I’ve really been digging the latest Camp Weedonwantcha storyline.
Even just this strip has so much going on. There’s Fred’d backstory, which we know has to end with him abandoned at the camp, with Fred not being able to cook with his new stepmom and the aprons being gone, but no real twist that would lead to him getting abandoned yet, creating tension. There’s a joke in “sodium-free salt”, and the setup for a future joke with Fred sending the illiterate girl to get ingredients and not checking what she got.
The light present-day story of the kids making dinner together ties in thematically with the flashback, making it feel cohesive instead of just two random stories intermixed (this is an idea I need to steal, because it’s a good one. You should steal it too!). Both stories are also interesting on their own, the flashback because of drama and the present-day because of comedy and subtle character beats like Seventeen being resentful of washing her hands.
Everything in this comic is working together in harmony to tell the story effectively, at a level I can only admire and hope to emulate. If you think Weedonwantcha is overly melodramatic, that’s fine, but recognize that this crafting is very very good. This story functions, and it does so in simple and relatively easy-to-replicate ways. It’s just something you need to think about when you’re writing.
A lot of what separates good writing from bad writing is just paying attention. It’s something I’m honestly not as good at as I’d like to be, which is one of the reasons I like to review comics. You can learn shit, man.