RAGMOP

Nice to have this place back in order.

It's lovely to have it completed and all (presumably! haven't finished it yet), but I don't think it works nearly as well in enormo-book format as it did in comics. A startling new revelation or cliffhanger every three pages was fine and fun when there were only like 16 pages of story at a time, then you'd move onto letters or text pages or backup strips, but it gets really wearing when it just keeps happening over and over without respite*.

Also, Walton's discovery of computer lettering in the interim hasn’t been to his benefit. Everywhere there's some display lettering in a stylised font, it throws you out of the moment - this character hasn't spoken in that voice before, so why are they in this one panel? (one could argue that this isn't out of character with the way he'll put someone in an incongruous costume for one panel, but that's still drawn by him - he doesn't suddenly stick a clip-art dinosaur in instead). The proofreading leaves a lot to be desired, too - lots of not only spelling errors, but bits where he's whited out a spelling error for the collection, but never gotten around to actually lettering in the corrected word.

*Maybe I'd find it more fun if it was in colour - I think the pop! pow! what's next? style would benefit from more candied eyework, and his art is definietly colour-friendly.

Yeah, I noticed the whiteout things, but not the spelling errors. As for the actual story - I read SOME of the story back in the day, but hadn't been acquainted w/ it in some time, so this was a New To Me experience, and I luvved it, even if it's didactic like nobody's business.

But to have yourself thrown out of the book by a simple little font change, when you have dinosaurs making like Groucho Marx & Beetle Bailey cameos & 4th wall breakthrus all over the place - well, to each hizzone. Given all the other out-of-character moves flexed, I just took the font changes in stride.

Author-delineated chapter breaks would've been nice, tho. I used the pin-ups as stopping points while I read. (Still haven't read the appendicies, FWIW.)

Oh yeah, I only had scattered issues here and there myself, and can't even pick which bits I've already read from this revamped text.

I know that lettering isn't a consideration for many (or any, other than me) ILC peeps, but it's more than a font change, as I noted - all the rest of both the visual wackiness and the dialogue is in Walton's hand, so it really grates when he throws in a freeware "themed" font for effect, instead of just doing it by hand - it's the only mechanical work in the whole story, and thus contrasts.

OTM re chapter breaks - I'm using a bookmark, which only happens about three times a year.