Paranatural

Nothing Happens: The Page.

>>90386748
Well this IS Nothing Happens: the Comic now.

They can't all be Spender Duchovny.

did bendis guestwrite this page

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previously on Paranatural.
>a fucking year of hitball
now in Paranatural
>a fucking year of sitting in a cafe talking shit

I never thought I was gonna miss hitball this much

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Why does it feel like Zack is artificially padding all of this out? It's like he's doing this intentionally. So many panels and pages that flat out don't need to exist. We'd be at chapter seven by now if he could just learn some fucking pacing.

Brevity is the soul of wit and all that, fucking hell.

>>90387284
>Why does it feel like Zack is artificially padding all of this out?
He is.

The less content per update, the longer he gets paid and the more time he gets to plan.

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>>90386681
>Definitely same.
What did he mean by this? (In all seriousness...even rereading still made me confused.)

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>>90387463
it all makes sense now!

>>90387485
She obviously doesn't really believe him, and he doesn't believe her obvious lie.

>>90387463
I've heard the suggestion that he's no longer worried about making the comic story-driven because his goals and interests have changed entirely. Now he's more into making the comic character and joke-driven but hasn't figured out how to reconcile that with how he's started the chapter. But the padding is all part of an extended joke. And it seems most of the readers who don't hang around here seem to like this joke.

>>90387485
Same.

Unrelated, but if I wasn't at work I would cut this page up a bit to show how you can retell this page in 2/3 the space, keep the "joke", AND not redraw a single thing!

Maybe this evening.

>>90387616
>>90387666
Thanks, I appreciate that.

>>90387649
>I've heard the suggestion that he's no longer worried about making the comic story-driven because his goals and interests have changed entirely.
You don't need to hear about it, that much is obvious. Someone who cares about their story doesn't string out this kind of scenario with unrelated subplots, even hacks know that chase/timebomb plots thrive on tension.

>Now he's more into making the comic character and joke-driven but hasn't figured out how to reconcile that with how he's started the chapter.
Oh, he knows how to do it: just end the chapter. They confront Hijack the end, now we can move on to interminable character study. Thing is, if he does that he will lose fans who joined for the story.

The issue isn't being unable to transition, it's that he's uncertain how to do what he wants without losing money.

>But the padding is all part of an extended joke. And it seems most of the readers who don't hang around here seem to like this joke.
You get to play that defense when you're putting out a hobby comic or you're making great use of theme and variation, like The Bus.

Zack gets paid to make this, and the "joke" is that he's been abusing lazy writing practices for over a year. When you call it a joke you sound like you have Stockholm Syndrome.

>>90387823
Oh this is literally my first time replying to one of these threads. I'm mostly detached from whatever happens in the comics and what Zack does. I only read Paranatural at this point to reassure myself that I'm doing better at storytelling and pacing than another comic (one of several actually) that is way more popular than my own. It's petty but it's what I've got.

>>90386681
How's everyone's wrist today?

So uhh

Is there rule34 of Max and chubby weird girl yet?

>>90387965
Oh I'm not accusing you specifically, it's just not a joke and calling it one sounds like ridiculous fanboy wank.

>>90387976
No.
Thank god.

>>90387666
All you need is panels 5, 6, 8, and 11

Or, you know, just 11

>>90387965
What's your comic?

>>90387965
shut up morbi!

>>90386681
This kid looks like he has the softest face.
Like playdough that's been sprayed to be slick and not stick to your hands.

>>90387965
> I only read Paranatural at this point to reassure myself that I'm doing better at storytelling and pacing than another comic

hello me, how are you doing? and what is the name of your comic

>>90388158
Even if we don't want to gut the page down to essentials, there's still a whole row worth of gaff.

>>90386681
does she want the D?

>>90386681
Why would you write a scene like this? Who wants to see panel after panel of two kids talking at a bar with gradient backgrounds? Zack is not fucking Tarantiono, he can't make it interesting with dialogue alone.

And I'm assuming this girl confused spectral activity for aliens? Then this is what, subplot Nr. 20? Was the whole bar scene written just to introduce it? How about wrapping-up some of the existing ones first?

How is Zack already this bogged down? Was his original story outline written on a single napkin that he's already forced to inject this much filler into his comic?

Bleh. Remember when we thought this was going to be non-stop mystery and action? Now the only mystery is WTF is Zack thinking and whether he will take action to fix this shit.

>>90389268
https://youtu.be/KRlEgP3MRn0

2:00

>>90388888
Max x What's-Her-Name OTP

For real though they do seem to mesh rather well.

>>90389268
Look it's not complicated. He wanted to introduce another character who fills in a space of "normal student who's close to sussing out what the Activity Club does but is more sympathetic than Suzy". She's off-base with the guess about aliens but she might figure it out down the line and seems smart and serious enough that she might be able to help the club out later (I don't think they have a designated "smart" character yet).

Whether you think the introduction was too spun out and all the little background details about the school and students in the cafe scene feel like filler, well, your mileage may vary. I guess we'll have to wait and see what comes of this stuff later.

>>90390520
>Look it's not complicated.
You're right, it's not: it makes absolutely no sense to start this subplot right now when the main thread of this chapter has been almost 100% sidelined for 6+ months. If he wants to do this, he should wait for a natural calm instead of forcing one into the narrative. Unless she's needed for the Hijack plot (and if she is, shame on Zack for poor planning) or resonates with some theme of the chapter, there's no good reason to do this right now.

>your mileage may vary
Please don't talk about writing if you're going to thoughtlessly spout colloquialisms from TvTropes. You're not in the frame of mind to analyze someone's work if you're regurgitating stuff like that.

>>90389664
You can link YT videos to start at a certain time.

>>90390520
>not complicated
No the scene isn't. But it's existence at this point in the comic is, the overall plot is a clusterfuck of plot threads that were introduced many months or years ago and then never followed up on. And instead of doing anything about them, he's introducing new plotlines. Even if this was a comic book, this pacing would make no sense, but this is a webcomic. People will literally forget what was established when he dusts of a plot from two years ago, this is a trainwreck of pacing, or maybe that's what he hopes for — no one remembering or caring about old plots anymore so he can quietly abandon them because he can't think of a good way to resolve them.

>>90391770
Not on mobile I can't.
The joys of phoneposting.

>>90390520
I think the issue is less with the existence of the scene itself, but how long and drawn out this scene has been, along with many other chapter 5 scenes. This scene at the bar has been going on for 8 pages now, a whole month, when it probably be cut down to just 4 pages.
Even with all these subplots going on at once, the comic would be a lot more enjoyable and easier to follow if they were kept short and succinct. This abysmal pacing is turning story lines that could have been interesting into rambling, aimless pages of dull jokes.

I'm losing my affection for this comic. I've been reading every update for four years, and we're still in like the third week after he moved in.

>>90393062
I think you mean third day

>>90392186
It's been more than a month, m8.
Zack misses updates frequently.

>>90393062
It'd be fine if shit were happening in that time span. I mean for fucks sake homestuck (which definitely isn't anybody's idea of a great Web comic) had one day in story spread across 2 1/2 years. But at least it was fucking interesting. This is just a tragedy in comparison

>>90394840
On one hand, the sheer amount of words is more than most could hope to match and his update schedule was ludicrous, so there was more Homestuck in 2 years than Pnat in its entirety.

On the other hand, Homestuck juggled 4 protagonists for the first year and five other protags + 7 side characters for a year while having each protag go through twice as much shit as Max.

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>>90386681
>but
oh boy I wonder what hes gonna say next
jk its entirely too obvious, Max will either say some inspiring words to uplift Fatso's spirit, or he'll drop a hint to let Fatso know that the club is up to some manner of supernatural activity
Zack teases us plenty but the payoff never fails to be disappointing or LAME

also
>that hand in the second to last panel
Ha ha like what the fuck, yo ha ha

>>90387284
I think he adds padding/dialogue extension just so he can add a small cliffhanger or a teaser at the end of the page

Cody getting a boyfriend arc WHEN?

>>90395080
That and because he has no buffer and had to make this shit up as it comes.

But yes, making cliffhanger pages generally improves readership. It's shitty and stupid but you get more clicks.

>>90386681
chubby girl is qt!

I still wish Zack went back to the old designs.

If you had to choose between having Zack run your favorite webcomic (somewhat regular updates, but nothing of substance ever really happens and the plot is frozen for eternity) or Kazerad (never updates, the artist shows up every now and then to say he's making it but never actually shows any progress), which would you pick?

>>90395366
I make comics, so can I choose neither and end it with one page?

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>>90395498

Nope. This is going to happen, the author of [insert your favorite webcomic here] has decided it to be so and nothing you can do will stop it.

Pick one of the two options.

>>90395539
Okay, then I don't care: I'll pick Kaz so it goes on indefinite hiatus and draw my own ending. You can't stop me. I don't care if it's official.

>>90386909
Remember when Paranatural updated threeish times a week?

Neither do I.

>>90395366
Well my favourite is Boxer Hockey, which is already indefinitely frozen so if Zack ran it it'd at least update some

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I've done a very shitty job editing the last 7 pages of this shitty comic into 3, since yes, there really is that much fluff in this conversation.

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>>90395991
I'm sure someone could cut out even more of this too.

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>>90396032
I realize the layout is pure garbage but the point is , we really don't need well over half of the panels in this interaction.

>>90395991
>>90396032
>>90396066
can someone with a twitter account tweet these to zack? has anyone actually talked to him about his pacing problems, or if they have, has he ever responded?

it's one thing for him to just be unaware of his own flaws, but if he's doing this despite outside advice then that's something else

>>90387649
it was all jokes and characters from the beginning. they were wandering in school halls and hitting lockers. having an actual plot seemed like a bonus you didn't ask for.

>>90396152
I didn't start reading until 2015. So I thought a plot was always the intention and it was easing into it like a lot of the shonen anime Zack's influenced by tends to do.

>>90396108
Could be that he gets a lot of outside advice but doesn't consider it valid or even relevant.

>>90396213
Has anyone here read Zack's girlfriend's comic? Is it paced well or badly? Is it possible he picked up some of these bad habits from her....?

Why do you people always try to cut out "fluff" and remove all character from a comic thinking that is improving it?

>>90389664
why do all the videos have these girls just hanging around?

>>90386681

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq-p0ysCF6E

>>90396066
Max's shock over her knowing the extra word is supposed to be a cliffhanger. Yeah the pace is slower with it, but it's a fitting cutoff point for a comic.

>>90396108
I'm going to go with the theory >>90387823
has, and say he's doing it like this for the money. But at the same time, Paranatural doesn't strike me as a comic that's well thought out, or even fully written. So with that in mind, if the comic has no ending in sight, I don't see why Zack feels the need to pad things out even further.

>>90395991
This isn't very good.

>>90396336
True. With panel rearrangement that would've been a fitting way to end the page off.

>>90396108
Aside from the "Shred" backstory being reduced to a couple panels, I don't really agree with most of it.

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>>90386681
Is the current theory that she's the secret student body president or whatever? Because that would be the only way any of this two month long side story would have any sort of relevance.
There's a ticking clock plot happening elsewhere and Zack just cannot pull away from this riveting conversation about nothing.

>>90396259
It's one thing to show a character's personality through the way they talk, its another thing to drag that out as long as possible. Good characterization doesn't need pages and pages of bullshit.

I haven't read this comic in years. I hated waiting on the update schedule so I stopped reading to let it build up.

When I stopped this was still a /co/ favorite and this place loved Zack. Now it seems like you guys have gotten disillusioned with the comic. Is it worth returning to? I probably will anyway but wondering what the consensus is.around here or if there are two or three main opinions

>>90396404
That would essentially make everything she said a lie. I don't think being the student body president would have trouble having friends. That's a lot of power to swing around. Plus I can't really figure how her reaction to Max makes any sense that way. She should probably be dangling the blackmail over his head for real in that case.

>>90396066
I liked the Mulder drawing thing and the girl being upset about being a weirdo failure is more important than her being upset about the activity club not being extraterrestrial. The previous pages you did are nice.

>>90396303
They're students.

Guy was cool at SCAD, shame they let him go.

>>90396066
This one really doesn't work. You tried way too hard to make the pacing faster. It's like those retarded edits of shitty comics where people keep cutting panels and text and it ends up just as bad.

>>90396464
It depends. Paranatural has changed from what it used to be, so if you're expecting it to be like it was at the start, don't go back to reading it. But if that doesn't bother you it might be worth a shot. I hear the pacing is better when it's read all in one go. That...wasn't the case when I read it, but I can't speak for others.

>>90396259
Because people tend to take things too far in the other direction when they're reacting to this sort of thing.

>>90396464
its good

>>90396569
This. Reading the Hitball part of this chapter may seems like a quick read when you don't have to wait for updates, but it took about a year to get through the whole thing and it was a real slog.

>>90396496
>>90396518
Thank you anons. I just tried to cut down on needless information, I wasn't trying to make the comic pages very readable, so I understand they look & read like shit. Honestly though, this scene needs a rewritten script entirely. It's stilted and weird even in the original 7 pages.
But anyway I agree with you both.

>>90396464
As someone who stopped at the start of chapter 4 and binged the archive a week or two ago,

I can understand people's frustrations experiencing these slow as molasses updates, especially with constant delays, but reading it all in one go isn't as bad. I don't think it's dipped in quality too much, Zack has just bogged himself down with too many subplots at once and people are eager for him to get on with the actual ongoing story. Where did you leave off? I'd recommend binging most of it, then stopping again for a year and binging again.

>>90396569
>It depends. Paranatural has changed from what it used to be, so if you're expecting it to be like it was at the start, don't go back to reading it
How is it different? Less mystery and superpowers?

>I hear the pacing is better when it's read all in one go. That...wasn't the case when I read it, but I can't speak for others.
I used to hear the same about Bleach and while it was somewhat true the pacing was still not great when binging it.

I read the binged the train chapter a few months ago and it was pretty good but haven't read past it. I hear the worst is yet to come though.

>>90386909
>I never thought I was gonna miss hitball this much
Just wait for the next new Paranatural Arc!

>>90396806
It seems to be the consensus among anons that the train arc is where it started to get bad, but I really enjoyed it. It's when hitball started that I began to lose interest. Chapter 5 has a cool hook, but then the hook + main plot gets lost in a bunch of other subplots. I don't want to spoil it for you though, Ch 5 is 180+ pages of ... fun...

>>90396944
>Ch 5 is 180+ pages
Wtf? Wasn't the first chapter only 70 and the second only like 30? I think I can guess the problem here...

>>90396944
Personally I thought it was when hitball ENDED that things slowed to a crawl. Again though, I binged it, I didn't have to endure a year of it updating a page a week. I just love that it's a stupid school sports game that the kids treat with deathly seriousness, because they're kids.

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>>90397014
I offer you this humble pie chart.

>>90397028
But why would you write a 50+ page fight scene!

>>90386681
I hate that bloated fat androgynous... thing that Max is talking to. Fuck what Zack has become.

I had a Paranatural related dream last night. A large storm was headed to Mayview. It was a comfy dream.

Every new thread here I keep telling myselg that Zack will fix things once this chapter ends. He'll take a break to work on a buffer to improve the artwork, plan the pages properly so things won't drag so much, and Paranatural will gradually become good again.

Just going back to chapter3/4 level of artwork would make me so happy.

>>90396806

>How is it different?

Pacing and overall storytelling.

Chapters 1, 2, 3 have solid chapter construction to them. Like a good chapter should, they introduce, execute, and wrap up a discrete piece of the story. After that, however, the storytelling goes off the rails with the train chapter.

Look at the archive page:

http://www.paranatural.net/archive-2

50 pages each for three chapters, then a Chapter 4 that's bloated to be longer than the rest of the comic before it, in which we'd see awful storytelling like flashbacks within sidecuts and over-dramatic deaths for characters introduced only pages before. It also began the cast bloating, which Zack himself acknowledged a few weeks ago with that student council joke.

Chapter 5 is even worse. Remember when the kids were looking for a spirit called Hijack? I don't. Instead, we've had hitball, the school store, introducing the new tool spirit, the lesbian coffee date, and god knows what else I can't even remember. Each of these should have their own focus instead of this nightmare of scene shuffling and piling on more and more characters and story threads.

It honestly exhausting to follow and it's obvious the art has suffered due to Zack's inability to manage the comic well - just look at how backgrounds have all but disappeared.

>>90396806
>How is it different? Less mystery and superpowers?

It's bad. Has been since the train.

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>>90397240
You have such hope.

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>>90391223
>colloquialisms from TvTropes

>when you remember the time before that tautology-bordering-on-meaningless-phrase became an endlessly repeated cliche on that website
>before it became enshrined as the name of an entire ghetto section to which all opinions were exiled
>now no one can use a simple phrase without associating it with FastEddie's hugbox wiki

>>90387463
Does he even HAVE a plan?

With all the plot points he's blindly firing left and right, the "plan" is going to end up such a clusterfuck, it's going to make a landfill look like a supermarket aisle.

>>90391223
>Please don't talk about writing if you're going to thoughtlessly spout colloquialisms from TvTropes.

Jesus christ kid. Fuck off and don't post here again.

>>90395080
>jk its entirely too obvious, Max will either say some inspiring words to uplift Fatso's spirit, or he'll drop a hint to let Fatso know that the club is up to some manner of supernatural activity

There is no way Max is gonna be that careless with the club secret.

Fat Bottomed Girl said she needed the Club's help, so it will probably be to ask about that.

>>90397394
There's no way he has a plan. I remember Zack citing 'writer's block' as his reason for missing an update one week, which says to me that he's sometimes writing pages on the fly.

>>90397474
This would explain the constant segways into irrelevant shit like a show Max watched as a child.

>>90396259
I agree that the edited pages posted aren't really any better, but you're delusional if you think this chapter isn't being dragged down by meaningless nonsense. Sure. There are some charming interactions and cute character moments sprinkled around but it's done haphazardly and without any regard for narrative momentum.

>>90397109
Paranatural's fifth chapter (182pgs) is longer than the longest chapter in Unsounded(164pgs). This is bad news.

>>90397521
This.

>>90386681
HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT

>>90396464
Contrary to what a lot of people are saying chapter 4 was pretty great. This chapter is just all over the place and should have saved some needless elements for upcoming chapters

>>90387968
Wrist is fine but my dog has an ingrown toenail and I need to stop what I'm doing to take care of it for a week

>>90397474
He probably has an overall plan, just not scripts for individual pages. Even when the plan is "Max and Whoever talk about his nervous breakdown and hug while tearing up" he still has to write how it happens and what they say. So that's where the writers block probably comes in.

>>90396464
If before you loved each page and wanted more and was disappointed when each sequence ended hoping the next one will be as good, now the only reason you want to see the next page is because it brings you closer to the end of a boring sequence, you jubilate when it's over and pray for the next one not to be as boring.

I'm just livid because Zack could have easily split this chapter in half. Hit ball should have taken up the first half followed by a cool down scene and some sort of cliffhanger (like the kids racing to get to the door at the beginning of the chapter, remember that? We could have reached that scene, gone a little further and then saved all of these current developments for the second half). It would have been so easy to end the chapter with the kids all splitting up and Max about to walk into the school store but then it just...kept...going...and the lesbian lunch date was literally throwaway. We could have had a quick scene of Zarei getting ready for her "important meeting" all dramatic like only for it to be a bait and switch when we get the anticlimactic reveal the following chapter. That maybe could have saved that scene and made it mildly funny in hindsight but that would actually take effort, planning, and some sense of work ethic or foresight that Zack clearly lacks.

>>90397252
"It's bad" doesn't actually explain anything anon.

>>90397975
I was just thinking that. Zack would really benefit from a co-writer of some kind.

>>90397847
True, but that step of the script is something he should be doing ahead of time, with tweaks up to the last minute. It's very unprofessional to be writing a script the same week you're supposed to be drawing the fucking page.