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Hey, I just dropped in quickly to respond to your glance at the fourth turning. If further depth on the subject interests you and you have the time, look up books by Harry Dent. He has an approach to these cycles that's based mostly on demographics.

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I would really love for this idea of the adventure strip to see a resurgence. I’ve been thinking about it since I first heard you mention it a few months ago and it only got more in my head when I went to a gallery show of Jules Cheret’s posters and saw how much of his work was for novellas serialized in the daily paper. It might just be because I like the idea as I’m made peace with me not having the patience at present for an OGN but I’m very into this.

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Exactly. It's hard to commit to a very long term OGN. Hell, it's taken me over a year to work on my 24 page comic on the side for myself that only my close patrons see. I do have a fondness for the periodical style comic format, but in my own opinion, I find the daily format more powerful and motivating. It can just seem more overwhelming, but i think if you study the craft and pacing, its much more "doable" than a monthly comic or OGN. But the "craft" of it seems to have been lost. It's hard to manage ongoing stories, large casts of characters and sub plots and get them tied up over so many weeks. I'll dive deeper into this subject in the future. The time to start something is NOW.

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I've long pondered what my role as a creative person is, like as an "upstanding, productive member of society", and I find hope in sentiments like yours, D.J., that adventurous, fantastic art has a legit place. Planes need pinups and people need exciting stories to uplift then!

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I think artists tend to forget that they are "storytellers". And STORY is what makes the world go round :) I hope this makes some artists realize they have this power. You do too!

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Fascinating that things repeat after a certain amount of time, that video was just nuts. Not sure why, but I tried to write this earlier in the week and kept getting a “you must subscribe” window pop up for a few days, and seems like it’s gone now. Anyway, back to repeats, and OGNs, and action strips. I was fascinated at an early age by the strips in the newspapers. BC by Johnny Hart, Hagar the Horrible by Dik Browne, Peanuts, and more recently Zits, Fox Trot, Baldo, and so many others had you wanting to read every day to find out what happens in those few panels. Condensing what might take more panels into just a few is amazing, and that’s some skill right there. My first experience with comics weren’t the standard Marvel/DC type even though I remember getting a few Conan books when I was 7 or 8, just didn’t grab me. Instead I was fascinated by Hergé’s Tintin books. Larger than comics, but man I was sucked in by the flow of the panels and the insane details, and the story all blended perfectly. I’m still blown away all these years later, and I’ve tried to use his pacing in my OGN along with the.more dynamic and action packed Marvel comics from the late 80s/90s. I’ve been working on this on and off for a few years now: Old school, using micron pens, penciling, coloring by hand and then tweaking on the computer and adding the dialogue all by my lonesome. Sooo…time machine eh? Jumping gigawatts!

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