Namir Deiter, You Say it First, and Spare Parts now all have next/previous storyline buttons in the archives for easier navigation. Also, if you go through the You Say it First archives, you'll see
footnotes that say "Recommended Reading". I'm still adding them. They initially showed up on the main page during
Singles Cruise, with links to
Sofia's Trip and
Minervacon, so you could get Sofia, Caleb, and Michelle's backstory.
Why? For when we have a reference to a previous story or a character who hasn't shown up in a while. I hope that everyone can enjoy each comic, whether they know the backstory or not, but some of them are more enjoyable if you know the full story. Or if you're browsing the archives, that you might want to start back
there to get the whole story. Or if you're following the comic casually and you wonder "When did
that happen?", we'll try to link to when it happened. Or if a character says "You remember that time when we -", you can go and see when they did.
We're still trying to decide what gets them and what doesn't. We're not going to footnote
the wedding every time Brisbane and Kimberly talk about being married. We're not going to footnote back to
Unlike Minerva if we can help it. I'm not sure what we'll do when we have stories that directly follow each other (like
Chair Trouble/
The Troublesome Trouble of Kimberly Taylor-Adams/
What Happened). I mean, if you were to pick a random story and start reading, What Happened isn't a very good place to start because it's the epilogue of a larger story. On the other hand, if you're reading straight through there's no point sending you back where you just were.
Right now, I'm halfway through You Say it First. Namir Deiter is next. Unlike Minerva has enough notation as-is, and I can't offhand think of any place that Spare Parts needs it. If you, the reader, care to point out any places where you feel a recommended reading link would be helpful.
Also, over on NamirDeiter.net, commentary has been converted. I was up until about 4 AM last night working on it, and if I did it right you won't see anything different. But donors now have a weekly-with-commentary view (and a few comments from back in 2007 that apparently never got uploaded until now).