In order to help out new readers wandering by who are finding themselves smack in the middle of the action and utterly lost (my sympathies!), I’m trying out a new technique: “Story So Far” info in the hover text! I recognize this might be obnoxious to some of you– just keep your cursor out of the bounds of the page box– but I hope it will help solve the dilemma of how to easily get new readers (or returning readers) up to speed. Let me know what you think!
MIND CONTROL! Run for your lives…!
Well, there goes any small measure of sympathy the Miesti may have accumulated from having had one of their number swatted into oblivion by a big clumsy bipedal giant.
It really depends what they are doing. A distraction might mean the difference between someone being added to the World Pattern / Hivesong / Mind Meld and someone winding up a vegetable. If I were performing open-heart surgery on a barbarian, and another barbarian started forward, I’d probably ask someone to shoo them back so I could focus on saving the life of the former.
Alternately a distraction might mean the difference between raw, unbridled terror-respect of the alien overlords and someone who looks funny at the noisy jellyfish-butterflies.
We’ll have to see what the demonstration is, and how it goes. As the Miesti could be classically malevolent (a la Daleks), or have Orange-Blue Morality (where mind-bonding someone is a profound act of Bacon).
Your last sentence there had me sitting here with many large question marks hovering over my head, until I finally Googled it. I’d not heard of that trope before!
I love Orange-Blue Morality, I think it’s my favorite trope (partly because of what it is, partly because they define the moral axis of Bacon-Necktie).
And in case I haven’t said this enough – you have an awesome webcomic, well implemented in story and style.
Very nice paneling technique.
You know some of us can only get Internet on smartphones right? Hover text doesn’t work with smartphones. I don’t really have the time to make a trip to the library during the day and when I would have the time the library is closed.
Yeah… it doesn’t work on an iPad, either. I thought of that after I posted it. Well, the challenge to make these deep-in-the-middle-of-the-plot pages accessible to new readers is a work in progress. I’ll be tackling the “New Readers” page next!
Demonstration? I’m almost afraid to ask.
The way the Miesti keep referring to the people they control as things is most disturbing. I get the impression the humans are being kept, not just as slaves, but as pets. Clever, able to build, but animals in the eyes (eyestalks?) of the Miesti.
Giant Alt Text Boxes… do not work. They’re meant to be short additional content info, or often just actual description for various adaptive technologies.
Remember, anyone stumbling in on a webcomic that they don’t understand, has the Previous button to work with. Now, I’ve seen some places have a Previous Day, Start of Chapter and First Comic buttons, but that coding is much more difficult (usually chapter breakdowns are in pull-down boxes under the comic.) You can do what you can, but ultimately intelligent new readers will know how to get more information. I think the occasional link to chapter beginning in your description text works quite well.
This said, this page shows the Miesti’s mind a bit more, and the survivor’s as well. Still nothing clear-cut, everyone acts along their makes-most-sense-to-them viewpoint…
I expect you’re right about the giant text box. How about a smaller one, a few-sentences recap of just the last few pages?
I think that would work much better, it’s just a little jarring to suddenly have 30-50% of the viewable page disappear.
For a third alternative, the Miesti may just have totally massed up in spite of the best intentions. Real world example: the English water vole may no longer exist in the wild because animal rights groups raided fur farms and released many minks into the wild, including a single release of over a thousand animals into the nature preserve that had been set aside as the primary refuge for water voles.
Heh, I kept reading the “s”s as “f”s at first and now I can only imagine the Miesti taking with lisps. xD
The Daffy Duck Miesti connection will haunt me forever.
The lettering has been reminding me of colonial-era english, with the long ‘s’.
Like reading the Conſtitution.
So for Miesti names, we’ve got uuiath (the impolite-ish one) and yssala, I think, and then in “panel” 3 I can make out “…(can? do) this (will?) make her (f)eel better”. In four, I’ve got “…help you”. So much for “Don’t be frightened”, I’d think that would look a little out of place to Aria, even in her condition
The Miesti can be distinguished from one another. Does this mean that their personalities become important later in the story? uuiath is the one with four spots on each lower wing; yssala is the one whose pattern looks like black and white flower petals radiating from its centre; the third Miesti is, as yet, unnamed and has two spots on each lower wing.
Poor Aria.
Poor Lieutenant Tremaine!! She’s not a happy camper.
I’m intrigued by the changes in your current webcomic from the original print version. It is obvious that you are maturing as a storyteller and tapping your years of thought on the storyline. The Miesti appeared benign in your original version but are definitely shaping up as nasty business now ….
Note: The added text box is not working for me either, it flashes on and off every few seconds. It’s very distracting and not easy to read. I have a couple of suggestions:
1. Follow what some other webcomics are doing and create another webpage called Story So Far or something similar.
2. Stick that new webpage under your toolbar under About Galaxion or Extras or maybe add a new toolbar topic if you have room.
3. Stick your written text in there. If you want something a tad more, take advantage of your fanbase and ask us to add onto it. As editor, you decide what gets added.
The Story So Far stuff currently falls under the “New Readers” page. I agree it needs a revamp, and probably more prominence. Thanks for the suggestions!
How about a script for the page. My eye sight is not what it use to be and I’m lost. Galaxion is one my favorites!
I can see about that, though I’m not sure where to put it (I’ll look into how that sort of thing is done on other comic sites). Is it just the Miesti dialogue that you have trouble with, or is it all of the lettering?
Just the Miesti dialogue. Thanks.
The hovertext as displayed here (IE8) seems to truncate half way through a word and disappears a bit too quickly to actually read it all.
Since this week’s comments section emphasises the technical, I’ll go ahead and add to it
Tara Said
“The Story So Far stuff currently falls under the “New Readers” page. I agree it needs a revamp, and probably more prominence. ”
I never realized that your Story So Far was on your website, there is no obvious and intuitive way to drill down to it. Today I noticed the Pages hyperlinks on the right hand side, which I confess I did not look at before. Those hyperlinks are rather cluttered. I am no webmaster so I ask in happy ignorance – are you able to condense the clutter into a few expandables? I.e click on a topic and click on a plus sign to expand the page listing (being sure to EXPLAIN HOW THAT WORKS TO THE CLUELESS on the main page view.)
Why not add a Story So Far hyperlink to that right hand page Pages Column? For emphasis, you can play with a different font, or bold it, or set it to a different color.
I
On this page it is clear that the barely readable swirly text goes straight through the heads of the humans sitting discussing the situation. I’m surprised no-one has has commented on this creepy development. I will now check the previous pages to see if this is visible on them too.
Great comic Tara, this entire semi mystical section has really stepped things up a notch. The massive swirling hair instead of normal panel borders is truly inspired.
Oh … yeah … It’s what the other humans are thinking, isn’t it? Can’t believe I didn’t pick up on that before.
Still, they’ve got a nice lecture hall.
You’ve got to give them that much.
Where’s a drum of RAID when you need it? And a Hazard Suit.
And a tin-foil hat.
Some tin-foil hat design actually amplify EM transmissions inside them.