What's perhaps most interesting about the strip is that it is authorized as a canon work, inasmuch as it doesn't contradict the radio show. I think this is the first time that something other than the show or an explicit, deliberate statement by the show creators on an issue has been part of the canon. The video series wasn't canon at all (nor did anyone want it to be
), while Clubhouse stories weren't official (my general impression is that they were generally expected to be taken as fanon). The bar for this series is clearly higher than it has been for other works in the past.
I'm curious what kind of resources are available to writers to avoid conflicts. I suppose it is inevitable in any long-running show, but it seems there have been a few errors and/or unresolved curiousities that fans have caught the writers on before, even in otherwise great shows (like Olivia's age during her arc). One would expect new writers to have more trouble, and that's when they only have a small subset of characters to deal with. When one of your explicit goals is to show many of the great characters of the past in current continuity, there's a lot of potential for things to get messy. I'm interested in seeing Edwin or Richard Maxwell, but I tend to be risk-averse, and I'm not sure I like the idea of a mistake potentially becoming
accepted as part of canon (whether you can make the case that the comic is wrong or not).
As someone who's studied the AIO timeline extensively, and who likes keeping track of things in chronological order, I'm especially concerned about how it will be understood here. I wish I knew that something like my research in this field (or better yet, a more complete, Official edition compiled by the crew on the inside) were known and studied by the writers. Fans might say things like, 'oh the aio timeline is messed up; connie is eternally
16 18 21', or 'whit is 100 now', but there's no need to take that approach when we evaluate the episodes, and a writer who wants to write canonical works that fit in with AIO can't afford to.
I also have concerns about stories that may technically be within canonical bounds (in the sense that there's no obvious reason why they
couldn't happen), but that do more damage than good. I'm not a fan of the (non-comic, but related) meteorite story; it seems to have accomplished little except 1) given Whit and Eugene a brief criminal record, 2) added some more drama to the show, 3) showed that Agent Bourland is still alive and intervenes for his friends, and 4) reduced Dalton Kearn from being a complex character to an ordinary criminal schemer. Was it worth it? I'd argue 'no'. The end result is similar to 'Blackgaard's Revenge' to me. If we plan on having more stories like that one... it's great to have the opportunity to tell stories that couldn't be told before, but that shouldn't be extended to also telling stories that didn't
need to be told.
This sounds awfully negative so far, so I feel it's fair to balance it out by saying that I like the artist's style, and I like the fundamental premise of being able to show things that can't be 'on air'. It's possible that it could give us a better look at the AIO world than we have seen before. If it is done like the best Clubhouse stories, this has the potential to be a big win for AIO fans.
