Children at Play

Author notes

Study Habits

kingofsnake

on Aug. 6, 2007

Theres a bunch of different ways to do comics. For example, theres the "set 'em up, knock 'em down" style that you get in newspaper comics for one. Where the first two panels introduce the reader to the situation, the third panel sets up a joke, and the fourth panel delivers a punchline. I was never really comfortable making comics like that, I mean they're here and there, but generally I steer away from them. It's really the most common type of comic. I think it's generally the reason when alot of authors look back on their work, they no longer find it funny, because you already know how the joke is going to end.

I've never written Children at Play for the daily reader (I love you Tera) I've always written it for the one person who comes along every year or two who tries to read through the archives in one or two sittings. There are lots of jokes you can only get if you do. I try to make sure that the last panel of a comic often leads into the first panel of the next comic. So you get a flow that you wouldn't get otherwise. And my favorite jokes, are almost never the punchline. To me the "punchline" is just to bookend that paticular comic. The best jokes, the jokes that still catch me off gaurd, are mixed up in the middle of the strip. Like in this one, in my opinion, panels 2 and 3 are way funnier than panel four.

Anyway, I've been thinking about why, five years after I started this comic when I was polishing off my sophomore year in college, I keep coming back to it, and I can still go through the archives and find something that I still think is funny (besides my early art.) And I think it's because long ago, I just abandoned the idea do the "set 'em up, knock em down" style comic and rather just decided to set up funny characters in a funny world and let them act naturally. But I think this is part of the reason Children at Play has never gotten that popular too, I don't introduce whats going on every comic so a first time reader is very "um…what?" alot of the time. Alot of the time the humor comes from the fact that it's Ryan delivering the line, and you are familiar with him as a character. When I first started C@P alot of people told me "It's funnier because we know you guys." and I thought, well, thats great, but internet people don't know us. So I've tried to introduce our characters to you slowly over the last couple hundred strips. I wanted the regular reader to be 'in' on the 'in-jokes.' And thats why it's written more for the one guy who reads the archive in a couple days than the daily reader. Because it's still funnier if you know us, and that guy knows us.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on, every once in a while I work up a little obsession about this stuff, and I need someone to vent to. IRL the last thing people usually want to talk about is comics.