Refactoring

In my day job as a programmer most of the time I work in iterations. I create some code, take a step back, evaluate my code and make changes where needed. This is called refactoring.

And I recently got the idea that that’s also what Mojo needs. Me taking a step back and evaluate. What do I enjoy to create, but also what  do I enjoy to read. What jokes/comics are my favorites and why?

Lately I noticed that I enjoy to read comics with absurdity in it a lot. Just weird jokes. And I also enjoy to read comics with just separate single jokes / situations in each comic. Some of my recent discoveries / inspirations:

MercWork
A sort of personal journal in an absurd way. I like the humor, the style of the drawings and the random-ness of the jokes. Just kept on clicking through the archive.

Anyoneau For Rhubarb
Really absurd and funny jokes. At first I kinda was repelled by the art style. But the moment I could look through that, I found a comic with some amazing humor in it. This one still cracks me up, for instance.

Birthday Street
My recent discovery. Really huge fan of the loose style and different use of one color in every comic. The humor is pretty funny, but not hilarious.

So after seeing these comics, I kinda have a feeling what direction I would like to take with my own comic. But I also like comics like Calvin and Hobbes (obviously) and got the feeling I also still want to incorporate that same feeling as well.

So now my challenge is how to combine these two. A comic with defined characters (like C&H and how Mojo is now) and making separate / random jokes.

Maybe it’s something that can’t be combined and I need to start a new comic. Or drop the characters / stories and do it more like MercWork. Defined characters, but with random jokes / situations.

I talked with my wife about this and we came to the conclusion that I’m sticked too firm to the old / standard webcomic model (stick to your update schedule). Maybe I should let go of that model and just update when I want to? Maybe more often, maybe less often.

But I do like to have regular updates. So I’m thinking I could still update 2-3 times a week, but not with a full comic. Maybe just a sketch, a doodle and sometimes a strip. So I don’t feel the pressure of having to create a comic twice a week, but I do have an update and have something for you guys to see.

What do you think?