Ignoring that it created drama of the miscarriage kind both in the comic and in the comics, it was integrated poorly. The problem with an arc like that is when you follow the arc with:Amaury_games said:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/9904-Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl
As I said at the time:
I think the problem is more:
We had a storyline which says that these antics are not played for laughes and that she has ... Dun, dun, dunnnnn... SERIOUS ISSUES!!!
This makes strips like these problematic because we were supposed to take Erin's actions seriously then. Thusly, pulling a butterfly knife with a blade about as large as her head on a new co-worker is no longer wacky antics but Erin continuing to be a danger to everyone around her.
Thusly the problem. In real life, most of us would have difficulty seeing the joke in this and, since we're now supposed to take such strips as drama, the reaction becomes confused. It may well be that trying to do drama with Erin was this strip's "miscarriage moment" but what has been done can rarely be undone.
Integrating drama and comedy is hard. Since the "Erin goes crazy" arc, I've noticed that most of the arc and it's aftereffects have been handwaved away. I imagine it's partially to avoid forum drama and partially because it just didn't integrate well with the general direction of the comic.
Since Ctrl-Alt-Del has been mentioned, I understand that this is the reason that he switched over to the current format with the four players. Tim Buckley said that it got confusing to switch from "serious story arc" to "Video games. LOL!" and back again. With the current format, he can use Players 1-4 for comedy and, when he wants to do a serious character arc, he can bring Ethan and the others out of retirement.
