>>125916808So I've said this in previous threads, but the primary issue I see with the comic is a problem almost universal to melodrama, namely that drama relies on changing circumstances and dynamics, but a story requires a basic status quo to build off of.
A good drama solves this by having a proper multi-act structure, with the first setting up the status quo, the latter acts introducing and confronting various problems, and then a denouement where the new, post-action status quo is set up and explained.
A mediocre drama 'solves' this by having self-contained arcs, each of which ends with a reset to a status quo for the next to start from.
BCB, on the other hand, tries for the second, but in essence has made the dramatic into the status quo. So there's a continuous feeling that dynamics are unstable, but they never develop significantly (excepting for a few side-characters who's development doesn't impact much). The problem with this goes beyond making the drama boring or tiresome. A story is built around arcs, and the kind of unstable dynamics that exist mid-arc are designed to move and evolve towards a conclusion. So stalling out mid-arc the way this comic has means that tons of things end up making no sense, since you end up with a whole host of cause, but very little effect. Characters have reasons to change how they feel about each other, but they don't. So the in-universe rationals for why things happen the way they do end up having to justify all sorts of things that aren't in character, like Mike getting back with Sandy, or the table still liking Lucy despite her actively trying to cut them off and stick with her cool new social outcast buddy, Augustus.
None of these problems would exist if the arcs were allowed to move towards their natural conclusion, but I don't think Taeshi is a skilled or confident enough writer to move multiple arcs forwards simultaneously. So whenever one plot comes into focus, all the others freeze.
