Friday, March 1, 2013

Bowie, Pee-Wee, and Dick Van Dyke Walk Into a Bar

The panels that came out of the deck for this strip are in the least common "legal" configuration:


If you look at the rules or guidelines for "Draw Two Panels," you'll see that it's possible to deal the panels into slots #2 and #3, instead of having them separated by a single panel.

My idea for the legal arrangements is this: the strip will go into more interesting territory if the newly-drawn panels don't merely happen in between the panels that come from the deck, but they will be more constrained by the deck panels if you get no more than one new panel in a row.

If no more than one new panel can appear in a row consecutively, and the dealt cards must appear in the order they're dealt, there are only three ways to fit them into a four-panel strip.

Of course, these are only my principles or guidelines. If you're playing "Draw Two Panels" yourself, you can make your own decisions about your constraints.

3 comments:

winter said...

The logic of 1 old panel for each row makes a lot of sense.

I wonder if some tip of the hat to which panels are old might be good visually within these comics? Nothing too distracting, but some small mark like an asterisk or plus sign might be a nice cue to see how well you've fit things together. (or maybe that defeats the purpose?)

Isaac said...

It's not just "one old panel per row," though, because I won't let myself deal the deck panels into positions #1 and #4. For me, it's more a question of "no two new panels in a row."

When I put these strips into print, I'm thinking that I will use the marginal space around the strips to annotate them slightly, with the origin of the panel, the destination of the panel, etc. Sort of like "links," but with paper.

winter said...

Ah, yes, of course.

Yeah, getting some annotation would help these strips in print.