Sunday, September 10, 2017

Why the “Flush Twice” comic became “Pathos in the Plumbing”.

Back on on Monday, September 26, 2016 I officially re-titled my comic to “Pathos in the Plumbing”. While no one has ever asked me why I did what I did, I felt like I needed to explain.

Of course it’s the same comic that I started back in January of 2004. It’s the same characters, the same stories, the same everything… So why change the name? Because it signified a completely different way in which I was presenting the comic.

In the beginning, the comic was inextricably linked with the daily joke. Even though they weren’t related, I didn’t post a comic without a joke. Of course if I didn’t have time or feel like making a comic, there wasn’t going to be a joke, and vice versa.

As the comic’s art evolved, panels took longer to produce, and a daily schedule was no longer practical. Suddenly updates got very irregular. My joke suppliers started to taper off at this time, and my morale suffered too. Long hiatuses ensued, and eventually in late 2013 I decided: Let’s post jokes separate from comics!

That was all well and good, but then I realized something: The comic had only a day or two in the spotlight, then just rolled down the blog as the next joke pushed it out of the way. You may not think so, but I worked hard on that comic! Of course I tried giving the comic it’s own category, but then it was hidden from the main page entirely, and that’s no good either! I needed some way to keep the comic in a prominent position until it was superseded by a new comic.

It was my sidebar rants that gave me the solution I’d been looking for! I modified a WordPress plugin that allows posts from specified categories to appear in the sidebar. I could finally post a comic along side a JOTD without the comic scrolling out of the limelight! While I still feel the weekly schedule to be a bit challenging, it’s doable, and I’ve been hiatus free for nearly a year now!

Of course there are certain limitations. The comic cannot exceed a width of 330 pixels or it messes up on some mobile devices. If I want to do a two or three panel strip, I have to make the strip vertical, and internet critics aren’t fond of scrolling. I’ve found some workarounds, but the comic still has to render with legible text at 330 by whatever resolution. (Yes, I tried widening the sidebar. It goes deeper than that.)

And now with a new way of doing things, a new name should grace this boldly positioned panel! “Pathos in the Plumbing” was born! It’s the same comic I started back in 2004, and with over 13 years in the making, I’m more proud of my comic than ever.

Thanks for watching!

Pax,

-f2x

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