Quote Originally Posted by Ionathus View Post
Jeph wants to write a fun comic where fun things happen? Great. He also wants to tell a dramatic story about somebody coping with the difficulties of being an ex-con? Also great. I loved that arc. But if he doesn't put in the work to keep those two from contradicting each other, I think it's reasonable to question the internal logic of his world.
This is where most of my conflicts come from. You can defend a lot of the plotllines by saying "it's just sitcom wackiness" but that defense falls apart when you start putting serious plotlines into the world as well. Don't get me wrong - I like having the serious plotlines in. Faye's various slow-moving disasters contain some of the better writing in the comic.

It's when he moves away from the personal and onto social issues that cracks start to appear. Marigold buying Momo a new body works because it's a re-assertion of their friendship and shows how much Marigold cares for her. The actual price of the robot body doesn't matter much. When May can't buy a body because of her conviction, the actual price of a robot body matters a lot. Once the price of a robot body matters, you then have to go back and take into account what the price was in the earlier strips. That leads to the charity drive. Once you've established it took a charity drive, you then start wondering how the heck Pintsize managed it. It also means that Marigold suddenly striking it rich is questioned more deeply.

Shows like Friends and The Simpsons can get away with it because there is no continuity, no serious storyline underlying it all. When someone strikes it rich and then loses it all, there are no serious consequences because by next episode it never happened. Homer never screws up enough to make Marge divorce him because by the next episode time has reverted to a point before he did those things. QC in contrast has real consequences - the episode where Faye shows up drunk to work results in her getting fired. She doesn't save Dora's life by the end of the episode and get hired back - she never returns to that job. Sven cheats on Faye and it isn't a wacky break-up - Sven is ostracized for weeks/months before he is able to show his face again, and his relationship with the main cast is forever changed.

QC tries to have the best of both worlds - wacky antics and serious plotlines. And the lot of the time, this works. It's why I'm still reading after nearly 20 years. Sometimes though...it doesn't. And it feels like a long time now since we've had one that does.