Weekly Update - 46 (Patreon)

I started a folder this morning to help me keep better track of my weekly update discussion topics, because I do enjoy dumping a few paragraphs here and there on whatever the current thought is on my brain.  These things just come to me while I'm drawing, and they bounce around in my brain becoming more complicated and more convoluted until I finally spit them out.  These thoughts are mostly random and raw, but maybe they're interesting?  I don't know!

Been thinking more lately about the whole Death of the Author thing.  I've talked on it a little bit before, but my interpretation has shifted recently.  Ideally, I still think a solid creative work should be able to stand on its own without supplemental texts or explanation.  Readers should be allowed to interpret it as they will, and it should be examined (at least mostly) agnostic of its creator.  Alternatively, though, I think what that means is that the creator should put it out there and then withdraw from it.  Leave it alone.

Now, I'm a webcomic artist (apparently - starting to think of that more and more as my profession).  I'm releasing a periodical at the pace I am able to draw it and I am almost certainly not dead, so it's impossible to detach myself from my work entirely.  I recognize there's an inherent danger in my ability to communicate, however.  My readers are (hopefully) eagerly anticipating what's going to happen next in the story, and I know it all already.  It's expected that I have all the answers to every question (I don't, but, regardless).  Something, anything I say could be interpreted (or misinterpreted) as some sort of clue or hint, and truthfully, dropping the occasional clue or hint is something I sometimes do with conscious purposefulness.

But if I sit here and tell you outright that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father, whether I'm lying to you or not, that actually can have a big impact on your expectations for the way the narrative is heading.  Even if you doubt that what I'm saying is true, the mere mention of it can get you thinking about the question, "well, who IS Luke's father?"  Inspiring those sorts of questions and timing them just right in the story so that you are thinking about them right before the answer is revealed is a hugely important part of writing.  (Case in point:  the line "Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father" is way more important than the actual reveal itself, because it hypes you up for the answer right before it's dropped).  Screwing up that timing is easy.  If I bring it up too early, you get bored wondering about it and might forget that it's important.  Too late, and then you're surprised by a reveal that comes from outside what you expect the scope of the story to be, (sometimes that can be a twist, but it's not always good if it wasn't at least hinted at earlier).  In this way, I worry that an author could potentially and unintentionally spoil important moments in their story for a large number of people with a simple tweet or some untimely musings like these.

I guess my point is, I'm only human after all: an unreliable narrator by nature.  Kiva is the narrator of his story.  He's the one telling it.  I'm just drawing it for him.  :P

Today's preview is the panel I've been saving for last and that I'll be working on today, so the rest of the page is about 95% done.  A new page will be posted this Wednesday!

Drawing: Page 90 (planning page 91)

Playing: WoW and Dwarf Fortress