Captain Quail 66 - Cut Off (March 14, 2014)

Happy Pi Day! I was going to talk more about it, but wikipedia can probably do a much better job than I.

I often wonder about the role of the writer in creative partnerships like The Adventures of Captain Quail. Or Penny Arcade, for that matter. I've watched, and in some cases rewatched multiple times, the "4th Panels" produced by Penny Arcade that document the creative process Mike and Jerry share. They obviously know each other extremely well, enough to know each other's likes and dislikes on an almost pre-cognizant level. I've always favored Jerry (Tycho) more, but that's probably an affinity from a writer to a writer. My gut tells me that people think the Mike (Gabe) does all the work, or at least that his work is the more interesting. Hell, PA even did a comic about it, and I'm not sure they were joking.

I wish we could see their really early collaborative process, before anyone knew what Penny Arcade was. I wonder how the 'other work' was split. (And if you think all it takes to be successful is just making a comic and posting it, think again). Part of the reason that I'm pushing for documentation of everything we do with Captain Quail is that I want creators trying to make it with a webcomic to see what someone else went through, right from the beginning. Also because I'm hoping it will be fun to look back in X years and see what things were like now.

This post ended up being way more meta than I intended. I'm curious what others think about the artist-writer relationship, and I'd love for a discussion to start in the comments.

Anyway! Today is Friday, and that means we're featuring another Webcomic O' the Week! This week I'd like to keep in the theme from above and talk about another two-creator comic: Looking for Group. Now, we normally try to feature comics in our Webcomic O' the Week post that could benefit from whatever meager publicity we throw their way. I realize that, even if everyone who visits this page were to click through to LFG, it probably wouldn't even blip their pageviews. But Sohmer and Lar (the original creators, now extended with some other artists) have created such an amazing work that I'm ok featuring them. If you took all the best tropes from fantasy RPG games, and strained them through a mind obviously overcome with geek culture an delightful cynicism, you would get Looking For Group. I would recommend taking an afternoon, starting at the beginning, and not stopping until you're caught up. If you're like me, you'll be desperate for more.

Thanks,

Philip

P.S. We have a youtube channel! We've posted three awesome videos of Allison's art (with humorous voice over) and will be posting more soon!