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Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Lunatic Sledge posted:

arudak will return with a fake moustache
Consider:

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Kurui Reiten
Apr 24, 2010

For an instant I thought the label on his shirt said "DECAF" and I chuckled

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer

TheHan posted:



Imagine reading a book where multiple pages are dedicated to reminding you about information you read about minutes ago.

WTF is that doofy infographic panel at the bottom right. Like something out of a book called “Adventures in Writing with Snout the Ink Gremlin”.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Mookie does a loving lovely job leading the eye through his comic.

It's supposed to read

1 2
1 3

5 4
6 4

but because panel 3 is all text there's nothing to direct the eye down to panel 4, so panel 4 winds up looking like panel 6. It doesn't help that it's just Snout standing in an empty white void so the panel serves no purpose except to break up the text between panel 3 and panel 5.

It's a complete failure of composition.

Fake edit: Actually, it's worse than I thought. The way the borders of panel 3 and panel 5 overlap naturally draw the eye from panel 3 back to panel 5, and Snout's pose in panel four draws the eye straight off the page.


Real Edit: The worst part is, the composition would be somewhat ok if he'd just mirrored it.

Double Edit: Nope, I was wrong, even mirrored the composition is loving poo poo.

PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jul 24, 2020

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Maxwell Lord posted:

WTF is that doofy infographic panel at the bottom right. Like something out of a book called “Adventures in Writing with Snout the Ink Gremlin”.

You're right it looks like something out of a gradeschool textbook

super sweet best pal
Nov 18, 2009

PoptartsNinja posted:

Double Edit: Nope, I was wrong, even mirrored the composition is loving poo poo.



It's less bad.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

TheHan posted:

Hmm...



Keep hoping.

Not to tell you how to do your job, Weird Vagrant Snout, but didn't you do this exact thing weeks ago? Where are you even hoping to go, but elsewhere?

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


There exist only two places: Places he's been already and the places where the plot is. So whatever location he chooses on the map works.

Ague Proof
Jun 5, 2014

they told me
I was everything

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
So it's pretty obvious what happened here, right? He ran out of ideas/wrote himself into a corner, had no idea what to do next, so had to blow up everything and declare a new arc.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Pretty much. I can sympathize with having writer's block, it's difficult to sit down and start powering through it, but after almost twenty years you'd think Mookie would understand that his style of improv storytelling leads to situations like this and that a modicum of planning to decide the overall arc of the story would be warranted.

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa
To say Mookie 'ran out of ideas' is to imply he had ideas to begin with.

Cat Mattress
Jul 14, 2012

by Cyrano4747

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

To say Mookie 'ran out of ideas' is to imply he had ideas to begin with.

Okay, fair. He ran out of story elements to cargo cult and the airplanes are still not landing.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

I'd say I wouldn't be surprised if he just doesn't come back after the break but this will be his only income when Star Power ends, so.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

Okay it would be pretty funny if Snout gets sent to a farm upstate and the protagonist switches.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Part of me wants to start posting star power to this thread because some of the plots are so hallmark Mookie it's hilarious. Nothing goes right for anyone until protagonist lady comes in to smash faces, and then it turns out to have been the perfect solution.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

The Little Death posted:

Part of me wants to start posting star power to this thread because some of the plots are so hallmark Mookie it's hilarious. Nothing goes right for anyone until protagonist lady comes in to smash faces, and then it turns out to have been the perfect solution.

:justpost:

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Tesseraction posted:

Okay it would be pretty funny if Snout gets sent to a farm upstate and the protagonist switches.

I honestly think that's going to happen. We're going to switch to the Ink Witch and/or Arudak and About will return in a few years. Probably with the ability to hear, just like how Bort could talk when he reappeared.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

The Little Death posted:

Part of me wants to start posting star power to this thread because some of the plots are so hallmark Mookie it's hilarious. Nothing goes right for anyone until protagonist lady comes in to smash faces, and then it turns out to have been the perfect solution.

On the one hand, I think Star Power is impossible to read. There’s so many words, all the characters are tiny headed purple aliens and everyone sounds the same. Even having only skimmed through a handful of pages in the last chapter it feels like an absolute slog. On the other hand Mookie decided to end the final arc of his comic with this:




And it’s very funny that he openly told the readers they were wasting their time.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Ok against my better judgement, and since i need a project, I'm gonna read through Star Power and give commentary and point out amusing things if any. I'll try to do like a chapter a day or so, depending on my motivation.

Chapter 1.1

So the plot is that Danica somethingsomething works for Dr. Brightman on a future space station, looking for some light emission thing.



Right away we have one problem I have with this comic. As TheHan pointed out, it's super wordy. Characters go on and on and on, filling up the page with word bubbles, and since the pages are so small (650x1000) you sometimes have to squint to read all the text and make out details. The art, while not my taste, is pretty good for the most part, so squishing it to those proportions don't do it any favors. C'mon, it's a webcomic, you can make it whatever size you want.



This is what passes for a joke in this comic. Danica really likes this one star so she calls it "Mitch", and that's a silly name for a star! Except 1) that's stupid and 2) you can barely read the word Mitch because of the tiny text.



More WORDS WORDS WORDS. This is the establishing shot for all these alien characters. It's pretty jarring and really hamfisted. Also why is Danica sitting in the booth next to them? There's tons of room in that one.



Can I just say I kind of hate the alien faces in this comic? I'll be posting closeups of any I find especially cringey.





Danica calls Mitch (again a star) a "close friend", because, uh... She has a feeling or something. I dunno, it's super contrivied. But of course it's because it suddenly shines through the telescope and turns her into Star Power. Then some ships attack the station, she fights them off, blah blah blah, I'm not gonna even post any images from it because it's really boring and just feels like the plot is on fast forward to get her being a superhero as fast as possible. Whatever. Fine.



Well except this face. Wow indeed.

Danica reveals her powers to Dr. Brightman and the red security chief guy. It leads to more WORDS WORDS WORDS.



Blah blah science vs war etc. They decide to work together to keep her secret, and I assume this will be her little superhero crew. Sure, fine, standard superhero fare.

Then Mitch itself just shows up at an arbitrary moment and explains everything in a single page. TL:DR, she's a Star Sentinel (pretty much Green Lantern Corps) and she's the only one left.



I find it kind of annoying that her affinity and kinship for Mitch is played up early, but when you finally meet it, it ends with a gag about it being a canned recorded briefing. You don't even see it dissapear, it just goes away off-panel.



Here are your badguys. The "Void Angels" led by the "Void Archangel". They are very memorable, aren't they?

They were hired to kill Danica by some other blue badlady who has already killed all the other Star Sentinels, and decided the best way to kill the last one is to hire a group of 3 incompetent mercenaries and not actually tell them what they'd be facing. Sure, yeah, that makes sense.



What's wrong with your faaaaace



Anyway, in conclusion: it's got some Mookietastic writing, in how people go on and on and how cringey the jokes are, and all the characters are pretty bland, but so far it's no worse than any bog-standard 90s superhero comic. Which, given the page size and the chapter length (23 pages, exactly) I assume is what they're going for. This is clearly a webcomic only out of necessity - clearly it was made to be printed and on a comic book shelf. I'll bet that's a better way to read it, again, given the issues I mentioned before.

And that's issue 1.1! Again, I'll see if I can stick to 1 per day at least, if there's interest. I'm sure I'll need to take breaks, so I won't promise anything.

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Aug 24, 2020

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



What really stands out to me is that the basic beats aren't terrible (just generic), except for the 'Void Angels' getting annoyed that they can't beat 'bookworms' - I mean, really, having alien space mercenaries be biased against nerds precisely like our Earth Jocks (which also don't really exist)... it's all very Mookie, clearly.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Yeah I'm reading ahead in the second issue and the void angels are... Confusing, as a villain group. I kind of hate them, and not in a "love to hate this villain" way, but in a "what exactly was Mookie going for" way.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
I feel the need to point out that Space Station Sanctuary Six is the SS SS

Not that I think Mookie's a secret Hitler or anything, he's just a dumbass who things alliteration is peak humor. I just wanted to mention it because you know that every time someone talks about Space Station Sanctuary Six they're going to say Space Station Sanctuary Six every time. Even the locals won't just call it Station Six or Sanctuary Six or Sansix or god forbid an actual joke like calling it Essex (which would be actually clever) because 1) the [space station] is easy to infer and 2) nobody has time to say "Space Station Sanctuary Six is under alien attack!" every time Space Station Sanctuary Six comes under alien attack because I have a feeling Space Station Sanctuary Six is going to be attacked by aliens more times than I've said Space Station Sanctuary Six in this sentence.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


The thing that I notice the most about the origin story is the whole interaction with her professor. It goes away fast but the whole interaction of her fixating on an ordinary star and having her outcast nerd powers determine that it's special even when the stuffed shirt professor she apparently hates can't just strikes me a so.... Mookie.

There were elements of this in his college arc and even with Snout. It's like a veneration of curiosity but without actual being curious about anything? Just instead having a weird fixation on some plot related thing. It's like how Snout can be "curious" but also a hermit who doesn't know how anything works. He's curious but it's only shown in relation to Dominic.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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You’d think that the lady wanting to gently caress a star would be more important, because seriously she blows off the weirdly angry aliens for what reads as a date.

Ague Proof
Jun 5, 2014

they told me
I was everything
Barnet, we need to talk.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008

The Little Death posted:

The thing that I notice the most about the origin story is the whole interaction with her professor. It goes away fast but the whole interaction of her fixating on an ordinary star and having her outcast nerd powers determine that it's special even when the stuffed shirt professor she apparently hates can't just strikes me a so.... Mookie.

There were elements of this in his college arc and even with Snout. It's like a veneration of curiosity but without actual being curious about anything? Just instead having a weird fixation on some plot related thing. It's like how Snout can be "curious" but also a hermit who doesn't know how anything works. He's curious but it's only shown in relation to Dominic.

Mookie is still very bitter about his teachers telling him to pay attention to the actual material in class and not just reading about whatever he personally finds interesting.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

I'm reading ahead a bit and I'm already regretting this. Most of it so far is just bland and rote, not really funny-bad in the Mookie way. There's some dumb stuff in the next issue, but the next few after that are way less interesting so I'll probably make their entries shorter. Hopefully later chapters get goofier.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Rotten Red Rod posted:

I'm reading ahead a bit and I'm already regretting this. Most of it so far is just bland and rote, not really funny-bad in the Mookie way. There's some dumb stuff in the next issue, but the next few after that are way less interesting so I'll probably make their entries shorter. Hopefully later chapters get goofier.

There’s always the interlude that Mookie did the art for, isn’t there?

Also what really stands out is that this is ‘green lantern space opera’ which has been done before but, y’know, not super often? And yet it’s somehow more generic than ‘green lantern fights criminals on Earth.’

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious
That blue alien is just a T'au from warhammer 40k. They usually have head divots where that alien has its little markings, too.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
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#1 Builder
2014-2018

this would legitimately be improved if the lady actually did want to kiss the star

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008
The problem with Star Power is really the only thing that makes conflicts last longer than a couple pages in DD is that Dominic, for all the other ways he's a lovely powerful author insert, isn't supposed to be a direct fighter. A lot of conflicts still end with him just overpowering them in the mind realm or whatever once Mookie writes himself into a corner, but he still has to get things to that point.

Dominic can't just walk up and punch out the bad guys effortlessly, but Star Power can, and does. The one limitation that forces him to at least attempt an illusion of tension is gone.

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3
Mookie has hosed off to go camping for a couple of days, so this is a fine interlude. Thanks for taking one for the team, Rotten Red Rod. Feel free to condense future updates into covering multiple chapters if there isn't enough to talk about in Star Power. I also tried reading it once but it was too bland to bother. I'm glad I'm not just getting old and it is objectively hard to read because the text is too small for no reason.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Mors Rattus posted:

this would legitimately be improved if the lady actually did want to kiss the star

This is true.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Ok, it's time again for Star Power, because I hate myself.

Chapter 1.2



So here we get a look at the Void Angels. They seem kind of... Pathetic? Not at all what I would expect badass hardened space mercs to look. I'm honestly not sure what I'm supposed to think about them. Fear? Sympathy? Amused?

They're hiring a space outlaw type called "Black Hole Bill" because uggggggh



jesus this dialogue sucks, no one loving talks like that



"I thought being a bad liar was a good thing." WHO TALKS LIKE THAT



Here we have some, uh, characterization of Danica as she helps measure her powers. She doesn't want to destroy the defense drone, because...



uuuuuuugh

THAT'S what you're going with, Mookie? She gives everything little pet names and that makes them sympathetic in her eyes? Seriously?



Black Hole Bill is spying on her. He is evil because he looks at her butt. That evil, evil buttlooker.



He has a gun that will hurt even her! How, if even a blast from a spaceship didn't kill her? I'm sure that will be explained.

... Right?



Garth keeps putting very human eyes on the aliens and I loving hate it.



Ok, so Mitch is actually a little computer in Danica's suit, it turns out. And there's a giant ruined galactic empire that no one knew about until now. It's all very Mass Effect.



Star Power can travel faster than any currently known technology! Wow! But she can't use it, because she's being hunted by someone. Wait, what? Why? Wouldn't she want to use that power IMMEDIATELY to find out WHO hunted her? Why tell her she can't?

Also when she tries to ask Mitch for more info he acts like he's a recording again. This is pretty clearly telegraphing it's an "ink witch pagefinder" situation again. Someone is speaking through Mitch, or it has some reason to hold back info. Or, knowing Mookie, it's holding back info for no reason at all (i.e. he hasn't come up with it yet and will probably forget this plot point).





Tee hee she's so awkward and relatable and I don't hate her at all!

Anyway she fights Black Hole Bill, blah blah blah.



Ok, you beat him, he's knocked out cold. Sure, you don't want to kill him, but maybe, you know, take away his guns real quick before you save that guy? No?



No, guess not. Didn't kill her though, dunno why he thought that gun would do the job.



Oh, it was... The wrong ammo? Why didn't you just use that ammo in the first place?

Anyway, Black Hole Bill gets captured by the station's security forces just before shooting her because the writer is a hack.



Ok, now the big bad is... The void archons? Are those also the void angels?
.


Wait, but... THESE are the void angels, aren't they? These 3 guys? But they're also scared of the archons?



Oh, so THESE are the void archons... But they have the same symbol and ships as the void angels? But... I thought they were just some mercs who were hired by the blue lady?

(I was confused by all this because the 1st issue made it seem like the void angels were justjust those 3, but as it turns out, the void archons are the battleships led by the void archangel, and the void angels are the names of the troops that fly the fighters. I don't know why they needed to have 2 names. Or why the archons didn't just attack to begin with instead of just sending 3 guys.)



And then blue lady is gonna kill Star Power and conquer the galaxy, blah blah blah.



Thanks, I hate it.

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Aug 24, 2020

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Doing god's work



This, this annoys me. this is Mookie writing. Even the bolding is the same. His characters are all dumb clever. They figure things out or work things out but it's always super obvious nonsense that seems stupid to say out loud.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
I'm calling Black Hole Bill as Mookie's self insert. When does he get his face turn? :v:

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

PoptartsNinja posted:

I'm calling Black Hole Bill as Mookie's self insert. When does he get his face turn? :v:

Nah he's in the irredeemable jock category, at least from what I've read in the next few issues.

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Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Again,the idea that she personifies everything to the degree of literal sympathy with it would hit a lot better if she was in love with the star computer, given she literally takes a date night to stare at it.

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