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Arthur, King of Time and Space Arthur, King of Time and Space

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Arthur, King of Time and Space

5/15/06

The home scanner's still not working.

Here's how you can tell the difference between regular The Thing of Shapes To Come and what we might call Shapes AKOTAS, if you haven't made it out already.

Regular AKOTAS and Shapes AKOTAS appear in panels that are set against the green background of the actual webpage in your browser.
The Thing of Shapes to Come panels are outlined in black inside a panel against the green webpage. Usually, or at least lately, Arthur's byline appears at the top.
Recording the creative process

In trying to come up with a gag for today which showcased shapes-style AKOTAS I initially decided, "I'll write my own gag based on analysis of whatever humor trope Narbonic used today." Today of course at the time being Sunday, Shaenon ran fan art instead of writing a joke.

Next I said, "I'll look at the Morte and come up with something that's different between the baseline arc and the space arc," because I wanted to highlight how those arcs are differentiated visually in shapes (i.e., the space service insignias as opposed to Lancelot's helm or Arthur's crown). But the only thing in the Morte that's really different from the space arc between the Accolon story and the beginning of the war with Rome (which will start in the baseline arc and the space arc this summer) is that in the baseline arc Gawaine, Ivaine and Marhaus go off on the adventure of the three damsels while in the space arc Ivaine isn't old enough to be knighted yet because Morgan married Uriens only ten years ago.* That's a little complex to cram into a weekday gag.

Finally I came up with a gag that derives from the biggest difference in the leads' day-to-day lives between the two arcs - and one that showcases the differences between the characters very nicely, in how they react to the other difference. Sometimes having to work for a gag pays off unexpectedly.

* Those of you who read the first (and only) draft of the novel version of AKOTAS may recall that Space Ivaine doesn't become a Round Table knight till the year of the Grailquest.

Webcomics I read mornings: Peanuts, General Protection Fault, Achewood, Scary Go Round, Tux & Bunny, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Real Life, Kevin & Kell Webcomics I read M-W-F mornings: El Goonish Shive, Zortic, Theater Hopper, Nukees, Newshounds, Girl Genius, Todd and Penguin, Pibgorn, Home on the Strange, Ctrl+Alt+Del Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa mornings: Digger, Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break, AppleGeeks, Orneryboy, Something Happens, Striptease, Taking Up Space, Penny Arcade
Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, User Friendly, Anywhere But Here, Starslip Crisis, Questionable Content, Biggest Webcomic Loser, Schlock Mercenary, Narbonic
Webcomics I read evenings: LuAnn, Count Your Sheep, Goats, Pearls Before Swine, For Better Or For Worse, Help Desk, American Elf, Loserz, Dandy & Company, Irregular Comic, Bruno, Shortpacked, Boxjam's Doodle, Sluggy Freelance Webcomics I read M-W-F evenings: Reasoned Cognition, Two Lumps, Alice!, Order of the Stick, Gossamer Commons Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa evenings: Casey & Andy, Girls With Slingshots, The Green Avenger, Get Out of My Head, Megatokyo
Webcomics I read bedtimes: B.C., Something Positive, The Angriest Rice Cooker In The World, Medium Large, Station V3, Dinosaur Comics, Wapsi Square, Little Dee, PvP
Webcomics I read Sundays: Butternut Squash, Dr. Devious vs Lincoln High, Checkerboard Nightmare, Nemesis, Smithson, Journey Into History, Tailsteak, No Room for Magic, 13 Seconds, Li'l Mell, The Whovian Observer, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Perry Bible Fellowship See also The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, Talk About Comics, Online Comics Day, The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List, Mister Bloo, Nth Degree, 100% Originality Theatre, Comixpedia, The Living Comic and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.

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