Rob Johnson · @MissMelee
3rd Jul 2017 from TwitLonger
A Thank You, An Apology, And A Promise
First off, I would like to thank all of the readers of Miss Melee, from the bottom of my heart, for your readership. Without people reading the comic, it would be nothing. So thank you.
A second thank you is in order for those readers who, in the last few days, have expressed their concerns with the comic, where it's been going, and where it's headed. Which leads right into the apology.
I'm sorry I let you guys down.
Issue 4 has featured a lot of decompressed action scenes and unfortunately I went too far with it and created major pacing issues, which have been pointed out to me by several concerned readers and friends, both publicly and privately, since the latest update. Everything seemed to be going fine until Saturday, so I guess that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
These concerns are all fundamentally the same: the pacing of the comic took a major hit in issue 4, especially the latest stretch of pages. To tell the truth, I had concerns about it from the start, but I went ahead and did it anyway, and it seemed to be going well enough until just this most recent page. Webcomics are a learning experience, however, and I can take what I've learned from issue 4 and apply it to my future writing. Hopefully I'll be able to avoid the mistakes I made over the last couple of months. The criticism I received over the last few days forced me to re-evaluate the script to issue 5, and while it's not finalized yet, hopefully I'll be avoiding some of the issue 4 pitfalls in this new draft. I can't talk too specifically about it, due to spoiler concerns, but while there will be lots of action in issue 5 (there really HAS to be with how we've set things up), it will be paced better. There's only one page left in issue 4 so there's nothing I can really do there, but the past is the past and in order to improve the comic I can't think about what I should have done, only focus on what I can do going forward. Which leads to the promise.
I promise I'll never stop trying to improve this comic. I know it's just words, and words don't mean anything, but hopefully my actions with the script to issue 5, and the comic as a whole going forward, will do the talking. I can't change what's already out there, but I can change what''s yet to come, and I can make it better for everyone. Thanks for reading.
If you have any comments, feel free to message me, publicly or privately, however you wish.