Second Great Escape?

[AOD] · Post by **[AOD]** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 6:54 am

Some of us may be aware of the "Framed!!! Great Escape", a massive fourth-wall breaking crossover event that involved dozens of comics and artists.

What if it could be done again?

What would it involve? Could we do it?

?~AoD

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:51 am

[AOD] wrote:Some of us may be aware of the "Framed!!! Great Escape", a massive fourth-wall breaking crossover event that involved dozens of comics and artists.

What if it could be done again?

What would it involve? Could we do it?

?~AoD

I might be game for this, because I was actually thinking of doing something like it myself.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 8:26 am

Ooo! Ooo!

Sounds like fun!

[AOD] · Post by **[AOD]** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 10:36 am

Basically the idea would be that your comic characters are attempting to escape from their comic world, and do so by traveling 'beyond the borders', perhaps to others.

Like an immense collective cross over.

@~AOD

CJBurgandy · Post by **CJBurgandy** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 11:14 am

I didn't read framed's great escape, but it sounds like an interesting idea

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 12:34 pm

[AOD] wrote:
What would it involve? Could we do it?

?~AoD

It would involve massive headaches for the person running it. It can be done but only if you stock up on Tylenol before it.

I was in the first one. It was fun, but the consensus in my sub-group was "let's never do this again". Of course, time heals all wounds.

The worst part, though, is maintaining it afterwards, when the people involved move to different hosts and in some cases behind subscription walls (like me and Glych). Damonk has been trying to reconstruct the original Great Escape but it's still broken in places most webcomics didn't even know they had.

But... don't let that stop you

[AOD] · Post by **[AOD]** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 12:38 pm

Now, now, don't leap to conclusions.

We can, after all, learn from our mistakes.

Perhaps if we can gain some insights *nudge nudge* as to the organisation of the last Great Escape, we can improve on our basic plan.

?~AoD

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 1:43 pm

I am so in; this sounds like fun

Godoftarot · Post by **Godoftarot** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 4:59 pm

Aw, what the heck, count me in. It's a good way to exchange traffic, at least. We should pool all the people who want to participate, first, then move on from there. Once we know who wants to be involved, we should definately make sure we find out a way that no one will be left out.

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 5:13 pm

hrrms... not quite sure what this would involve.. or even what great escape even is. the description is sort of vague.

is it independent storylines around the escape theme? or is it characters from our books minglin' in one storyline? not sure if I'll be able to do it. as I'm bogged down, and I'm already drawing away all my free time.

maybe if its not gonna happen for a while I could do it.. if I could get more info.

[AOD] · Post by **[AOD]** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 6:54 pm

Well, from what I can figure out, the First Great Escape was a sprawling, fourth wall breaking event organised by Damonk, in which characters from dozens of different comics collectively tried to escape from their comics, which ended up (from the various fragments that I can piece together from various webcomics) with some sort of vast catastrophe. Certain comics became 'hospitals' for injured and insane characters, as well as way points for their safe return to their universes. I think I shall PM damonk to really get an idea of what a "Great Escape" is supposed to be about and how it was organised.

Meanwhile, feel free to continue to voice your possible interest.

Then we can see where we can go from there!

!~AoD

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:32 am

I think I can provide one insight: the biggest problem was that the first Great Escape wasn't proof against Murphy's law. Keenspace's server broke during the final week, individual participants found life and work and school getting in the way (even more so than usually - if you have a hundred people taking part, you can guarantee that 10 of them will suffer *something* that breaks their planning during the period, and this will then affect many others they are partnered with). And then the FRAMED!!! site was eaten in a big Keenspace crash a few months later, breaking it for everyone. I propose:

1. Make it internally break-proof. Team people with outstanding update records or large buffers with one another and make their storylines the core of the crossover. Team people with less great update records with one another for secondary storylines, and have backup plans for those. Don't work with people who miss updates a lot, for any reason.

2. Arrange for the comics to be archived in a central place as well as on the individual cartoonists' sites. This will prevent the crossover from breaking months later when people start moving their stuff from domain to domain.

3. Encourage artists to set the crossover apart from regular storylines. I don't remember if Damonk did this at the time; I do know that Glych and I both tried to work the crossover into what was going on at the time with our own comics. This was a big mistake. If artists can't interrupt a storyline, they should tell the coordinator so, and suggest that minor characters who are not as important to the ongoing storyline should be used instead of the main protagonist. If I'd featured Krakatoa instead of Kel in the Great Escape, I would have been able to cut it out of the storyline whenever I needed to.

[AOD] · Post by **[AOD]** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:28 am

Now that was an idea that I had! Instead of having one person host the entire crossover, let's have multiple redundancies.

I agree completely with what you say, especially about having the central archiving place.

Furthermore, I think that artists involved should be paired up with a backup or have a partner in mind, just in case something arises which makes them unable to keep up their part of the crossover.

Feedback, people?

BOMC · Post by **BOMC** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:43 am

the more ideas you guys have to make this more fool-proof, the better.

I like the idea of having the most reliable people given the most responsibility, but who would determine which people those are? What's the exact criteria?

I alos like the idea of having partners or back-up...

Ti-Phil · Post by **Ti-Phil** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:07 am

Mwe he he, this seems to be quite an interesting idea. Hmm, I'm sure my two wanderers of webcomics would be more than happy to be part of this project (and let's add Pete in there just for fun!).

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:32 am

I'm game.

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:42 am

I'm thinking about it *) Timing will be important though, because I really, really, really need a vacation.

*) Probably more than I should, in fact. I've already started wondering about what sort of situation or conceit should get the thing started. And I've written it up on my weblog

Malimar · Post by **Malimar** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:25 am

It struck me that my comic - or at least, my characters- would be uniquely suited to such an activity - being that the primary goal of most of my characters is, in fact, to kill the Narrator - that is, me - and end my endless reign of terror over them.
Something along those lines.
So count me in.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:31 pm

malimar wrote:...the primary goal of most of my characters is, in fact, to kill the Narrator - that is, me - and end my endless reign of terror over them.

You could have your people escape and run through other comics trying to get them to follow you...

..or something.

Reinder · Post by **Reinder** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 12:14 am

Or one of them could get big ideas! Instead of killing one narrator, he or she decides that it would be a good thing to hunt down and kill all narrators! The character makes a few rabble-rousing speeches, and suddenly they're all over the continuum, making all imaginary worlds safe against narrators. Sometimes, people in a comic don't know they've narrator (some comics have very sturdy, unbreakable 4th walls) and in those places, the narratocidal characters turn against the comic's most powerful individuals, or against the local God or Gods.

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