Red Dwarf – Songs In The Key Of Files

[Kris Carter]

Right, it’s been a while coming, on account of me being a bit of a lazy shit / doing paid colouring work, (delete as applicable) but here is “Songs In The Key Of Files”. Written by my 2nd Favourite Ex-Pat, Mr Ben Paddon, and drawn crudely and shoddily Crayola’d by Me. Comment, critique and feedback welcome! Especially welcome if it’s positive. Grudgingly accepted otherwise. :)

Kris

[ori-STUDFARM]

I really liked it. Biggest positive for me was the time it was set. Not only is it during my favourite early Dwarf era (when there was just the 3 main characters and a very senile computer and not a lot actually happening), but I am able to mentally place exactly when this is occuring. This makes me like it more, knowing exactly what came just before and just after.

[pfm]

> Biggest positive for me was the time it was set.

Same here. In a way the series 1 era (if you can call it that) is much more interesting, despite the lack of action, Kryten, Starbug etc.

This is brilliant btw. You know it’s good when you can actually get into the story thanks to how the panels flow. And the facial expressions match the dialogue perfectly.

[Jonsmad]

Really well done. Looks great. Very believeable. Characters written perfectly.
At least half of the writing I enjoyed as much as official Dwarf. Particularly the squid-haired insult. They’ve missed a trick not writing that one before now. And while Babylon 5 is a big pile of shit, at least the notion of fan fiction is a twist and plot central, so relevant if a little jarring at first. Certainly better than 95% of the cartoon’s from the old smegazine too.

[Blisschick]

Babylon-5 fan-fic?? Really? Bwahahaha! That show so sucked. Brilliant. I loved the whole thing. When’s the next installment?

[redhead85]

I agree with the others – early Dwarf is great as a lot of the action arose from the interactions based on their conflicting characteristics and personalities rather than external sources. Nicely done. You guys will have to write another one!

[Seb Patrick]

Pretty good stuff! Only a couple of things:

1. I wouldn’t write Lister’s dialogue phonetically like that. Dropping various “G”s off the end of words doesn’t really sound right. If you just write the dialogue, people will read it in his accent, they don’t need nudging unless his accent causes major difference in pronunciation (which it generally doesn’t). If the dialect includes specific words, then obviously use those, but a Scouse accent doesn’t really need to be written as an’ and lookin’ and so on all the time.

2. I’m sorry, but I still have absolutely no idea what the title means or refers to! I mean, I know it’s a pun on Songs in the Key of Life, but… I don’t get it ;-)

But generally, yeah, it’s pretty decent. A bit lightweight, but as a way of feeling your way into doing the characters it works. Rimmer is especially good – the line about “if there’s anything I can do” feels lifted straight from classic series I Rimmer.

[hummingbird]

That was fun, I enjoyed it.
Although, I agree with Seb about the title.

[Ben Paddon]

Thanks for all the positive feedback! A lot of constructive criticism as well which I’ll take on board if I ever write another one. I’d certainly like to write more.

Regarding the title: It started off as a sort-of placeholder. It was related to personal files and to Lister’s guitar, so the musical link seemed appropriate. In the end it just sort-of stuck. I suppose an alternative title could be “Balance of Power: Epilogue”.

I’m glad people got the Series I feel from this story. I deliberately wanted to write something low-key – character interaction is my strong suit, I think. I have to give a huge thanks to Kris for helping to rejiggle the script to make it flow better, which involved a little dialogue trimming. I’d never really written a comic script before, so this was a great exercise.

[ori-STUDFARM]

I’m going to give both this and Jump Leads a mention on tonights ScutterCast recording if that is okay with you all. I’ll post links in the shownotes to this thread and the Jump Leads homepage.

If you don’t want me to, let me know. I’ll get Darren to edit it out before we release it.

[Kris Carter]

Ori – Hell yeah. Mention away!

[Ben Paddon]

Yes yes, please do! :)

[ori-STUDFARM]

Okay….they’re mentioned! Hope it brings you some traffic.

[genericnerdyusername]

I really enjoyed that.

That is all :).

[MANI506]

Really enjoyed that! Left me wanting more which is a good thing. Authentic series 1 vibe. Great work.

(I still think your best work of all time is the walrus polishing kit ad)

[Kris Carter]

Sweet. This strip (and the other one wot I did sans Mr Paddon) totally got mentioned in today’s official RD site update. I’m a happy camper!

Now, how can I convert kudos into hard currency?

[Ben Paddon]

Yes, we’re famous now. Let’s abuse our fame.

[Jason aka Smeg4Brains]

That is fantastic…can’t believe I missed it when it was first posted.

[Ridley]

2. I’m sorry, but I still have absolutely no idea what the title means or refers to! I mean, I know it’s a pun on Songs in the Key of Life, but… I don’t get it ;-)

This?

[Ben Paddon]

Re-reading this today, and it still holds up. Some minor niggles about the dialog aside, I really like this. Would love to do another one some time.

[International Debris]

Don’t think I was even lurking when this was posted, so thanks for the bump, I enjoyed that a lot! Always love a bit of ‘mooching around the ship annoying each other’ Dwarf, and this hits every beat of series 1 in that regard. Great stuff. Suppose I should have a look at that Jump Leads thing too now…

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