In Which I Pretend That This Is Actually Websnark

There's changes happening over on Questionable Content. For those unfamiliar with QC, it's a webcomic by Jeph Jacques detailing the only slightly unbelievable lives of a number of young people in Massachusetts. Basically it's Friends, but funnier, with more bizarre comedy, and with added swearing. Apart from that, it doesn't really live up to its name. It's also very much character-driven, with the central dynamic between Marten, Faye and Dora providing not only most of the tension and drama, but a significant proportion of the comedy as well.

The main thing that you have to know about Marten is that, in essence, he's a wuss. Eric Burns of Websnark wrote a long and detailed essay on this very subject, although he doesn't touch on why that might be. Personally, I think it's because Marten is constantly surrounded by intimidating women. Dora is self-confident, owns her own business, and makes it into the Goth Window (not goth enough to laugh at her, just goth enough to be a little scary). Faye is definitely scary, life having baked a tough shell around her to the point where anyone who tries to break through that shell is looking at a world of pain. Marten's own mother made a living out of being very definitely intimidating to men, in ways that I am not going to detail in a family-friendly setting. In fact, practically every woman Marten meets is scary in one way or another (with the notable exception of the very vulnerable but still independent and friendly Hannelore - and Marten is always relaxed around her, too).

Marten's reaction to this situation is understandable (it's what I would do, certainly) - he folds in on himself. Whenever he's remotely nervous he goes into the pose you see in panel one here, and frequently avoids eye contact - he's trying to protect himself. In the strip that Burns analyses in the above link, Marten goes one step further by giving in vocally as well, despite Ellen's accusations being complete rubbish. This is a pretty well established character trait by now, and it's been the source of a lot of the storylines over the last few months.

The key to keeping a story fresh is, of course, changing it over time, and we saw some suggestions of that with yesterday's strip. Dora's latent insecurities came to the fore very obviously, and they showed themselves in anger and huffiness. (Not the "silent treatment", though, and thank goodness for that. Short of actual abuse, there's no stupider way of working through problems, and Jacques credits his characters with enough intelligence not to do it.) The big change, though was in Marten. He was in the right, and he knew it, and this time he argued his case succinctly and strongly but without being unnecessarily mean. His body language was significant, too - no defensive poses at any point, and in the final panel we see him protecting Dora, something we've never seen before. For Dora's part, she's nothing but defensive. This from a woman who, let's not forget, is perfectly capable of organising both a mob to defeat the scooter-based vigilante warrior chick (look, I know that makes no sense, just go with it for now, OK?) and a Mad Max-style chair joust.

We're suddenly seeing sides of both these characters that have never been obvious before, but are still entirely plausible. In other words, they're developing and moving on in their lives, and especially in their relationship with each other. It's a definite change in the strip's dynamic, but not one that breaks its ethos or basic setup, which means that there are now many new storylines opening up without alienating the current fanbase. That's a very difficult trick to pull off, in any creative medium, and I'm dead impressed that Jacques is managing it.

Now, let's contrast this with yesterday's XKCD. This particular comic, "Journal 2" is a followup and counterpoint to "Journal". Both feature Black Hat, the as-yet unnamed character who derives all of his enjoyment from screwing with people's minds, resulting in, as they say, hilarious consequences. In "Journal 2", though, his actions backfire spectacularly.

In other circumstances, this would be an effective and satisfying followup, finally giving Black Hat the comeuppance that he so richly deserved. For a few reasons, though, it doesn't work. First, it's too soon. XKCD doesn't often do continuing storylines, but when it does it's either over very short timespans (the 1337 story arc was over in less than a week) or very long ones (I don't think the Red Spiders arc has ended yet, and it's been going for two years). In contrast, suddenly revisiting a situation with only a few intervening comics feels odd and rushed.

Secondly, this is the kind of situation that could quite easily destroy Black Hat as a character. He's lost his hat, anyway, which is going to make him quite difficult to recognise in a stick figure comic. Whereas dropping a bombshell like this on a character would work in Questionable Content, it doesn't have nearly the same impact in XKCD because it's not a story-driven comic. All the humour comes from the situations, the surreal actions, the incredibly geeky references. The audience has no emotional investment in Black Hat, so doing this to him is just going to make us want another character who can keep up the inventive nastiness.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it is very possible that Randall Munroe has drawn this comic as a response to fan reactions. In the official forum thread for "Journal", there were plenty of people going "Yeah! Right on!", but there was also a significant proportion of posters expressing their disappointment with Black Hat. Poster "Chef Brian" summed it up well:

Eh. I really liked the black hat guy, but this one just leaves a foul taste in the mouth.

This isn't a reaction that often appears in XKCD threads. Sometimes people don't find the comic funny - very rarely do they react so unfavourably to the ideas it contains. "Journal 2" looks very much as though Munroe has also realised that Black Hat's actions are reprehensible, and is rushing out a comic to emphasise this point - possibly because, as one of the forum members pointed out, the worst thing about Black Hat's actions in this case is that they are so easily reproducible.

If that's what happened, the idea is laudable, but it takes away from the comic as a whole. Especially in the case of XKCD, a comic that generally makes no allowances whatsoever for the sensibilities of its audience (you won't understand this comic unless you've both watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and played the video game Portal, or at least unless you are very familiar with geek culture), it would be a shame to let the audience dictate what happens, even indirectly. Down that route lies the lowest common denominator. XKCD has coped well with enormous online exposure so far, and I really hope that this is not a sign of things to come.

Two comics, one changing its characters subtly and developing in new directions, the other changing a character hugely, quite possibly for the wrong reasons. Masterclasses in how to to character development and how not to do it, both on the same day. What are the odds, eh?