There's a new supervillain in town and only Superhero Girl can stop him!! Will she be able to triumph against this adversary??? (She'd better.)
I think a lot about timing when I write and draw The Adventures of Superhero Girl. I think this strip is a good example of how pauses can make a comic a lot funnier than it actually is. That one pause in the 5th panel where the "victim" is welling up with tears still cracks me up. I remember as a much younger and less experienced art-person being put off by comic strips that didn't have a final one-two punchline (first punchline: amusing! second punchline: the actual funny one, usually in response to the first punchline. It was weird how it well it worked). Later, as a more mature and developed artist I've learned that comics don't have to follow beats in order to be funny (I'm thinking of Kate Beaton's work, and a lot of other online comics that don't use any kind of conventional timing, but manage to be pretty damn funny throughout all their panels, not just the final panel), but I still like timing a lot, and try to stretch myself to make it work when I feel it should be a part of the comic.
Anyway! I hope you have been amused by this peek into the Artists' Process. We now return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.
