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Hallway 100 had a slight shift in focus. We saw new characters (something I’ll discuss in depth in the next post), more locations, and shifted the focus slightly away from the original premise.

The idea for Hallway 100 Comics came out of witnessing the general stupidity of certain school policies. Think of it like government, or any main office of a ginormous business. Sanity seems to get lost, and smart decisions we think are no-brainers are avoided like the plague. Reason dies a slow, painful death. For those of us who are practical, it’s hard to fight against an enemy that lives in a different universe where reality makes no sense.

That’s the universe of Hallway 100. Some characters have such a warped sense of reality that their is no way to fight them (Berk), whereas others are very much aware of what they are doing and have no qualms about it (Sr. Joan). Though, in Sr. Joan’s defense, some of her policies are needed to control the powder keg that that is Mt. Caramel High School (e.g. like this, that, this, and the other thing).

So, drawing from this rather long-winded explanation, you can see that Hallway 100 is a comic about teachers and students dealing with the idiocy of high school. Most of the comics focus on the school itself, almost all of it involving the faculty in some way or another.

This semester we began showing comics solely involving students. That wasn’t totally out of the norm, but going periods without any faculty involvement was strange. The comedic potential was endless, and denying this facet of high school life didn’t make sense. Part of not leaving the high school before was me not wanting to draw more locations (like John’s house), but once I had to for the Halloween comic, I was darn well going to use it again. Spent too much time drawing it. And more posters are added to his room all the time, FYI.

These new comics were hilarious, and so more were written. I think they’ve turned out well. The only pitfall is that it takes time away from the teachers. We’re slowly seeing our unofficial lead characters (Roma, Bro, Cleo), lose headway to John and Lucas in comic count. I believe Roma is still in the lead, but John has surpassed Bro and is even within range of Cleo. But again, comics evolve, and as long as the premise sticks (most of the comics remain in Mt. Caramel), I’m okay with it. I think it’s only added to the quality.

Going off this, more students have gotten some screen time, mainly Annie and Brian. Annie’s been around from the beginning, so even though her count is surprisingly low, I still think of her as one of the main 3 students. However, Brian’s comics went from I believe 3 to 19, a drastic increase. His inception was primarily for the Coach Fit showdown, but it grew when it became a running joke that John was oblivious to his bullying ways. Also, how can’t you like him? He’s a bully, but somehow not malicious.

Some characters that fell to the wayside include Joey and Josef, two favorites that hopefully will get the chance to shine next semester. In some ways I feel like the great GRRM, when he creates a new POV character for A Song of Ice and Fire series, and suddenly we get a whole bunch of this new character and none of the old ones (seriously, how many Stark POVs were there in AFFC and ADWD?). Unfortunately I don’t kill off my characters, so there’s no relief from character additions.

The last change I’ll address is the BONUS PANELS hidden in the one liner starting each comic post. I got this idea from Invisible Bread, a hilarious and clever webcomic that I read every week. These bonus panels allows me to add a panel that didn’t quite make it into the comic strip, and from the messages I’ve received, it seems to be hit. Not every comic will have one, but when it fits, it will be there.

The next post will discuss our lovely new characters/locations we’ve seen this semester. Until then,

TY