Editor’s note: I received the other day, out of the blue, a guest column submission from my favorite flightless bird that doesn’t sell shoe polish. And since I’m working on something that requires a bit of actual research and thus my own contributions have been a bit slight, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Please enjoy, and remember that I’m more than happy to run your guest column — email gary at this-here website for details.

If there’s one thing I love to do, its watch DVDs with the audio commentary running. And I mean I love it. You know that moment when the commentators invariably suggest that if you are watching the movie for the first time with the commentary on, you may want to turn it off, in case the events of the movie and the experience of the story are spoiled for you? That otherwise trite piece of advice is for me. I have nearly slipped up when putting in a new DVD many a time.

I love finding out the little tiny pieces of trivia that pop up. Those fragments of understanding as to why a particular word was used or a sign was painted just so. It’s not very often a reference to another piece of work or something designed to enhance the plot if you notice it (though the times when it is are really enjoyable, realising just how much work was put in to creating a coherent and rounded world inside the screen); more often it is some crew member’s nod to his own interests or life. And that’s good too, there’s something nice about getting to know the people who made something I enjoyed (or even didn’t enjoy. Watching the commentary on a piece of crap gives one the chance to discover just what went wrong or if the creators were idiots from the word go) in another way.

And it mirrors in so many ways the common setup in our wonderful world of web comics. Because, for some reason or another, comics appearing on the web has included creators keeping fairly well updated communication along with it. We DO know about the little things that pop up in some strips, because the creators will tell us. We DO know what they intend (maybe only in the broadest terms) and we DO know what’s working for them or not.

It’s this interaction, this means of adding webcomic creators to my FaceBook, of watching their lives unfold on LiveJournal, of seeing their reasons for being unable to keep updating (or not, as it were), that keeps me skimming through my favourites even though I have other things to occupy me at the moment.

Which leads me to the actual purpose of this random scrawling. I am absolutely loving the Director’s Cut of Narbonic.

I’m sure that comes as no surprise to anyone, it does after all, seem to be an involving and just plain clever comic. In the short time I’ve been following it so far the art has improved in leaps and bounds to become something iconic instead of cramped sketches like it appeared in the beginning. Running gags aplenty have established themselves, Heh. Heh. Heh. Characters have appeared and made their mark.

And through it all the readers have been privy to exactly the sorts of tidbits of information that I love about commentaries.

This was one of the times that I began watching the DVD with the commentary on. And so I have been spoiled about some aspects of what is to come through the comments and what Shaenon has said (Not a complaint mind you, I knew it was likely to happen when I started!). But recently I have grown impatient waiting for the commentary to get me to those places. And so I’m reading ahead now in my spare time. And looking forward to reading the commentary when it catches up.

You get me coming and going Shaenon.