is it confusing? 

I looked back at some of my comics and happened upon #784. When I saw the blue text in the final panel, I realized I could make the voice look exactly like blue text, blue on a dark background, including the bullet point. I loved this idea, it felt like a fun bit of lore for my comic, that devs speak in blue bullet points. It actually opens up a whole other direction of ideas that are exciting to me. I’ve had other comic ideas in the past where Devs or GMs would show up, and trying to figure out how to visualize them was always a struggle.